The hand tools basket

On my way through the outhouse—which is the entrance we usually use to the house—I knocked over my garden hand tools basket that was balanced on top of a bucket (because Toad is, at least in theory, painting the walls so everything is at six and seven). Turned out this was probably a good thing as it made me sort stuff out.

Gunk in the bottom included one of Toadlet's socks (another sock hiding place!) as well as the broken bits of basket and dried grasses that one might expect.

My favourite tool in this pile is probably the little wooden "man tool", so called apparently because in periodically using it to scrape mud off your spade while you are digging you are saving yourself a man's-worth of energy—by not constantly lifting the extra weight, I suppose. It's certainly a consideration when you have claggy soil.

Netting more plants

Toad held the torch while I scrabbled about in the loft, shifting planks to kneel on over the rafters and hoiking out of crannies old curtain poles that had been left up there before our time. They would be ideal, I'd decided, as posts on which to fasten some netting to protect plants whose growth has been stunted in previous years by roe deer chompings: Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) and Chilean Lantern Tree (Crinodendron hookerianum). The C.hookerianum had even flowered but then the deer chewed its bark off. I had given them some protection last year but they needed serious stuff sorted this year. Toad was enlisted to hammer curtain poles into the ground. He reckoned the deer were up the hill in the woods complaining about how mean we were keeping these delicious plants all to ourselves!

 

The fern behind the lantern tree is Lemon-scented Fern (Oreopteris limbosperma). It usually looks lovely later in the year.

Now I have a basketful of large wooden curtain pole rings. I suppose I can always chuck them on a bonfire if I haven't thought of a better use for them before we get some bonfire weather.

Orchid markers

Went out with my scythe and a rake this afternoon and cut back another patch of what I had let grow wild last year, in aid of the spread of wild angelica and northern marsh orchids (as well as the usual meadow buttercups and lesser spearworts). Being at the boggy bottom of the Boggy Brae, there was a good deal of rush and moss. Having cut and raked I poked around in search of signs of orchids. It's none of your big rosettes such as people are finding further south of early purple orchids, just the tiniest of pointed shoots down in the deep moss. I did not mark the ones I found down there but I did give ones on the back terrace some protection from careless feet. In the third picture, the orchid shoot is a wee blob in the top left corner.

 

I use bricks here because under all that moss and daisy rosette world is gravel and concrete so sticks can't go in very far. Below is a pic of the boggy bottom garden in June last year showing how I mowed around stuff.

The main northern marsh orchid patch is below the stand of Iris pseudacorus. The flowers in the bottom right of the b&w photo, which I like because it shows the slope of that part of the brae so well (it's steeper up to the right where the shadows are), are devil's bit scabious.

Plum wine and alder catkins

Brought some junk up from the cellar this morning and the last four bottles of homemade wine from Oxfordshire days. This one is plum. Toad put it in the fridge but I'm afraid it might turn the milk sour so I've moved it to a corner of the outhouse. The concrete floor should keep it chilled. Toad thinks it would go well with lemon drizzle cake. Hmm. I'm actually planning to make almondy marmalade shortbread this weekend.

I did a run to the dump with the junk plus some dug out fuchsia roots. If you lie those down on wet ground here (and it's very rarely not wet at least in part; at the moment it's sodden) they shoot out more roots and bed themselves down. Next thing you know you've got another unwanted giant fuchsia trying to take over the world. Anyway, on the way back I stopped off to check the lochside alder trees: the catkins are opening.

Rotted roots and a frog throb

Today I've been digging out rotted roots of big fuchsia plants. Also healthy ones. I'm removing the fuchsias from the centre of the garden's north triangle where the pond is. My spade went right through a huge rotted mass of fuchsia root. I found a frog hiding in among the stems so I picked it up and moved it to safety. It gave my hands a kick—frog throb.

The pond water seems to evaporate quickly these days. It could be the transpiration of the Greater Spearwort plants that a neighbour gave me last year. So the water is shallow but the frogspawn is deep. It's piled at the northern end of the pond this year. In previous years most of it has always been at the south end.

Between root diggings and tuggings, I sat upon my sheepskin sit-upon-ery on the garden wall, sipping tea. When I picked up the sit-upon-ery when clearing things away, I found a ladybird sitting upon the waterproof side. 

It was frosty here this morning but comparatively warm in the sunshine ~11°C while I was digging. Lovely weather. More of the same, please.

Lophocolea Stump Part 3

I had an enjoyable morning bumbling about on the south slope of the garden. I saw my first two bees of the year foraging in the gorse that grows against the den (Toad calls it his studio).

First bee I've seen; spot the spider also.

Between scything swathes of the main Whorled Caraway patch, I took some pics of the old spruce stump that I nicknamed the Lophocolea Stump on account of this liverwort covering its top surface. More about that can be seen here in an old post. Below are some of today's photos showing its progress or rotting down, breaking down and being broken down–magpies in particular seem to like jabbing at it.


Whorled Caraway leaf and the patch I scythed and raked. It will fill with pignut flowers and then whorled caraway as the year progresses.


What's growing on the stump. I need to gen up on moss names. There are at least four mosses including a polytrichum, what I think is Common Tamarisk Moss, Springy Turf Moss, as well as Heath Bedstraw.


The west and east faces of the stump today:

Birds on Bute

Yesterday Toad and I met up with other members of the Argyll Bird Club to go to Bute and do some bird spotting. We had views of Arran most of the day and no rain except for a wee spot or two early on at Colintraive ferry.

Arran from Bute

There is a (probably incomplete) list below of birds seen. I did not see every one of those, just most. The Water Rail and Coot were heard and recognised by others. At the Quien Bird Hide I seem to remember a moorhen in the reeds, but maybe that was the coot! Other people compiled the lists.

I did not attempt to take photos of birds, just of scenery, and some of these are below to give a feel for the sort of places we were looking for birds.

Scalpsie Beach

I enjoyed the different kinds of sand that the island has:

Shame about plastic everywhere but it was somewhat encouraging to see lichen and moss colonising the plastic rope handrails of the board walk over the mud to the hide at Quien Loch.