Jet is going to get back into 43T, promise!

Embrace my Paganism regularly (read all 11 entries…)

Nature in my back garden  — 2 years ago

I work intuitively, and that includes everything I do: personal care, gardening, care of pets and children (in no particular order!!).
A few evenings ago I dead-headed the dandelions (they were calling to me). I need to strim the lawn soon, my bunny (bless him) keeps the lawn tidy much of the year but in spring there is always a growth spurt and it overwhelms him, he cannot keep up! Plus all these exciting herbs are springing back into life, emerging once more from the earth. How is a rabbit to resist?!

Anyway I was going over my lawn, inspecting it. It is about 6 metres by 3. I found lots of new plantlife growing in my lawn and I’m so excited! What most people think of as weeds made my week. Some I knew, and lots of other small plants I have not quite identified yet but best of all – wild strawberries! They are not even flowering yet, but now I know they are there, I’ll make sure I don’t mow them down with my cordless strimmer!

For the past few years we have had one or two toads. This year was their mating season and it turned out we had 4! Now, we don’t have a pond but time and again we have had toads make their way to the garden. They actually climb walls (our garden is walled on all sides, varying heights two of which are like 10ft!) A couple of weeks ago we returned from a beach trip to find two of the toads coupled up and spawning into our drain, so we rescued them and placed the toads and any strings of spawn that we could salvage into a large tank.

Next day one other female could contain herself no longer and started spawning alone into a shallow bowl of water we had set out for them. Poor darling, hers were wasted as she had no mate. It had become obvious that the fourth toad was also female, so when the first couple had finished and the male was croaking all day, I put him in the tank with the third female and within a few hours they were spawning too. By now we had a tank FULL of strings! When they were done I took them out. Now we have lots of tadpoles! My 10yo son is convinced he saw an albino one in there, time will tell – I haven’t seen it yet!

This has turned out quite rambly, but I just wanted to get it down as soon as I was inpired to write it!

Comments:

We have tadpoles too (I hope) we have a stagnant pong with much algae in it. There are little life forms swimming in there although they don’t look like your average tadpole. How long do they take to turn into frogs? There are hundreds of them!

Jet is going to get back into 43T, promise!

I'm not sure

my son tells me around 14 weeks. They are still so tiny, their heads are getting bigger but they are a long way off growing legs yet!

NOOOOOO!!!

I just looked up the thing in our pond and its mosquito larve! Shoot! We wanted frogs.

Jet is going to get back into 43T, promise!

Oh no!

They like stagnant water for laying their larvae in don’t they? I wonder if there’s anything that can be done, maybe they have a natural predator or will just hatch out and leave you alone :) That’s a shame, I hope some frogs #do# come and spawn in your pond.

Jet is going to get back into 43T, promise!

more mosquito larvae here!

We ended up with lots of the blighters too unfortunately. I got rid of lots with cleaning out the tank.

Most of our tadpoles died, we had dreadful algae problems due to a late start to spring this year (the whole region did) and I think it killed the tadpoles as they were still so tiny. I rescued about 7 though, and now we have some tiny toads! We’re going to set them free in a stream nearby.

~*Serenity*~ ... Shrugs...

you just made me smile from my memories

I moved to Tx a year ago.. different place, different nature.

At home, I had large gardens, my front yard was huge, the first half I turned into a natural swampy area {you have to work with what you got} It had a hug willow tree smack in the middle all but three months the year it had water, cattails, wildflowers, wild grasses and frogs, tons of toads.

There was a pond close that the kids and I had hours of fun watching tadpoles.
I could go on and on about the wildlife, and the flowers others consider weeds but are inspiring beauty but I don’t want to bore you..

This picture was taken with a camera phone. Poor quality, but it was just a month before I moved. I was sitting on the front porch looking at the Polk I let grow rampant for the birds…

My heart never wanted to leave… That was my home. Thank you for reading.

Jet is going to get back into 43T, promise!

What a beautiful Willow!

I love them, that one looks like a Weeping Willow from the photo, correct me if I wrong! I’m sure you know they are associated with water and they can be considered very auspicious to have in the garden!

Please don’t think you are rambling or boring, I love thinking about plantlife – ‘weeds’ especially, I love wild flowers and herbs – I’m not so much one for exotic or plants that have been bred for particular looks.
Post away!

~*Serenity*~ ... Shrugs...

Yes that is Weeping Willow.

I had Three mature ones in my yard.

The roots tend to wreak havoc but, they were far from the gardens. The wild swampy area didn’t seem to mind sharing.

I like Natural sites best, Like you said the wild.

I have had some plants typical of gardens but, I’m not a formal person.

NO, manicured yard for me. My family and friends used to say it was a jungle with all the plants, trees and vines…

what really got them is when they came inside the house “trading one jungle for another” We has cold weather 9 months of the year, I had to get my plant fix some way.

So you’re interested in the medicinal properties of wild herbs and flowers. Do you study them?

I had Wild {yes wild} strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, grapes {the birds got those wild grapes don’t taste so good}... Okay I will hush for now.

This picture is Polk, I let it flower {ilove Polk flowers} then turn to berries for the birds…

Maybe three feet out my front door. It was taken in November, two weeks before I moved. The berries when smashed make the most beautiful dye.


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