The Green Fingered Photographer

What A Great Success

2008-07-22T20:56:00.004+01:00

The Family Picnic Day turned out to be a great success

We had a lovely day on Sunday and upwards of 80 people from not only the estate where we live but also from the surrounding areas came down for a picnic. The day was always going to be about families getting together and having a picnic and not a fete. We did however have some activities on offer , one of them being face painting. This always goes down well with the younger children and it was great to see so many butterflies, tigers, and pirates running around the green.

I know that we have a good number of mammals living in the green space but this cuddly bear was something I have not seen on the green before. The thing was that it had a familiar look about it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. The kids loved it and it turned out to be quite friendly.

The theme of the day was definitely all about bears. Here you can see the friendly bear listening to a story about a family going on a bear hunt...

We are also lucky to have a member of the Great Britain welly wanging squad living on our estate. He was able to pass on all his years of experience to the welly wangers and we had some quite impressive wangs.

The great success for me and all of the rest of the green space group , was to see so many people sitting around enjoying a picnic with their families and having a good laugh.

We managed to raise quite a nice sum which will go straight back into the green in the way of plants. I would also like to pass on the groups thanks to Kath from the Bournville Village Trust, who supported us with many of the nature prizes, Birse Civils and Ironstone Management Services who provided us with portable toilet and goody bags and Wiggly Wigglers who helped us with more goody bags and wildflower seed.

A big thank you to you all.

Oh and one last thing I'm sure that you all would like to join with me in thanking Rev Steve (our community vicar) for his wonderful rendition of the Bear necessities....it was inspirational, it made me want to get my bongos out and join in with him. This rounded off the whole event and everybody left with a smile on their faces.

A Wander Around The Wiggly Garden

2008-07-09T11:00:00.005+01:00

I made a trip down to see Heather and the rest of her team down at Wiggly Wigglers yesterday. I did however manage to combine the trip down with an excuse to have a ride out on my new motorbike. It was so much quicker and more fuel efficient than going by car and much more fun.

After a cup of tea and a slice of cake with Heather I went for a wander in the garden. Hannah, who looks after the garden and vegetable patch, amongst other things, was busy doing a bit of weeding. After a bit of a natter with her I decided to have a stroll through the garden.

As you can see it is packed full of colour and I can tell you that not only is it pleasant to look at, it is full with bees and other insects gathering nectar.

The4 garden it's self is a walled garden but you can see the surrounding fields from inside of it giving you an impression of it blending into the surroundings.

Hannah has done a fantastic job with the vegetable patch as many of the vegetables and soft fruits were looking great and ready to eat.
One of the other jobs that Hannah does is to look after the new bee hive in the garden. She has 4 hives in her own garden and has been interested in bees for a number of years. A hive in a garden like this is ideal, as it is big enough to provide all the pollen the bees could want and is another way of supplying additional food from the same space.
I know it is hard to tell but this is Hannah (left) showing Heather (right) one of the racks that contains lots of bee grubs in various stages of development. If you click onto the picture you can see the darker cells are full of the grubs, while the lighter ones are full of honey.

Whilst I was there Herather was also taking part in a photoshoot. She is to appear in the Womens Institute Magazine soon and was being photographed by Charles Sainsbury-Plaice, who is a leading photographer of rural images. He also carries out work for many magazines and he has an online picture libary . It was great to meet a fellow photographer and interesting to watch him work.
Whilst Heather was being photographed, Monty her son, went for a closer look at the hive and he too was fascinated by the bees.
If you would like to see all of this for yourself the garden will be open to the public on the Sunday 27th July. As well as the garden there will be trailer rides with Farmer Phil, woodland crafts and much more, making it a great day out for all of the family. I will be popping down too and it will be great to meet some fellow bloggers.

See you there...

Down At The Signal Box

2008-07-06T15:43:00.003+01:00

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It's all go down at the signal box

The hanging baskets and pots are doing really well this year and look great in their new position, giving a nice 3,2,1 effect. They are easy to water to , as we just water the top one and the rest gets what ever drips out. Not only is this quicker but it doesn't waste any water. It is one of the things that passersby notice, it's just a pity that the rest of the box is so tatty, as it hasn't been painted for donkeys years.

The wildlife areas at the side of the tracks are bursting with flowers, it does look like the ox eyed daisy has taken over, but in amongst the daises their are loads of wild flowers just about to come into flower. These include agrimony, scabious, knapweed, fleabane, sneezwort, corncockle, St john's-wort and marjoram to name but a few. The poppies have come up in an area that I cleared this year to plant two pear trees. The poppies could do with cutting down around the fruit trees, but what the heck I like them....

One of the the plants that has just turned up is White Bryony
It is a fascinating plant which uses tendrils to climb plants and has interesting green flowers. It also had it's uses in the past for treatment for rheumatism and as a drastic purgative. White bryony is also poisonous and dangerous to take in any quantity, so too are its berries , with as little as 15 causing serious damage to a child. Good job it is in a place well away from the public.
I really like the unusual green flowers and while I was photographing it so do insects. The bee gives you the idea of the size of the flowers.
This hover fly seemed to particularly enjoy the nectar as it spent ages lapping it up.
I thought I would show you this same hover fly on the same flower, as when it closed its wings the sunlight really shone off them with lovely colours. You can see this better if you click on the picture, it will also show you the little hairs on the bryony flower.

All in all it has been a good colourful year down at the signal box with lots more to come and hopefully plenty of more pictures that I can show you.

Aliens Are Vegetables...

2008-07-01T20:22:00.002+01:00

Well they are at least in my garden

These carrots are the first ones to come out of my raised bed this year. I was hoping that they would be a bit straighter, as I filled the bed with not too lumpy compost. The carrots seem to have not taken much notice of this and have sprouted additional arms and legs. Well at least they allowed us to have a more interesting meal with them. Also on the plus side they tasted wonderful.

I still get excited about picking something from my back garden and eating it a few minutes later.

I do though seem to be developing a theme of growing alien vegetables, as you can see from the parsnips from last year.

How Are Your Corncockles Doing?

2008-06-25T18:22:00.002+01:00

Last Autumn I posted about Corncockles.

These are flowers that were once found in corn fields, but due to changing farm practices and the fact that the Corncockle seeds are sour, this means that they have over time been eradicated from corn fields.
Over the past few years I have been collecting the seeds and dispersing them to anybody who wants them with a view of making the sight of them more common and widespread.
Quite a lot of people took me up on my offer of free seeds last year and now that they are in flower, I was wondering how the people who had the seeds have found them to grow.
In the area that I grow them in, they are a mass of purple flowers and with the other wild flowers they are quite a sight and are full of insects. I will be collecting the seeds once again this autumn and will be making the same offer of sending out free seeds.
Perhaps this time we could do a bit of a seed or plant swap as we could always do with more flowers and plants in the green space where I live.

Lawley Green Space Group...Some Of The Wild Flowers

2008-06-19T18:01:00.001+01:00

Why not pay a visit to

and see what we have been up to

Here are some of the wild flowers currently doing their thing in the wildlife area.

This area has literally come to life in the last few days, with flowers and insects everywhere. I will cover some of the insects that can be seen tomorrow, but for now enjoy the flowers.

This area in now really accessible to walk around and get up close and personnel with the wildlife. One of the first flowers you will see if you enter by the notice board is the Scabious. It is an important plant for many insects and butterflies and it's leaves form the diet for many species of caterpillar and moths.

The bright Orange Hawkweed is possibly the next plant you will see, it stands out really well amongst the grasses and is again another good source of nectar for insects. It is also known as Fox and Cubs , as the center flower comes out first followed by the surrounding flowers.

Then you will see the Corncockle, this was one a common cornfield weed , but as its seeds lowered the quality of the flour and with improved agricultural techniques, the plant has become quite rare. I have been doing my best to help this plant by collecting it's seed in the autumn and sending them to anybody who wants them. I will be doing the same this year .
Amongst the grasses and other wildflowers it's purple flower stands out quite nicely.
One of the nice things about this wildlife garden is the plants that decide that it would make a good home for themselves and just turn up and start flowering. The next few flowers have done that.

The first one is the Common Figwort, this plant turned up around 2 years ago and has formed a nice big clump. The clump was big enough this year for me to split and I have put some of it in the orchard area. It has also started to seed itself around. It is a popular plant with bees and wasps which pollinate it as they feed on the nectar.
This Common Spotted Orchid moved in around 3 years ago and has been gradually expanding. I love our native orchids and think that they are a bit undervalued from the more exotic ones.
I will finish off though with another native orchid, the Bee Orchid. I think you will agree that this is quite a special plant and one that I am so pleased has made it's home here. This year I have found 3 plants that are quite well hidden, but if you are looking for them they are by the hedgehog house.

So why don't you have a wander through the wild flower area and see what you can find, please be careful with the orchids though as they are quite delicate. Tomorrow I will show you some of the insects that can be found amongst the flowers.

More Than I Bargained For

2008-06-17T19:39:00.007+01:00

I like to make a trip to Prees Heath Common several times a year to see the Silver Studded Blue Butterfly.

It is the only place you can see them in the midlands and I can assure you it is well worth the trip. The visit was organised by Butterfly Conservation, who purchased the reserve in 2006. One of our missions today was to try and see if we could find a Silver Studded Blue emerging and have ants on is abdomen. The ants would be present as the Caterpillar would have been looked after inside an ants nest and in return for being looked after the butterflies secrete a sweet substance which the ants feed off.

Whilst looking for the emerging butterflies I came across this common lizard basking in the morning sun. I have never seen one in the open like this before and was a nice bonus.

One of the food plants for the butterflies on the reserve is Birdsfoot-Trefoil, it grows in abundance on the site due to the fact that the rabbits keep the rest of the grasses at bay.

Well after about an hours searching we came across the first silver studded blue. It didn't have any ants on it, but you could see that it was newly emerged as it was basking in the sun warming itself up.

Once we found one several more were found, a bit later on in the season and depending on the weather you will come across clouds of them as you wonder the reserve.

As we were looking closely for emerging butterflies we also came across day time flying moths that you would normally miss. The first one was a True Lover's Knot and the other was a Yellow Shell . Both moths are found on heathland.

Plenty of other insects can be found on the reserve, amongst them this 7 spot ladybird and one of the ants.

Small Heath Butterflies were also present in good numbers

One the way back after several hours wondering the heath we didn't find any emerging silver studded blue, but we did come across this clump of wild pansies. Ah well there is always next time....that is half the fun of looking for wildlife.

Up Up And Away....

2008-06-12T22:10:00.008+01:00

I was lucky enough to be part of a U.K. first a few nights ago.

I was taking part in my capacity as photographer to record the nights activities in the Wyre Forest. It was part of The Back To Orange project.The Back to Orange' project focuses on conserving the endangered butterflies and moths of the Wyre forest. Management work to improve habitats is being carried out within the forest. The surveying of several key species of butterflies and moths is playing an important part in understanding what species are in the forest and in what numbers.

Jenny Joy from Butterfly Conservation, Mick Blythe from the Wyre forest study group and Dave Grundy a moth expert were to use a mobile cherry picker with a 14 meter reach to see what species of moth reside in the tree canopy.

Before we started though Dave had a Yellow Legged Clearwing (synanthedon vespiformis) to show us that he had trapped earlier. It is a day time flying moth that mimics a wasp.

The first trap was tied up into the tree canopy of an oak tree and was using an Actinic Tube to attract the moths, the tube is like a fluorescent tube and it emits a certain type of light.

The trap that was to go up into the canopy of another oak tree was more of a traditional moth trap design using a mercury vapour bulb. The trap was put into place before it got dark.

This was the first time that a cherry picker had been used in this way as it would allow Dave to monitor the trap throughout the night.

Three other ground traps were also set up between the traps in the trees, but at a far enough distance away as to not draw in moths that would be caught in the canopy traps. Dave recorded the GPS location of each trap and then we went to each ground trap to see what had been attracted.

It was interesting to see that each ground trap was having various degrees of successes mainly due to the temperature around the trap. It was possible to feel the difference in temperature and the trap that was the warmest was the most successful in attracting the moths. There were many types of moths being attracted and Dave was identifying each one to us. The largest one that I saw was a Popular Hawk moth (Laothoe populi).

The most interesting moth though was the most drab. This Common Fan-foot (Zanclognatha tarsipennalis) is what the nights recording was all about. Dave and his team are trying to find out about the numbers of this moth that are present in the woodlands and working with the forestry commission to create the right sort of habitat for it. One of the main things that they are doing is felling oak trees at the end of May, this is because the female lays her eggs in the dead or dying leaves of the oak.

This Orange moth ( Angerona prunaria) also caused some excitement as it was the first time that it had been seen by some of the group. The moth was trapped in a container and I managed to get some pictures of it before it flew off.

Just before Jenny, Mick and myself left at midnight, Dave brought the trap down that was in the canopy and was pleased to find another Fan-foot present in the trap, along with several micro moths. I really found the evening to be fascinating and informative about a subject that I know very little about. The experience of being in the forest at night was special to, listening to the woodcocks and owls communicating and smelling the honeysuckle made it a night that I wont forget.

Back Garden Update...Green Thumb Sunday

2008-06-08T12:12:00.001+01:00

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I am glad to report that the raised vegetable patch is proving to be a great success. Everything that I have planted is doing really well . I have had to remove a few plants as I had planted them to close together in my eagerness to grow as much as I could.

The Green Roof is also exceeding my expectations, giving me a really colourful display. I have had so many positive comments about the roof and I hope to have encouraged some people to give it a go for them selves.

If you would like more advise you can visit Livingroofs for more information. This is also the view I get from my living room window of the green roof.

I can also look down onto Pat Austin one of the 3 David Austin roses I have in my garden. On a warm night we get a lovely scent drifting into the living room from the rose....just wonderful.

Last Sundays post was about the back garden and in particular how strong the smell was coming from my Mountain Ash tree. Well I can report it is still smelling and attracting bees in numbers I haven't seen before. Several types of bee are buzzing about the flowers and when they get fed up with the mountain ash they drop down to the newly opened Pavier poppies and have a wander around inside.

It is great fun watching them trying to move around and it is easy to see how they get covered in pollen.

Well I hope you are all having a great time in your gardens, as it is just right for sitting back with a cold beer and admiring all your hard work.....any excuse.

Comfrey Flowers

2008-06-07T19:28:00.004+01:00

Mysterious holes in the Comfrey Flower

I was taking a closer look at the comfery plant at the side of the railway track next to my signal box when I noticed that each of the flowers had a small hole in it near the top of the flower.

I wondered what could have made the hole and why. I then noticed several ants crawling around the flowers and watched as one of them went inside the hole.

It was in there for a few moments before it came back out again. It did this to several flowers and I would guess it was going for a feed of nectar. Now the question I must ask is whether the ants made the hole or it was made by bees, particularly the short tongue varieties making a short cut to the nectar, as they would be unable to reach from the bottom of the flower.

A Mystery indeed....anyone any ideas

Telford And Wrekin Open Exhibition 2008

2008-06-04T15:45:00.003+01:00

And the winner for the 2008 Telford and Wrekin Open Exhibition is.....

Yours truly

with my picture of the shed door.

The exhibition is open to all forms of original art work and is one that I have entered for the past 3 years. Each year I have had a better placing and have always managed to sell the pictures by the end of the exhibition. The A3 print was framed and mounted for me by The Maws Gallery and I feel the frame that they helped me choose played an important part in enhancing the picture and creating the right feel.

You can view the exhibition at the The Gallery Bar @ The Place, Oakengates,Telford from the 7th June until the 4th July.

Recycle your old plant pots

2008-06-03T21:43:00.003+01:00

You can now recycle your old plastic plant pots at your local Wyevale Garden Center

This is a long overdue initative, because if you are like me have amassed a large collection of pots that you keep just in case, this allows you to dispose of them in a useful way rather than the pots going to landfill.

Green Thumb Sunday - Colour Everywhere

2008-06-01T06:00:00.001+01:00

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In the last few days the wild plants have gone mad. Colour is everywhere making it a magical time.

One of the wild flowers appearing at the moment is the Campion (Silene Dioica) both the red and white varieties. Don't ask me why but apparently Silenus, the drunken, merry god of the woodlands in Greek mythology, gave his name to Sillene dioica, the red campion, which enlivens woods and hedgerows all over Britain with its bright red flowers.

The second part of its scientific name , dioica , means 'two houses', and refers to the fact that each plant has flowers of one sex only, so that at least two plants are needed to make seed. Where you have white and red campion together they will often cross pollinate to produce a hybrid pink flower. However unlike many other hybrids these plants will be completely fertile and will often hybridise with members of the parent strain. This is called back-crossing.

This iris growing in my garden is another flower I find fascinating, I don't know what it is called , but I love the colour and the patterning on the petals.

The mountain ash has also just come into flower and as much as I enjoy the blossom I find the smell of them quite overpowering and not all that pleasant whilst sitting in the garden. This one , how should I say, has a very strong male reproductive smell.......well the bees seem to enjoy the blossom, perhaps its the smell that attracts them.

What smells do you have in your garden???

Life Is A Bed Of Roses

2008-05-30T21:29:00.004+01:00

Well it is about to become one down here at the Lawley Green Space

This has been made possible by one of our residents (who works at David Austin roses) donating 50 David Austin Roses . This is something the whole group is excited about and will enable us to split the green space into two distinct areas. A more formal area, starting off with a rose bed and the wildlife area. Birse kindly dropped of three large loads of top soil and a work party of several residents spread out the soil creating an area for the rose bed. It is just as you walk into the green space and will be the first thing you will see, giving it plenty of impact.

We have 10 bare root roses of 5 different varieties and are planing out the garden according to how the roses grow.

The varieties are Brother Cadfael, The Pilgrim and Gertrude Jekyll which will go towards the back of the bed in blocks of 10 with a half moon path in front of them. Then Teasing Georgia and Queen of Sweden will go into the front of the bed.

Here you can see the roses healed in before we plant them. I'm really looking forward to seeing the bed in bloom and will certainly make an impact in the green space. I would like to pass on the groups thanks to Tony, who provided the roses, giving us this exciting opportunity to create a colourful entrance to the Green Space.

We have also utilised our brand new notice board and displayed the proposed layout of the rose bed so that eveyone can see what we are up to . The notice board is a beautifully crafted hand made addition to the Green Space and will be used to share information to any one who is passing by.