How to create a mini pond
Even a small pond can be home to an interesting range of wildlife, including damsel and dragonflies, frogs and newts.
Even a small pond can be home to an interesting range of wildlife, including damsel and dragonflies, frogs and newts.
A low-growing plant of sand dunes, heaths and grassy places, Common centaury is in bloom over summer. Look for clusters of pretty, pink, five-petalled flowers.
Creeping jenny is a low-growing plant of wet grasslands, riverbanks, ponds and wet woods. It has cup-like, yellow flowers and is a popular choice for garden ponds.
The delightful fragrance of wild thyme can punctuate a summer walk over a chalk grassland. It forms low-growing mats with dense clusters of purple-pink flowers.
Saltwater marshes and mudflats form as saltwater floods swiftly and silently up winding creeks to cover the marsh before retreating again. This process reveals glistening mud teeming with the…
The Common darter is a red, narrow-bodied dragonfly that can be seen throughout summer and autumn. It is hovers around all kinds of waterbodies, darting out to surprise its prey.
The striking red twigs and crimson, autumnal leaves of Dogwood make this small shrub an attractive ornamental plant. It can be seen growing wild along woodland edges and hedgerows.
The small, yellow flowers and woolly appearance of kidney vetch make this plant easy to spot. Look for it growing low to the ground on sand dunes, chalk grasslands and cliffs in summer.
As its name suggests, the Marsh violet likes damp spots, such as marshes, bogs and wet woods. It is a low-growing plant with kidney-shaped leaves and pale lilac flowers.
Often growing in swathes along a roadside or field margin, the oxeye daisy is just as at home in traditional hay meadows. The large, white, daisy-like flowers are easy to identify.
The turkeytail is a very colourful bracket fungus that grows throughout the year, but is at its best in the autumn. Its circular caps can be seen growing in tiers on trees and dead wood.
We had some wet and windy work parties in April at one time driving over Bannau Brycheiniog in hail storms to Ystrad Fawr, Ystradgynlais. This was to finish the pony corral we had made with Powys…