Some visitors are more welcome than others and it is just the same in the garden. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the frogs and toads to spawn in the ponds. After that they should be quite hungry and eat a nice lot of our slugs.The herons that come to feed on them will not be welcome at all! It is horrible to look out of the window and see a poor old frog, still alive, being juggled by the heron so that it goes down head first. Ted and I do our best to chase them off, but it is a full time job.
Some guests are nice to see but have nasty habits and the badgers could do with a lesson in toilet behaviour. Right opposite our back door in my Beth Chatto gravel garden is not the best place for a latrine when they have the whole garden to choose from! My best alliums are being dug up in the process. Fortunately neither of us has much sense of smell, but I am not sure what it will be like in the summer.
Rabbits have never been welcome and their numbers are on the increase. Once the grass begins to grow thing should improve but just now my new bit of garden by the pond is being nibbled to death.The winter flowering heathers that should have provided nectar for early flying insects and bees have been chewed right to the ground. They have even chewed some bark from low branches in the new orchard. I wish the buzzards would pay us a call, as they seem to have the rabbit population under control in Scatterdells Wood. Maybe the foxes will help themselves to a few – it would be nice if they did something useful for a change.
So far my hens have stayed safe in their sturdy ark, but I would not let them free range with so many foxes about. I move the ark every day so that they always have something fresh to peck at. The eggs are wonderful and there are always enough for my visitors to go home with half a dozen!
Wendy Bathurst