Alongside some hedging

Yesterday was a lovely warm but breezy autumn day so I took the opportunity to do some hedge-cutting. The Boggy Brae 'north-west passage' between the birch bank and the rhododendron hedge needed widened again. The photo to the right shows the widest bit. It gets narrower as you progress south-eastwards:

You have to negotiate that bit with one foot on the 'path' and one on the steep bank to the right. In a couple of spots right next to the path, heather (Ling/Calluna vulgaris) has established itself. I want that to spread. There's also a tiny rowan tree. I haven't decided whether to let that stay there yet. I do like rowan trees.

Between blasts at the hedge with the hedge-cutter and while raking up the cuttings, I found several toadstools. I don't know their names yet.

I think this one is a milkcap (Lactarius). It best fits the description of L. azonites rather than Birch Milkcap (L. tabidus) or Grey Milkcap (L. vietus). None of them are edible.

Also down there at the bottom of the bank is my latest bryophytic find, the liverwort Greater Featherwort (Plagiochila asplenioides).







And the autumnal dying back of Self-heal is lovely to watch:

Today is dreich and the hills have put on their invisibility cloak so the other side of the hedge will have to wait.

Digging out pampas grass

Recently I lit a bonfire in the large (one and a half metres across) clump of pampas grass down by the boat bog and thought it was burnt to within an inch of its life so would take time to recover. That was the plan. If grass can laugh I bet it did. A few days later this burnt and hacked to within an inch of its life plant was sending up fresh green shoots.

Humph! I decided to dig some of it out. In the wheelbarrow are two clumps. They've been transferred to the Rattletrap and tied securely in ready to be taken to the dump.

pampas grass root ball

This is a job to be done in stages.

The knitters and natterers

As well as blankets, the Knitters and Natterers group at the Oasis in Garelochhead have made a couple of sensory bands. These give people who have dementia or Alzheimer's something to do with their hands and this apparently has a calming effect. To the right is the second one we have finished, showing the outside.

As the name 'band' suggests, the item is a cylinder.

Inside various objects with different textures are attached. Such as:

a piece of sponge

a couple of beads on a keyring

a couple of shells with no sharp edges

a piece of soft leather

a short chain of keyrings
and toothbrush markers
attached by one end

A green and yellow one was completed as well but I didn't get any photographs of that.
Next up will be a flat sensory mat so it can be visual at as well as tactile. I'm collecting bits of textured fabrics – plastic pan scrubbing cloths, faux fur, velvet or corduroy, etc.

Enjoying green

Cutting down a buddleia that had 'gone over' this afternoon revealed some lovely bryophytes on the spruce log that had been in its shade. The bright green in the photo to the right and below is Whiskered Veilwort (Metzgeria temperata)

Metzgeria temperata

Lophocolea bidentata is the pale green one

On top of the log is mainly Rustwort (Nowellia curvifolia) but with small patches of other plants. The pale liverwort to the right is Bifid Crestwort (Lophocolea bidentata).

In the photo below the two feathery strands of moss in the middle are Common Feather-moss (Kindbergia praelonga) and at bottom right Pointed Spear-moss (Calliergonella cuspidata).

And elsewhere...

Variable Crisp-moss (Trichostomum brachydontium).
I love the brightness of this one.

Green Mountain Fringe-moss
(Racomitrium fasciculare)

Sycamore leaves with dots of Tar Spot fungus,
a sign of clean air

Looking down on the leaves of Libertia grandiflora

Green behind a head of Whorled Caraway seeds

This morning's welly wander

Sunrise and we're definitely into the mist part of the season. The mellow fruitfulness not so much yet,

unless you count boletes as fruit.

Brown Birch Boletes (Leccinum scabrum)

This Amanita is growing under the same Downy Birch tree as the boletes. I think it is Amanita betulae or Amanita fulva.

On the same birch bolete bank bluebell seeds and cat's-ear seeds are ripening and shedding and finally this morning the Autumn Crocus flowers began to show themselves. Quite a few flowers have started flowering a couple of weeks later than last year. Last year the Autumn Crocuses were well into their flowering period on the first of September.

Autumn Crocus (Crocus nudiflorus)  >>





Further up the garden the Orpine (Sedum telephium) is also being very slow about opening and pinking its flowers.

September morning light

Common Smoothcap Moss (Atrichum undulatum)

Dead ivy shoots on fallen wild cherry whose fall ripped up the ivy roots too.

light in the grass

Tiny moss, yet to ID, under old cypress

light and shade