Seven years and counting

The window box has now been doing its stuff for 7 years and 17 days.

Because the plastic is rapidly deteriorating, my friend Ralph Dellow made a wooden box for the whole thing to go in.  We decided not to put any wood preservative on this because of the effect it might have on the flora and fauna.

As would be expected at this time of year,Wbx is going into its winter mode with the leaves on the sallows to the left turning yellow and falling.

In summer one, just one, of these sallow wands died quite suddenly with the leaves turning brown rapidly.  But now it has made a recovery of sorts with tufts of new leaves at the nodes all the way up the stem.

I wonder if some sort of boring insect got inside the wand.  I will investigate when I do the coppicing for this year.

Plant on moss: moss on plant

Yesterday, first day of spring, I had a careful inspection of Wbx. A curious thing was evident. The white clover that has been wandering about Wbx from its first year has taken up residence in the moss on top of the lump of sandstone and seems to have abandoned the ordinary soil altogether.

At the other end one of the coppiced sallow stools (Salix cinerea) has accumulated a thatch of pointed spear-moss (Calliergonella cuspidata), first seen in the box in 2007. This moss is sometimes a major constituent , with creeping willow (Salix repens) of dune slack plant communities. Maybe the moss thinks Wbx is a sand dune.

Flies from Poison Pie

The poison pie fungus (Hebeloma crustuliniforme) which I have kept in a small breeding cage has produced about a dozen Exechia fusca, a common fungus gnat which I have caught several times before in our garden and elsewhere.

The pictures below are of a male (above) and a female showing the marked difference in body colour.

This species has larvae that breed in many different larger toadstools and F. W. Edwards writing in 1926 recorded it from the poison pie Hebeloma.

Making a positive identification of insects like this requires some care.  It ran down readily enough in Edwards, but that was published nearly a century ago and many more species of Exechia have been added to the British list since then.  In this case I checked in Alexander Zaitzev's Fungus gnats (Diptera, Sciaroidea) of the fauna of Russia and adjacent regions. Part II published (in English) in St. Petersburg in 2003.  Getting this book was rather more difficult than getting E. fusca, but through illustrations of the genitalia it does clinch the identity.

Another Ectopsocus petersi

My breeding experiment with the fungus Hebeloma crustuliniforme today produced one small barklouse, Ectopsocus petersi which I have previously recorded from the window box in November 2009, also at a period when there was a rich crop of fungi.

The year's final coppice cut

Today I cut back the remaining sallows.  Instead of tying the twigs together in a bundle, I have scattered them over the surface of the window box as I think this may encourage more microfungi, as well as making them easier to see when they do appear.

Larger fungi continue to flourish and another small poison pie (Hebeloma crustuliniforme) has appeared near the little pond.

As the picture shows, the window box is starting to collapse.  The rims at the front and rear are peeling away and there is a split where the front side joins the base.  I often wonder about how to address this problem and think that somehow I must find another container to put the box in.

More fungi and a vetch

A finger of candle-snuff fungus (Xylaria hypoxylon) has emerged from the top of the sallow log looking, as I suppose it is meant to, like a snuffed out wick.

More poison pies (Hebeloma crustuliniforme) are appearing and the one in the picture below has grown quite large and it easy to see how it could be mistaken for a field mushroom.  I have picked it before rapid decay sets in and have it in a container to see if I can breed any fungus gnats (Mycetophilidae) from it, but it does not look very promising.  Perhaps the poison protects it.

The wintergreen annual hairy tare (Vicia hirsuta), now an occupant of the window box for several years, has managed to grow from one of the cracks on the top of the sallow log, but I  rather doubt if it will get through to flowering after frosts and drought.

The rectangular orangey-yellow object bottom right is a chip of hawthorn wood throw out by a chain saw that was being used nearby.  I thought dear reader you needed to know that.

More toadstools and the holly

Over 40 small inkcap fungi have appeared in different parts of the window box. At first I thought they were Coprinellus micaceus (= Coprinus micaceus), the glistening inkcap. Then, on closer inspection, I thought they might be the rather rarer Coprinellus truncorum. Under the lens and the microscope the down, composed of cystidia, was very clear to see. However, further discussion with Martin Allison has confirmed them as C. micaceus

Over in the bottom right hand corner of the window box is baby Hebeloma crustuliniforme. These have quite bulbous bases to the stipe, but this develops into a perfect,y straight stalk later on.

I also took a photograph of the holly seedling discovered the other day.

Start of the 7th year

It was on 4th November 2005 that grandson Jamie and I set up the window box with a bag of sterile compost from the local garden centre and a few bits and pieces.

In the last six years I have recorded over 90 species of flora and fauna (including a rabbit) and, as well as several articles and radio broadcasts, it has been on TV several times and travelled to Scotland, Bristol and Boll Oddy's garden in Hampstead.

Today I tied up a bit, taking away some of the dead stalks of the all-embracing hairy tare.  Underneath there were, as usual, some unexpected things.  Earlier in the year I found some poison pie toadstools (Hebeloma crustuliniforme) - see below - identified by the mycologist Martin Allison. 

As the name suggest, they can give you very bad indigestion.

Yesterday there were a couple of very small Marasmius on the mossy bark of the sallow log.  They look like the collared parachute, M. rotula, but are maybe too small and therefore possibly M. bulliardii.  (The moss is common feather-moss, Eurhynchium praelongum.)

I also discovered several ivy (Hedera helix) seedlings and one of holly, possibly the garden Highclere holly, Ilex x altaclerensis, rather than our native      I. aquifolium.  I will leave these species to grow though maybe this will produce some management problems in the future.  There was also much creeping bent, Agrostis stolonifera, another new record, and some other developing toadstools, lots of them, that may be honey fungus.  So half a dozen new records: not a bad start to the 7th year.

More on all this tomorrow.

Spring arrives 2011

The window box looks very brisk and fresh now that the warmer weather is here.  Everything seems to have survived being frozen solid for some time and there is clearly sufficient nutrient, without my adding anything, to keep the plants healthy

There is a surprising number of plants in the view above: dandelion, hairy tare, goosegrass, tutsan, wild service, Druce's cranesbill, herb robert, a grass (probably rough meadow grass), smooth hawksbeard.

The dandelion, which is now some years old, is amazing.

A crop of toadstools

In the pouring rain of a grey mid-November day I noticed, through our French windows, some toadstools growing in Wbx.  On closer inspection in better weather conditions next day, they were clearly one of the smaller Coprinus but overnight had started to autodigest around the edges into the inky black liquid characteristic of this genus.

In all I counted about ten fruiting bodies in different places, so the mycelium must spread widely through the window box soil.

Fifth birthday for this project

The window box has now been going for five years and all the plants appear to be doing remarkably well.  This is particularly surprising as I have given the soil no fertiliser and it must be getting some extra punch from the nitrogen fixing clover and tares and maybe from nitrogen in the rain water or tap water which I apply to the box in dry weather.

Today I coppiced back all the woody species - the sallows, the Himalayan honeysuckle and the tutsan.  The goat willow (Salix caprea) had one stem that had grown exactly five feet (1.52 metres) from the stool since it started this spring.

The two pictures below show the before and after situation.

Some of the leaves on the goat willow had some small, tent-like leaf mines between the veins and I am pretty sure these are made by the larvae of a micro moth, the long-streaked midget (Phyllonorycter salicicolella), though I may have to wait for a spring hatching of the adult moths to be absolutely sure.

As well as a new insect record, I found a new plant for the window box - a young goosegrass (Galium aparine).  There's life in the old box yet, although the plastic gets increasingly fragile.

My final picture is of berries on the Himalayan honeysuckle, appropriate for this "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."

New flower, new spider-hunting wasp

The plant of Himalayan honeysuckle (Leycesteria formosa)  first recorded in the window box in 2006 is carrying its first flowers.

These flowers dangling from red bracts are followed by berries that, by all accounts, are edible so I might be able to harvest my first Wbx crop in a few weeks time.

While photographing this I noticed a small, black spider-hunting wasp sitting on a Wbx tutsan leaf.

This is Anoplius nigerrimus, a common species here but one that scarcely ever stays still long enough to get a decent photo.  This one was very obliging and seemed to be taking an unusually long rest on the leaf.  Later though I saw it restlessly hunting for spiders with its usual agitated, questing character.

Different sallows

There are four self-sown sallow willows in the window box, all of which have been there for several years and are coppiced each winter.

They all differ quite markedly in leaf size and shape.

Top left is, I think, undoubtedly rusty sallow (Salix cinerea ssp. oleifolia), a common and widespread species in Britain, while the large leaf beneath is goat willow (Salix caprea), also common.  The two on the right are probably Salix x reichardtii, hybrids between the first two species, also common.

Detailed accounts of all these species are given in BSBI Handbook No 4, Willows and Poplars of Great Britain and Ireland by R. D. Meikle (1984).

Tutsan caterpillars

Some of the leaves of the Wbx tutsan (Hypericum androsaemum) have been rolled up by small green caterpillars.

I suspect they are one of the omnivorous micromoths, but they could be the  greater purple flat-body (Agonopterix liturosa),an Oecophorid moth .  I'll have to see if I can rear one to adulthood.

In the picture above you can just see the tail of the caterpillar sticking out at the stem end of the leaf.  Below, looking down the tube, you can see its head.

Midsummer box

Today is the formal start of summer and the box is looking quite pleased with itself.

For some time it has been against the east wall of the house from where my wife, Cynthia, can see it, hence the grape vine leaves in the background.

The white clover now covers most of the ground and is flowering.  The tutsan on the right is doing well as is the Leycesteria towards the left.  The reddish leaves are of herb robert which is now coming towards the end of its annual cycle.

It is good to see the box doing so well after last winter when it was frozen solid for weeks.

Year five begins

This window box project was started on 4 November 2005, so today we are entering the fifth year.

Over that period the box has travelled to Islay in Scotland and Bill Oddy's garden in Hampstead; it has featured in many magazines and papers and has given me a great deal of pleasure and interest.

There is no reason why it should not go on for many more years, though the plastic seems gradually to be getting more brittle and breaking down. I hope, however, to find something into which it can fit lock, stock and barrel.

Today I collected four insect species by sweep netting over the box: a bark fly (Ectopsocus petersi), the springtail Entomobrya nivalis and two flies - Lyciella rorida and Geomyza balachowskyi. The Ectopsocus and the Geomyza are both new records for the project.

The biggest surprise though was a fine crop of toadstools around the base of the rush plant.

They are, I think, glistening ink-caps (Coprinellus micaceus) perhaps using the underground part of the sallow log as a medium on which to grow, though they seem to be more associated with the decaying materials at the base of the rush

Rabbit revealed

For some time plants in the window box have been somewhat bitten down.  Mainly it seems to be the leaves of the white clover that disappear, but something has chomped at one of the sallow bushes.

At first I discounted rabbits as it seemed much too difficult for these animals to climb up onto the wire crates that keep the top of the window box up to about waist height.

I have, however, caught the culprit in the act and it is indeed one of our bolder lawn rabbits.  This is one record I had not really expected - I hope this bold Brer does not feel inclined to make a burrow.

I am quite happy to let the creature have as much of the clover as it wants and we will have to see about the long term effect.  Meanwhile I reckon I have one of the few window boxes in the world that boasts a wild rabbit visitor.

Sallow Muppet

The leaf-cutting bees have been at work on the leaves of one of the sallows.

This example strikes me as having a curiously Muppet-like appearance.

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.