Rudbeckia Goldsturm and the perennial aster, Little Carlow were just glowing in the early morning sunshine yesterday. They may flank a slightly taller buzz series purple Buddleja, but they are currently the garden border highlights along with hedgehogs foraging below at ground level. I do love September. I know Autumn is knocking on the door, but I… Read More September highlights
Well almost, a good near 2nd. The loch view above, seen from one of the visitor hides at SWT Loch of the Lowes, is maybe missing from the garden but recent activity seen from my gardenwatch window, pretty well matched what I’d see from the observation window in the visitor centre. Garden focus had been… Read More Lowes at home
There was already an urgency in correcting information given on feeding wild hedgehogs in past blog posts dating back to 2007. A fairly recent awareness of metabolic bone disease in hedgehogs was something I felt a strong responsibility to highlight. Then, on the 30th of July 2020 the British hedgehog was officially classified as vulnerable… Read More Update on feeding wild hedgehogs
This post was published by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in July 2020.
A red squirrel sitting just two metres away puts a whole different spin on social distancing. In a positive way for both numbers of this endgangered native mammal and a gardenwatcher living with someone on the shielded list. A garden supply of peanuts benefited us both back at the beginning of July. Social media is… Read More Red squirrel sightings & sounds
It’s all well and good making wishlists for garden plants, but perhaps in this case I should have written this one in LARGE BOLD CAPS and pasted it everywhere from my PC desktop, paper blog diary to the calendar as a next year note. Ahhhhhh. I really wish I had. I truly do. This one… Read More Allium ‘Millenium’, the one for me
Damp mornings are perhaps not the best ones to go out with a camera but yesterday the garden didn’t disappoint revealing another new wildlife sighting. Refreshed foliage, flowers with raindrops and a soggy bee resting on a flower were to be expected, The final moult stage of a seven spot ladybird was definitely not. Research… Read More Soggy bee on allium for GBBD
It has been fantastic to watch video captures of night time and early morning garden visitors. There have been quite a few surprises and the image above is not one I ever expected to see. The sounds coming from the hedgehog feeding station camera weren’t either and they stayed with me for most of the… Read More Fox cub disturbs hedgehog feeding
Clearly an expert in this field I am not. Truth be told, yesterday evening I felt a proper numpty (common Scottish word for feeling foolish). Photo uploads revealed that I had been sitting with binoculars watching empty damselfly larval skins – waiting for something to happen. Fortunately I took enough photos to share my new… Read More Spotting emerging damselflies
This post was published by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in April 2019.