We Dug the Garden Pond Deeper and Now Want More.

We bought a new and bigger pond liner a few weeks back. Then we decided to dig deeper and widen the pond. We took all of the fish out and put them in a big black bathtub. My step-son Graham went on a mammoth digging mission. The surplus earth was displaced around the fence perimeters and more rock wall for the plant boundary etc. This I did with the wheelbarrow as graham filled it with soil.

Eventually, we were able to lay the new pond liner refill and then put the fish back in their new home. Graham went and bought two new Ghost Carp adding to the nineteen fish we already had. We sat down and decided that next year, we'll get a mini digger and some railway sleepers and make the pond double the size it is now. That way the Koi, Ghost and Israeli Carp will grow even bigger.

The frogs and newts have come back within days. They seem to approve. My wife and I move the small table and chairs and stare down at the fish. It is becoming rather therapeutic. 

Back in the Fenland Garden Today.

You wake up in the morning and look out of the bedroom window at this. You have several days off and you think, "Yes, this works for me. Especially, on a day like this."

Everything is done and dusted. The winter cruise is waiting to break up the winter months. For now, it is summer and the wheat fields to the front of the house are causing me to sneeze. I think I may have mild hay fever, but it is nothing I can't bare.

Carole and I wandered down the town and bought some bird seed for the many hanging feeds etc. The only fly in that ointment is the Sparrow Hawk that knows they various Finches and Sparrows go to the feeds. I hung the feed plates in the tree to make it more difficult for the Sparrow Hawk to attack the fledgelings.  

I'm no gardener. Yet I love my garden. My wife is the gardener. I get to say what flowers I like and she seems to know about the presentation and all. In this sense, I'm lucky. When I'm at work, she potters about in the garden all day. I think she is in her element.

The front is done with a wild cascade of flowers too. I like the more wild and unconventional look. I like cosmos and cornflowers plus the many poppies. I like everything going undisciplined and mad. Nature doing its thing. 

Tranquil Hours in the Fenland Garden.

My wife, Carole, and I spent hours in the garden yesterday afternoon. I bought some beers and they were slipping down very easily. We put the world to rights with our small talk, but it did not matter. We were just enjoying the fruits of the many good things we have. Especially the nice garden on a summer evening. The dog and the cat were in on the act too. They were laying about with us. Spoke with my sons on their mobiles and went out to a few of the surrounding market towns earlier in the day. Including King's Lynn, where we had a wander over the retail parks. All nice casual meandering about Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. Then back home in time for feet up on the decking looking out at the cornflowers. I do like the cornflowers each year.

A View to a New Garden Pond.

Every time my wife and I do our pond, we sit back and decide to make it a little bigger. This is the third one. Now, we are thinking of railway sleepers around it to give a little more depth. We can do this with the pond liner. Obviously, there would be some sort of creeper and hanging plant garnish around the sleepers. It would stop them looking to bland among the plants.

I am also wondering about a new filter system with a more elaborate waterfall effect. This oxygenates the water nicely and the fall is therapeutic when we sit on the decking.

The fish are multiplying too. Last year, we noticed a lot of minos zooming around the plants. Twelve of these new fish have survived among the eight we purchased. The minos have grown. At first, they began to wander in a group of their own. Now, they have started to interact with others. Their black colour is changing below the belly area.

All this makes for pleasant debate when my wife and I sit on the decking in the summer evening.

The Beautiful Red Kite is Chased Off by Crows.

Late in the afternoon, I was chatting with Carole on the garden decking. We were interrupted by a commotion. The overexcited sound of crows. Almost in panic. 

In the distance and coming towards us was a cluster of the carrion above a Red Kite that seemed to lazily twist and turn from the harassing carrion. Almost as though the raptor could not be bothered.

As it passed above the garden, I was able to grab the camera and take some multiple shots. As usual, after about twenty-five photo shots, I selected the ones I thought best. It was rather high and I used the computer to magnify.

It was taken on my Nikon D3100 at 300mm. I'm still toying with the notion of buying the Nikon P900. It has a range of 10,000mm. I can't help wondering how such a camera would have captured this fine bird in flight.

My Mad Garden Patch is Full of Colour.

It is grand to sit on the decking with a cold beer and chat with my wife as the summer days linger. The decking overlooks this wonderful mad display of flowers. It will be like this until September. Various flowers will bloom and die as the cycle goes on. 

With a few days off, I'm going to the market at Ely. Perhaps I will take a fancy to a new shrub on the garden stalls.

The Fenland Garden Colours are Getting Ready to go Wonderfully Mad.

The Fenland garden colours are getting ready to go wonderfully mad. Every morning I go out and see the Lupins are blooming to life. There are all sorts of colours coming about. It is very exciting. The cornflowers too. The Snow on the Mountain white around the pond and at the front of the house. It all makes for a glorious show. 

The Bees Are Doing Their Bee Thing with Flowers.

Just sitting in the garden watching the bees doing their thing with the flowers. Then I stray and look about the garden and watch all the other visitors over the fence and in the surrounding trees etc. 

Of course, the Sparrowhawk puts in a brief appearance but the fledgelings are no more. They have moved on into the big world. Perhaps they’ll return next year?

I sit here for a few hours sipping tea, reading a book and then pick up the camera to catch the odd interesting shot of the garden in bloom.

Moving the Bird Box for Next Year.

The bird box was visited by a little Jenny Wren a few weeks ago. It was male and he seemed to be layering the bird box with feathers. I got a photo shot of the bird coming and going and did a blog of this. Sadly, the bird box was not chosen by the Jenny Wren female. Her partner will make a number of nests and she will choose the one she thinks is the most appropriate. On this occasion, my bird box did not pass the test.

Therefore, I decided on a new plan of action for next year. The bird box was too exposed and the Jenny Wren likes to be more concealed. Also, I was told the box was a little too high. I have now moved the box by a trellis with Jasmin growing up and gradually covering the potential nest. It is also lower. The Sparrowhawk would have definitely discovered their exposed nest as it is still visiting all the gardens on a daily basis. It seems to hunt for the fledgelings. 

A Frog Moves into the New Garden Pond.

A Frog Moves into the Pond.

Our little garden pond is coming along nicely. We added some pond plants and they have taken very well. The fish are swimming around contently and the little waterfall that works via the filter pump is trickling along nicely. We get a regular visitor who is a male blackbird. He loves to bath in the waterfall most days. He seems to have got used to us watching him from the decking where we sit.

To my delight, a Frog has moved in too. I knew it would not take long and do hope it will find a partner for the next spring so that the frog spawn will come about. Then we will have tadpoles and such. Perhaps newts too.

Rise of the Cornflowers

As the summer moves on, the garden looks better all the time. As I often say, the cornflowers are splendid and in various colours. The usual blue it there, but the other colours are about in wonderfully mixed clusters. I always think they have not taken at first. But then one starts to bud. Then another. I get happy when a couple of blue ones open. Then all of a sudden, everything seems to explode with colour.

We have had a few heavy rainfalls but once the sun comes out that seems to be the remedy. Lots of water followed by bright sunshine. It does the trick every time. 

The Little Jenny Wren Bird

I spoke of the Goldfinches and their rescue after the House Sparrows attacked the nest. I was happy to blog about the Dunnock in the shrub with its nest of tiny turquoise blue eggs. Then this morning, when my wife went to the chicken and duck coops to gather eggs; she noticed the bird box we had put up. A little Jenny Wren flew inside carrying a feather for nest building.

I was pleasantly surprised because I had been speaking to Carole about moving the box where it might be hidden by the crawling plants on the trellis work further along the garden fence. I was thinking that the birds would like somewhere hidden and not exposed as this bird box is.

I’ll have to abandon that idea now because the little Jenny Wrens seem fine with the nest. I’m just worried that carrion birds might spot it. Especially the Jays. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

A Dunnock - Hedge Sparrow Nest in the Garden.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone that is was very hot yesterday in the UK. (19^th June 2017) My wife and I sat in the garden looking at the wonderful array of wild cornflowers and the various other flora we have. We have put out various bird boxes and many feeding tables to attract small birds. They are now visiting in abundance. Every day a pair of Pied Wagtails like to make a show of themselves. They seem to run across the lawn in short burst. I think they catch tiny ticks or flies coming up from the soil.

There is also a pair of Robins that flit about the garden too. They seem to enjoy the bedding areas where the worms are. We dug it up the other day and put down new shrubs, horse manure and high-grade multi-purpose compost. As a result, everything is in wonderful bloom. As one type of plant flowers and goes for the year, another plant seems to re-emerge from last year.

I was enjoying the birds and talking with Carol about the little visitors we are having in abundance. Obviously, the bird tables are mainly frequented by the more common Blackbirds and House Sparrows. However, the Robins are plentiful as are Goldfinches, Greenfinches and Blue Tits etc. I spoke of one type of bird that looked like a sparrow, but it was lighter in colour – almost sandy with a light belly that had little black dotted broken lines along it. Carole, who is more knowledgeable than me on birds, said it might be a Dunnock or Hedge Sparrow.

As we spoke one came in and landed by the rabbit hutch. We watched it hop about and gradually it went inside the duck coop. I explained that the other day I saw it on the fence by the duck coop and it had a feather in its beak. It jumped down behind the Ceonosis Bush. Carole replied that it probably had a nest in the big bush by the fence. I asked why none used the bird houses we have put up. Carole said that they might get used in about another couple of years. One here or there and that once the array of clinging plants surrounded the hutches it would make them more secluded and inviting to the smaller birds.

As we watched the Dunnock hop about the coop it gradually went towards the very Ceonosis Bush I had been speaking of. Then it stealthy entered from below at ground level. Carole said that it would try and use various ways to enter its nesting area because of predators.

We had been watching a BBC programme called Springwatch in which, Jays (Carrion Bird) attacked a nest and killed all the fledgelings of a Wagtail. Also, in our very garden, a few weeks earlier, we had witnessed the Goldfinch nest attacked by House Sparrows. Of the five fledgelings, only three were saved by our intervention. Two died in the attack but the other three, who jumped from the nest to land upon our lawn, were saved because we called an independent rescue centre who came and reared them. The Goldfinch parents have not been back since. They do not know that three of their chicks survived the attack.

A little while later when collecting the duck eggs, we saw the little Dunnock leave the Ceonosis Bush and we were standing very close to it. As we looked inside, we saw the nest. The inside was lined with white feathers like the one I had seen the bird carrying a few days earlier. There were also some tiny little turquoise blue eggs. I did not count them all because I could only see a section from outside the bush. I had been photographing our flower array and had the camera with me. I could not resist photographing the Dunnock nest.

Afterwards, I sat outside waiting for the little Dunnocks to reappear. They did and I managed to get a couple of shots on the Camera to add. 

The Cornflowers are Here.

Now, all of the cornflowers are beginning to spring up amid the flower array. I love it and can't help getting a little excited. There will be other types of flowers too, as we progress into the summer months. It will all make for a splendid mix of unconventional colour. A riot of undisciplined cascading flora with Sunflowers, Foxgloves and Hollyhocks springing up from the wonderful mob.  

I'll sit on the decking with a beer and the computer, doing this sort of thing (Blogging.) Or reading my Kindle while the waterfall trickles away gently and the flowers swing to and throw in the summer breeze. Every now and then I might stop what I'm doing and ponder my Fenland Garden. Of course, the barbeque will be there when we feel the need and Dotty the dog will be sitting and waiting expectantly, plus Bob the snobby cat too.

Carole and I will talk about the world and its problems and then suggest new things we might do with our garden. It's all idle chit-chat but then summer afternoons in kind ambient gardens are what it is all about.

 

The Garden Starts to Bloom.

My wife and I spent a pleasant day in the garden yesterday. The little pond's waterfall was working splendidly alongside our cascading water feature. The bedding area is coming along and the summer flowers are beginning to bloom well. The Australian Bottle Brush is flowering in the front garden and various new flora seems to be coming along. 

Carole drew my attention to the first blue cornflower growing within the array of plants. This was pleasing too. I love the summer in the Fenland. Everything turns from being barren and bleak to vibrant colour. It's wonderful. I was sitting in the garden reading my kindle and chatting to Carole while the garden was doing its thing around us combined with the trickle of water. It was all very Wind in the Willows stuff.

 

The first cornflower came out in vibrant blue but there look to be other colours in waiting. These buds are just beginning to show. The Lupins are springing up too.

Generally, the garden is developing year by year and within the next week, I expect to see more varieties of flora start to bloom. 

A Little Garden Pond

My wife Carole, loves the garden. It looks great and when I come home from work and on most days, Carole is in the garden. Often she is doing something or other. She has areas where she has planted various types of flowers. When the summer comes this turns into a rather splendid array of colour.

There is a greenhouse where she nurtures seeds for various other plants. Also tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and peppers. Outside but close to the greenhouse is a section where strawberries, gooseberries, and blueberries grow. We have young trees consisting of cherries, apples and plums too.

Then there is the chicken coop and the duck enclosure plus a wire box enclosure where a rabbit and two guinea pigs live. The only thing we did not have was a garden pond. On many occasions, I mentioned this but Carole did not seem very enthusiastic about it. I thought this strange because one of her brothers works on his pond and various pond plants all of the time.

Then this all changed a few days ago. I was out at work collecting a fly tip from a country lane out in the fenland close to the hamlet of Chatteris. Among the dumped things was a plastic mould of a small garden pond. I looked closely at it and found the thing was new. It had never been used. I put it in the back of the work van but was careful not to put it close to the rubbish bags.

On the way back to the dump, I drive down a small lane where I live. I stopped and took the pond moulding through to the back garden where my wife was pottering about doing her usual thing in her beloved garden. When she saw the pond mould and its new condition she was delighted. I was pleasantly surprised too because I was expecting her to be lukewarm to the idea. I left it with her and continued with my work.

About an hour later she called me on my mobile to say she had dug a hole and place the pond moulding inside and built a rockery around it with the displaced soil. When I got home it looked fine. She had even put the water in.

We left it like this for a few days but over the weekend, we went to an aquatic centre and bought a filter and a pump. There was also a small mould for a waterfall and so I decided to get this too. The filter has a pipe coming from the side and it can spill onto the waterfall mould and cascade down back into the pond where the pump works well and continues to send water to the filter again. We then had our continuous flow of water being filtered properly.

We also acquired various types of pond plant on another day including a water lily. There were other types of oxygenating plants too, but I do not know all the names. I also bought six fish. Three sherbumpkins and three goldfish.

Then on the next day, we bought some ground cover plants to go around the rockery area. This gave it that little bit of a kick-start for decoration. Obviously, it will look better when the low cover plants start to spread next year.

Today we were sitting on the decking looking at the waterfall and the fish swimming amid the various pond plants and we were jolly pleased with ourselves and our new addition to the garden.

I kind little waterfall and a grand place to sit.

     

Mad Flowers in the Front Garden.

The front garden is allowed to do its thing with mad cascades of flowers. I just planted them and let them get on with it. Sometimes I cut them back and the Red Hot Pokers have been split because the flowers seem to increase each year. Soon the Australian Bottle Brush will come out. Some die off and new ones spring up, but from now until about late September there will be many types of flowers. 

It's hard to image during the winter when it is all bare, but now everything is in bloom, it is difficult to imagine the bleak look during the summer.  

    

Dotty Dog Dotty and the Mad Cosmos Plant.

Every morning when we get up, our lovable little dog Dotty likes to go straight out into the garden. She runs out and does, what Carole and I call, Dotty patrol. She knows that field mice are about from the fields and she will go around the entire perimeter of the garden sniffing her way about.

Occasionally, she catches a mouse. Most of the time it's just a reconnoitre. 

I was looking at the various flowers when I got this wonderful little shot of Dotty Dog Dotty amid the mad Cosmos plant on Dotty patrol. 

Like 'Forget Me Nots' But They Are Not!

My wife, Carole, was pottering about in the garden this morning. I was surfing the web and doing twitter etc. After a while, I decided to go out and see her. She was deadheading many of the withered flowers and generally tidying up as I upset the ducks by daring to walk into their little domain. For some reason, they always start to get alarmed when I first set foot in the garden. After a short time, they calm down.

I was rather surprised to see that there were still a number of flowers in full bloom. I do like the look of all the grand flowers but I'm not too good on remembering their many names. I looked down at some small blue ones. They looked very striking. Because Carole knows more about them than me, I decided to ask.

"What are these flowers called?"

She looked over and frowned. "Oh err... They're like Forget Me Nots, but they're not," she answered.

"Oh," I replied. "Like Forget Me Nots But They're Not?" I knew flowers had some strange names but I was taking the mickey out of her.

We both laughed and I decided to get my camera and get a few autumn snaps of some of the remaining flowers. As we went out the front, I saw a vivid blue flower and a passing dog walker wandered in to talk with us about it. He did not know what it was either but agreed it was rather striking. Like a cornflower but not! :D

Great Interest and Dynamic Growth - It Has Risen and Flowered.

My wife, Carole, came in with this photo on her mobile phone. She had planted a Clematis plant in the spring and it has been gradually creeping up and along the fence. 

I never realised how vibrant and pretty the flower was. I had become impatient with her continuing to say, "It will flower around September time."

Well, it never and I lost interest.

Then she came in this morning with this on her mobile camera. I went out to take a look and was amazed by the yellow array growing out the front of the purple flower. It looks like an ariel or antenna. What is it for? I have no idea. Though, I suppose it has some purpose. It does give it an added appeal.

We had a look at other flowers within the bed and I realised that as the autumn kicks in, the garden will wither and hide for the winter. The bleak Fenland, where the fields were alive with various crops, will become ploughed dirt. These fields will sit out the winter through the snow and sleet.

Then the spring will come and everything starts to blossom with new promise. We love the Fenland and we will add to our garden's growing delights when that particular season comes around again. The Nursery Gardens are in abundance around here and we have bought more wildflower seeds for the greenhouse. This is in case our ducks get to them before they get a chance to grow in the flower beds.