Late spring apogee

The window box is just going over from a kind of aesthetic apogee that so often happens in nature during the run up to midsummer. Everything is fresh and bright with a bit more growing to do before the dustiness of summer and the first hints of autumn start to appear.

At the southern end of the box the tutsan (Hypericum androsaemum) has flowered and a faded one is now forming a red berry that will soon turn black. Around and about the tutsan are half a dozen flowers of white clover that attract the occasional bumble bee. Hairy tare (Vicia hirsuta) pruned so drastically a few weeks ago has sent more delicate vines up to the light and their tiny mauve-white flowers thrust boldly forwards on long pedicels, challenging the variable breezes.

At the northern end of Wbx, a place that could now perhaps be called a copse, this year’s goat willow wands are one third of a metre high as are the new shoots of the Himalayan honeysuckle. The grey sallows are not so fast but look in good health.

The soft rush is just coming into flower and, deep in the foliage, the filigree leaves of herb robert are gathering strength for the plants that will make a bigger showing in autumn or next spring.

Bullfinches and vetch mulch

I am quite proud of the above post title - slightly reminiscent of Shakespeare's "Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore", though I was not, of course, planning to emulate the sound of breaking surf.

Some have thought though that Shakespeare was acknowledging Ovid who in Metamorphosis XV wrote:

sed ut unda inpellitur urgeturque prior veniente urgetque priorem

Anyway, enough of that. The other day a male bullfinch perched by Wbx and, I am sure, flew over the window box.

A somewhat misty picture as it was taken through our not-recently-cleaned sitting room window.

These beautiful little birds pass through our garden once or twice a year searching for seeds and buds. Sadly they are now of the RSPB's Red List - the highest conservation priority, with species needing urgent action. To quote from Shakespeare's sonnets once again:

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die

So, on to the second part of my title, the vetch mulch. This is simply that I took the quarter pound of hairy tare I gathered from Wbx the other day, dried it and crumbled it as a light mulch over the upper surface of the box, brushing it down to soil level between the plants. By such actions I hope to build up the shrinking soil a bit, or at least to stop it declining so rapidly.

Management decision

The hairy tare of last year has seeded itself quite liberally and over the last few weeks and has been growing with great vigour.  It rapidly smothers other plants and its weight is so great that it pulls them down to the ground.

 

So, I decided to remove the plants and give more space for the other things to develop.  The results are depicted below.

I kept the tare arisings and weighed them indoors: 100gm (approx. 4 oz).  I have put it out to dry as hay and may then crumble it up to return to WBX.

The little things in life

On St David's day I found this tiny springtail, Entomobrya nivalis, sunbathing on the edge of the window box.

Also, on top of the central sallow log I found a few strands of moss emerging from the cracks.

I reflected that this project is in the spirit of St David's last words when he told his brothers and sisters to be joyful and "do the little things in life" (Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd in Welsh, his native language)

A Wealden wood

With its complement of fallen leaves lying on the moss and the various plants arrayed around within the window box, I noted that it now looks very much like a small rectangle of Wealden woodland floor.

This is not surprising as this is exactly what the area where the window box is situated would have been before the land was cleared by human activity.

I feel quite pleased as it would be almost impossible, or very difficult to produce such an effect quickly and deliberately.

The photo was taken on 21 December 2008.

Target leaf-spot fungus on clover

Some of the leaves of the white clover (Trifolium pratense) has developed target leaf-spot fungi, probably, I think, Stemphylium sarciniforme (there are many leaf spotting fungi found on clovers and they all look very similar unless studied under a high power microscope).

They are called 'target fungi' because they tend to make target-like concentric rings on the leaf.

Fourth year begins

Today the window box had its third birthday and now sets off into its fourth year.

I took the picture above from the rear to avoid it looking exactly the same as the ones taken a couple of days ago.

I must repair that rim sometime - the consequence of journeys to Islay and London with TV crews.

At least the soil does not seem to be shrinking so much and I am thinking of ways of building it up with box-grown stick bundles and blown in fallen leaves.