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PRETTY IN THE GARDEN

I notice there's already two blooms on my Papaver Orientale Patty's Plum, planted when all the rage back in the late '90s.

I find it's colour a bit wishy-washy, but the bees seem to like it!

A garden dilemma.

Where to put eight large divisions of Rudbeckia?

Giving an abundance of striking yellow blooms right when you need them in late Autumn.

I know it's invasive, I've dug it out of the garden before.

I put it in a large pot, but it didn't want to know.

It's a thug (a beautiful one at that) of which needs to be kept under control.

Rather like Periwinkle!

Good for ground cover, in both sun or shade.

I've noticed a few self-seeders in the garden over the years, including the one above.

Do you know what it is?

It's getting on for 90cm tall, and I'm very happy it came to live in my garden.

I was thinking maybe a Stock of some kind?

Uurgh!

It's not all pretty in the garden you know!

Edited - Thanks Flighty, the mystery plant is Sweet Rocket!

o

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COMMON TOAD

The other morning after a heavy downpour I didn't see it, but I certainly heard a toad in the damp undergrowth.

The photo above was taken back in July when I inadvertently disturbed this rather grumpy looking warty one, which was nestling right in the middle of the Giant Scabious which I was giving a cutback.

I can't help but think its skin reminds me of a well-toasted pitta bread!

Toads spend much of the year on dry land, so I hope it managed to find another safe place to shelter in the garden, with a rich foodsource, ie slugs, insects and worms.

Did you see the tumbling Venezuelan Pebble Toad on the BBC programme Life. Click here if you didn't, but we warned the clip also contains a toad-eating tarantula!

It's amazing, and really quite amusing, and remarkably no toad was hurt in the making of the film!

o

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TOAD

Not being an expert on amphibians I presume with its warty attire, this is a toad? Anyway whatever, it was unintentially disturbed when I shifted a log from a log pile.

I hope the poor chap recovered, it seemed to turn to stone when I was taking this photo. I suspect the playing dead, looking like concrete look, is a defence mechanism against predators.

Does anyone know?

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FROGS TWO

I thought I was taking a photo of one frog, the fine specimen below. It was the first I had seen this year, but when it jumped back into the undergrowth, I lifted up the canopy to take a closer look, and discovered a second one just sitting there staring up at me. I hope I didn't make it jump! I really like the photo above, the frog just looks so at home tucked up in the hartstongue fern.



Frogs spend most of their lives on land so give them long grass, leaf and log piles, trees and shrubs in your garden to feed and hibernate under.

What does a frog order in a restaurant? French flies and diet croak!

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STRANGE PHENONOMEN

The other weekend when we had the rain showers and the gardens were full of glistening cobwebs I took this photo of my holly bush. When I uploaded the photo onto my computer I noticed what looked like a frog sitting on a branch, I went back outside to take a look but I couldn't pinpoint exactly which part of the bush I had taken the photo. I know on film you can sometimes get two pictures overlapping but this was on digital and my memory card didn't have any photos of frogs on at the time. What do you make of it, is it a trick of the eye and just leaf and stem, looking at it does freak me a little.

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FROG 2

I couldn’t resist posting a couple more photos of two more lovely frogs recently seen in my garden, it should be the last ones you see for this year as in a month or two they will be going into hibernation before it gets too cold for them. If the weather is favourable by around February time they should start to re-emerge, this is when they will go in search of water and will start spawning immediately.

Q. Why are frogs so happy?
A. They eat whatever bugs them.

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FROG

I love the frogs in my garden, they do jump out and surprise you when you least expect them to. My favourites are the tiny ones, as you can see they are so sweet. Watch out for any larger ones who may have set up home in your compost heap, already this year I have very nearly spiked two with my garden fork; also they manage to hop into your garden rubbish too, a few weeks ago I returned home from the tip to find a very large one sitting on the back seat of my car on the plastic sheeting, it looked very happy sitting there, perhaps it knew it had escaped from very nearly being composted!