Awful weather - typical Brits talk

pink_poppy

How strange that you were both at Greencombe yesterday, twopenny and Dave. I’m looking forward to seeing more pics.

Does anyone here have a wildlife pond?? We’ve inherited one and don’t really have a clue what to do with it 🙄 when I’ve poked around in it with a stick there seems to be some resistance in the water, as if it’s clogged together. There are some plants in it (yellow buttercup type plants in flower at the moment and a couple of other unknown ones) but I’m wondering if I need to clear it out a bit. I haven’t seen any wildlife, but we were told there are resident newts, frogs 🐸 and toads. Any advice welcome.

Dave, do I chop the heads off the rhubarb flowers or right down to the base of the stem?? I’ve noticed more leaves growing just underneath the flower head.

Apodemus

PP, The resistance in your pond water is probably just algal growth (although it seems a bit early in the year for it to be that thick).  The water is probably a bit too rich in phosphates and nitrogen and would benefit from some of the sediment (and build up of dead leaves etc) being removed.  But if you have resident wildlife, it might be best to do a little bit at a time and pile the material that you are dredging-out at the side for a few days, to allow any beasties to slink back into the water.  If your toads and newts are as far on with their season as your rhubarb is, then I guess any eggs will have hatched into tadpoles by now, but if not, then you might want to hold off for a few weeks more. 

pink_poppy

Thanks for that Apodemus, that’s really helpful. 

Rather stupidly I hadn’t thought about the newts breeding 🙄 I’d just been looking for frogspawn and hadn’t seen any. It probably does need a good clean out of dead leaves etc, but I think I’ll leave it for a few weeks as you suggested, just in case 😊

twopenny

Lol, hope you enjoyed it as much as me. The cool and quiet is wonderful but you weren't in the photo when I took one

Aparantly there was a huge amount of acorns and leaf that went into that pool over winter and it's made the newts and frogs look for a better location.

It's been only wildflowers today. Been to Watersmeet to see if the bluebells were blooming in Barton Wood but they've chopped down huge trees and left them right across the bluebell beds so zero for a good experience. At the moment they are barely in bud and very small. Almost no wildflowers out in the valley it's so much cooler there.

Staying low during the Bank Holiday and it's feeding, watering, tweeking and weeding my own plot - after hands and knees job of getting all the bits of stone, concrete out of the grass after the work on the paths and steps. Oh joy! Lots of coffee and cake going to get me through.

twopenny

Phoebe I put loads of primroses under a mature apple tree in my last place. It makes a wonderful sight. Always wanted to put a circular bench around so that I could relax under apple blossom and primroses in the Spring sunshine.

Davesnave

twopenny said:

Lol, hope you enjoyed it as much as me. The cool and quiet is wonderful but you weren't in the photo when I took one

We were late and the last to leave, having had a rather fraught journey. It was a good job we didn't go for our anniversary, because we had a couple of domestics over map reading on the way, having decided to busk it over Exmoor rather than bring the sat-nav! Then, when we got to our secret place for lunch, there was a blooming great camper van parked up and half a dozen kids were whooping it up in the stream. Another map reading error took us to a passable alternative...

Then, when we reached the bottom of Porlock Hill, I turned into the blooming toll road by mistake and went most of the way back again! The road we needed was about 100m on.

However, the time in the garden made us forget all the above and we had a long chat with the owner before and after wandering. o:)The erythroniums were lovely, but as I suspected, our place would be totally unsuitable for them.

Sadly, the problems with simply travelling between A & B continued on the way home when something closed the route through Dunster. We followed others who seemed to know what they were doing, but whatever was causing the hold-up thwarted their efforts too. It was bedlam. Reversed about 200m at one point.

Eventually, having escaped and travelled down to Bampton, we picked up fish & chips, took them out of the town to a viewpoint, consumed them and then returned to find the main road closed off as there were 3 fire engines in the middle of it. I remembered then I'd smelled a chimney fire smell in the chippie! The map showed a convenient rat run, but when we tried the single track road there were far too many others heading in the opposite direction, so we gave up and did a detour of about 4 or 5 miles instead.....Got home at a ridiculous hour

We will go back again, but perhaps not for a while!

Thanks for the info on Watersmeet. I was thinking of going up above there on a trek with my walking friend in the near future, but I have an alternative that's closer to home. Won't go until the stragglers of the May Day holidaymakers have eased anyway.

Davesnave

pink_poppy said:

How strange that you were both at Greencombe yesterday, twopenny and Dave. I’m looking forward to seeing more pics.

Dave, do I chop the heads off the rhubarb flowers or right down to the base of the stem?? I’ve noticed more leaves growing just underneath the flower head.

!'ll put up a picture or two over the next few days.

When I cut the flowers of rhubarb I tend to take most of their stem, but I've no idea if that's right. We have more rhubarb than we can eat so I'm very laissez-faire where they're concerned.

On the subject of the Cobea scandens, my seeds were planted on 7th April.

Greencombe....with erythroniums

Paspatur

First photo is 30th April 2020 sat out on patio in sun

Paspatur

2nd one is today. Snow, hail, rain, sun but cold even when sun is out. Check difference in the plant

twopenny

That's very disappointing Paspatur. I had the same effect on an Arum lilly. It still hasn't recovered.

Dave, wish you'd said. The Highways in their wisdom have decided to wait for us to be released from lockdown and a bank holiday to close the A38, A39 in umpteen places. They've removed one that said 2 weeks in 2 days but Dunster is closed. A great idea when they've had 5 mts of restricted travel to deal with it all.

I got caught in the same trap. Seeing Dunster still closed (thought they'd open it for this weekend) smuggly decided to go via a tiny cut through. As did umpteen people in enormous cars. Exasperating. The road isn't made for them. I think there should be another category of vehicle ie no HGV's or over ** wide.

Yes, Watersmeet was beautiful plus a drive over the Royal Forest but having a limited selection from the tea room in a paper bag was underwhealming for the price. I shall return to taking picnics as per MSE in future. Even the wildflowers weren't out there.

However it's not that busy round here so far. The busiest place was the supermarket with locals frantically trying to beat the rush - which never happened. The first BH is usually quiteish but I shall still lay low till Tuesday. Plenty to do in the garden and house.

BTW sat navs aren't always useful. Porlock has numerous home made signs telling people 'Your Sat Nav is wrong, turn round and go back'