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These are growing like triffids now, and even spreading like a carpet over the pathways. There are some sort of eggs under the leaves that I hope will provide catepillars for the birds. The one in the picture is from a single seed popped into the old manure heap area of Llys Trerobert's bird garden, and just for fun.
'Heaven doesn't want me and the devil's afraid I'll take over.'
Looks like Nasturtium. The whole of this plant is edible and very tasty !! I have some growing in my garden at the moment. A very popular plant for Large and Small White Butterflies to lay their eggs upon. If the eggs are yellowy orange then that's most likely what they are going to be. Oh, and a word of warning...don't eat the leaves unless you like spicy food, the flowers are very sweet though. Good luck with the eggs.
Hi Aitrpd
They say beauty is in the eye of the behold...
You see dung heap, I see Monet.
Please click.
Robert
I have the climbing variety, very pretty.
Agree with Robert ha ha.
An optimist sees the beauty of the complete rose.A pessimist sees only the thorn .
Lovely and great news that there are eggs. Like Lynette and Sheena, I also have nasturtiums in my garden but no eggs yet, I live in hope.
Here is a rather blurred picture of mine.
Robert, another lovely water colour.
Kind regards Jane.
I see no dung heap anymore, Robert... Can't even see space to put my foot that's clear of triffids, and to get in and weed out some of the dock behind the giant sized hardy geraniums that are behind the nasturtiums!
...But yes, I too see Monet! :)
I have catepillars - little ones - eating the nasturtiums. They are green, with a stripe of darker dot-like markings along their sides. Not seen many hatched as yet, unles the birds have been feasting, and only about half a dozen leaves are showing signs of having been nibbled, but there were rather a lot of white butterflies around the garden and chasing each other not that long ago. I saw some feeding on a buddelia... but not many other butterfly species, such as peacocks etc, which a few years ago I photographed on another buddelia.
Fanatastic! Must remember to add Nasturtium to my shopping list for next year - see my other post on top 10 wildlife magnets for the garden!!
Lots of the eggs appear to have hatched now on the nasturtiums, but there's hardly a catepillar to be seen. You'd think the birds would leave the tiny ones to grow a bit and make more of a meal before commencing their feasting! Lol
I have someone coming to help in the garden tomorrow, and hope to ask them if they can move some of the logs and other heavier things around a bit, which will disturb some of the insect life and, I bet, excite the birds.
We have far too many robins around, and the resident cock robin was going frantic this morning chasing off numerous rivals, which are probably his own offspring, as the pair raised five brrods this year. Their latest youngsters are only just starting to get their red breasts, but older siblings are looking quite magnificent now, as are our great tits, chaffinches and greenfinches. Some of the young blackbirds are well into their moults, too, and one young cock bird starting to look quite resplendant and very bold in black.
These seed heads are, I think, the result of canary seed ending up in the compost bin and being put on the manure heap at the bird garden. They are not quite ripe yet, but I expect the sparrows will enjoy them when they are.
Well, I do not know what has happened to all the little catepillars that hatched on my nasturtiums, but when I went to look today, I really expected to find most of the leaves turned to lace but they are not! Only a very few have any signs at all of having been nibbled, despite most of the eggs clearly having been hatched. I fialed to find a single catepillar, either. The birds must have had the lot.
There were a couple of bumble bees busy amongst the nasturtiums and a few white and some tortoishell butterflies on the buddelia. I also looked for spiders' webs, too, but failed to find any of those, apart from ones in the stables, but no sign of any spiders around those. Thousands of worms and woodlice under the plant pots and logs, and dozens of fungi shooting up in clusters all over the bark on the yard and car park.
The whole garden is alive with birds though, and I only have to pick up a fork or spade and head down to the path where loads of docks keep appearing as fast as they are dug up, for one of the resident robins to appear to watch me.
I took a skep full of fresh dung from the stable onto one weed-ridden bit of path, and no sooner had I dumped that on a clump of docks, than there was a robin checking it out.