I have always been interested in moths and butterflies and have wanted to get photographs of them, but never found it easy to do so. However, I thought that I might have a better chance with moths if I had a trap. Commercially made traps seemed to be hideously expensive so I made a simple trap using a plastic container and hanging a low energy light bulb above it. I situated it in the greenhouse entrance so it would not get wet. I was surprised at the number of moths that I had in the trap on the first night, mostly 'micros' but two White Ermine moths. The second night I had this Poplar Hawk moth so I have been encouraged to continue. In one week I have identified 18 different macro moths.
Working in gardens all my life, especially if I have been creating a new feature has always thrown up the possibility of unearthing something interesting. Bits of pottery, and glass, old smoking pipes, bits of iron, sets you thinking about their origins and who originally used these things. Just occasionally I have come across something a bit more spectacular. In 1984 I was making a model of a 1901 Ransome horse plough which was a hobby of mine then. At that time I was preparing a new garden at a country house. Using a rotovator I struck a piece of iron. I stopped to see what this was, and it turned out to be the coulter of an old iron plough, not only that it was of he very same model that I was making in miniature, so I knew exactly what it was.
A few years later on the same estate it was decided to create a lake for conservation purposes, this was to be at the lower end of a terrace in a somewhat boggy area. We designed the size and shape of he lake and I organised the necessary equipment and labour to undertake this project. I started at the wettest end and where it was to be the deepest first so that if thew weather changed we would have less risk of being bogged down. After stripping off the topsoil we started to dig into the clay, much of the spoil we were able to disperse locally and landscape it. On the second day of digging the machine operator hit a piece of wood which I thought was a submerged railway sleeper, we carefully cleaned it off with spades just in case it turned out to be something of importance. It was good job that we did as it soon became evident that it was two wooden elm water pipes, laid horizontally and pegged with stakes to keep in position. Each section was three metres in length and joined together by a removable lid. Realising that this could be of some importance we contacted the Nautical Archaeology Society. Dr Valerie Fenwick and her colleagues came very quickly to look at our find, they were currently restoring the Mary Rose in Chichester. They were very excited about what we had discovered, and soon measured it dated it and took lots of photographs of it. It had t be kept constantly wet as if it had dried out it would have soon disintegrated. When the experts had gathered all the information that they could we then lifted the wood carefully, wrapped it all in tarpaulin sheeting and then re- submerged it in a new pool specially dug for this purpose. We continued with the creating of the lake and made a small island in it, and then finished the landscaping around the new pond and planted some native trees. The finished pond has become very successful attracting lots of wild life over the years since.
We eventually got he results back from the archaeologists, who confirmed that the wooden pipes were part of a balancing system to keep the water of an artificial pond at a constant level. The pond was a fish pond to provide a staple diet for monks at a medieval monastery that had existed in the area, Further credence was lent to this theory as we dug up lots of fresh water oyster shells. Colin Tuffrey painted a wonderful watercolour of the area including the water meadow and the lake with the Manor House and Church in the background, I was presented with this painting on my retirement, which is a constant reminder of my time spent creating the lake.
I was fortunate to be given some oak boards that were left over from a friend's flooring project, using a circular saw I cut 40 3" x 48" lengths to renovate 5 garden seats. There were still a few boards left over so I made this propagating frame for my greenhouse. I have installed a 12 metre warming cable and thermostat in it. The cable is buried in 4" of sharp sand, I used horticultural grade sand as this has been washed and is free from possible harmful chemicals. It is now ready for starting seeds which I will do very soon. I made a number of wooden labels and painted them white. When I first started in horticulture in the 1950's we always used wooden labels which were bought from the seed merchants, to make them go further we would split them down the middle to make two out of each one. Labels that survived a season were repainted on wet days. Of course all the pots that we used were clay, they were known to us by numbers. We talked of 72's, 60's, 54's, 48's and 32's. I believe that the numbers referred to how many pots could have been made out if a given lump of clay. Another wet day job was cleaning the pots. Where I first worked we had the luxury of a pot washing machine. It consisted of an electric motor and belt driving a spindle on which were mounted two cut down lavatory brushes. The pots to be washed were in an old oil drum filled with water. It was a thankless task, however careful you were you always got thoroughly soaked, and your hands became so scrubbed and sore. However, the foreman was not without compassion and we would not be kept on it for too long. This was in the potting shed which ran at right angles to 3 long greenhouses.The middle greenhouse was nearest to the boiler 'hole' where two sectional coke fed boilers heated the 4" diameter cast iron water pipes that ran under the benches of the greenhouses. In the centre house there was a doubling up of the pipes just at the entrance to create a propagating frame. The greenhouse stray cat had made a home in there and would occasionally be booted unceremoniously out when it curled up on a batch of newly struck cuttings. It was always fascinating to me to see how cuttings rooted so readily in this warm environment. coleus, hydrangeas, fuchsias, regal pelargoniums were the main stay. But occasionally some slightly more exotic species were rooted in there.
I cannot say that I am particularly fond of spiders, but am fascinated by their webs. It is always a mystery to me how spiders can span large distances to create their webs. Long lines are often encountered at face level on autumn mornings. It is done by the spider emitting a continuous stream of fine filament from its rear glands, if the spider is above ground this slender line is so light that the slightest movement of air will waft the filament until it attaches itself to another object some distance away. Once this first line is fixed the spider traverses it and at some point will, using the same technique descend to the ground making another line, and new anchor points, this is the foundation of the web structure. Most of the time we don't see the webs in the garden, but when we get heavy dew or frosts these webs will display often very spectacularly. Of the 100 or so species of spider found in this country, most are relatively harmless, and are generally good for the garden.
Other things in the garden also look so different with morning dew like this seed head of Clematis tangutica. Talking about dew, I came across an ancient dew pond on top of a chalk hill in Wiltshire some years ago. These dew ponds were created for watering sheep and cattle and would often be still full in mid summer when other ponds in the valleys had dried out.
I have several varieties of Camellias growing in my Devon garden. New varieties of Camellias or indeed any other plants are created by careful hybridisation, ocasionally plants will mutate spontaneously producing a different type or colour on the same plant. this is known as throwing a 'sport' or a chimera. If this new growth is propagated separately it will be possible to produce a new plant bearing the characteristics of the new sport. My Camellia 'Shiro Wabisuke', is white (Wabisuke is Japanese for white and a square-shaped sword), produced two sports this year one smaller white bloom with paler centre and more strikingly a red bloom. It is not that unusual for Camellias to produce sports or for roses to do this. Another plant that quite readily produces sports is the Pelargonium. Zonal pelargoniums will sometimes throw out completely white stems. These, however, cannot be propagated as they are deficient in chlorophyll caused by the supression white pigments.