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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Going wild

I may have mentioned I am not the keenest of gardeners, nor do I have the greenest fingers but since moving here one of the things I have always wanted to do is grow a butterfly garden. Wild flowers offer a much more attractive proposition than the usual neatly trimmed surburban gardens (picture Barbara, not Margot lol) plus knowing I am doing something to maintain the local wildlife gives me all the motivation I need to get the gardening gloves on. (And yes mum that means I will not be hunting down the grass snake just to hit it with a brick. Shame on you.)


Anyway looks like I have already started without even trying. I must confess to having let our garden go a little wild already while we sort the house out - the garden we have set aside to deal with next year - so imagine my delight when this splendid chap shot past me while I was putting out the washing.


I dashed to get the camera and found it merrily feeding on the buddleja that is currently hiding our grubby and neglected greenhouse.


*waits for brain to kick in* A peacock! And a huge one at that. Haven't seen one of these for years! We get the occasional red admiral and plenty of whites, brimstones and skippers and a walk up the local downs will bring you the chalk hill blue I named my site after. But this was something else. And it wasn't bothered by my whirring camera as I tried to get as close as I could to get a half decent picture. Shame about the greenhouse in the background but I'm sure you'll forgive me that.


Then all of a sudden something else fluttered past my head, landed on my arm, realised it's mistake and crash landed on the roof of the greenhouse.


Thankfully it stayed there long enough for me to get a shot before flying off again.......bear with me while I look this one up....a Comma.

(Just one thing, I promise NEVER to wear dungarees. Ever.)

2 comments:

andamento said...

Wow! Fantastic butterflies! We've only got cabbage whites so far and our buddleias are not yet in flower. Can't wait till they are, love them!

natural attrill said...

Personally I dont like neatly trimmed gardens, I love the more wild look, and good for the wildlife too. Nice photo's Karen.