This is June, the month of 30 days Wild. What an excellent project that is. I am trying to identify a different invertebrate every day. So far I have exposed my hopeless inability to identify bumblebees - they won't stay still - and the utter impossibility of identifying the clouds of small flies passing up and down over a small stretch of the Water of Leith. I did triumphantly count two spots on a ladybird.
Meanwhile in the garden wild flowers are staring to blossom. So are non-native flowers, and they can be an important part of a wildlife habitat too, but they are not the subject of this blog. As soon as I established the little pond I bought some Water forgetmenots, Myosotis scorpioides.
I also bought some Water avens, Geum rivale. They, interestingly, have moved a little from where I planted them and are flourishing all the better for it.
Most interesting is a Ragged robin, Lychnis flos-cuculi. (Apologies for the poor photo.) This has turned up where none was sown or planted. I think it must have self seeded from one which I did have at the other end of the pond, where it was crowded out; and so I have moved it to another water feature (known as the ditch) which is not wilded.
They are a plant I particularly like, I think from associations with childhood - one of the flowers my mum showed me.
Another of those flowers is the Welsh poppy, Meconopsis cambrica. This has grown freely in the garden since before we bought the house. They grow prolifically as a weed - may well be a "garden escape" - and are removed ruthlessly from the rose beds.. But they are worth a place in any uncultivated corner.
One of the great pleasures of June, and of retirement, is sitting in the sun in the garden enjoying the flowers. If some of them are reminders of happy days in the country, that is surely a bonus.
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