Green and country in the city 6 August

• Picked surviving plums - 6. But that's 6 more than I've had before!
• Two catalogues, both autumn ones but with large Christmas sections. (What's that to do with Green and country in the city? Well, it's a seasonal marker!)
• When we arrive at the canoe club on a Sunday this summer there is usually two swans with 6 cygnets. We have been watching them grow. They are now nearly as big as their parents. Today there were only 5 cygnets. Sad the brood survived when they were small and vulnerable and lost one when nearly full grown.
• Saw a comma in the garden - first for some weeks. Also a gate-keeper, a red admiral and a cabbage white. Also a moth but it was on a leaf by the fence so I could only see its underside.

springwatch butterfly special

I watched Friday's "Springwatch butterfly special" last night.

It seems the little blue butterfly that moves so fast I have no hope of catching any distinguishing features to work out what it is from the butterfly book is likely to be a holly blue.

It also seems that the comma butterflies I get in my garden are more likely there due to my neighbour's hops than any of my nectar plants!

I must get a hawthorn bush for the brimstones and peacocks, and sweet william as good nectar plants (but careful some sold are sterile and no good).

I don't bother with ordinary Springwatch programmes - I can't stand the rehearsed banter. But the programmes about a specialist subject tend to treat the listener as if they had a modicum of intelligence.

My garden beginning to look a bit dull. I might have to make a trip to the diy store in the hope of finding something colourful that is good food for butterflies and bumble bees. The wisteria is having a second flush of flower, which is nice.

Will insects mean plums this year?

Despite a cold start both yesterday and today, we had what seems to be - at last - the start of spring. A lovely day. I saw a couple of bees and a butterfly (a tortoiseshell or a comma, flying to fast to see which). So hopefully some of my plum blossom got cross pollinated.

To help or hinder a toad?

This evening as I came home from Leyton station I found a toad walking along the pavement of Francis Road, a side road with a mixture of shops and houses.

I presume a frog or toad on the move at this time of year is off to a pond to mate and knows where it is going, so best to leave well alone - unless crossing the road when I help it to the other side.

I couldn't have done much straight away anyway as I had my arms full of offcuts rescued from a skip.

I did wonder about getting a bucket when I got home, going out to find the toad again, and bring it to my garden with my pond and plenty of cover. However, I don't know whether the toad would be content to stay or rather struggle to make its way back to its home pond.

On this date in 2009 I recorded a butterfly flying past the window, either a tortoiseshell (called King Georges in Cornwall where I was brought up) or a comma.

Bees, butterflies and blooms

I watched the third episode of "Bees, butterflies and blooms" yesterday, a programme by Sarah Raven promoting her campaign to halt the decline of habitats for bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects in the city.

I then watched episode two, set in towns.

Excellent, very inspiring and informative.

I plan to get some single dahlias and some cosmos. As well as helping insects, they should give me some late summer colour as well.

There was a bumble bee in my garden yesterday. I hope he found the crocus, primroses and primulas.

Red Admirals in the sun

This morning there were 2 red admiral butterflies sunning themselves at the end of my garden. I think these are the first red admirals I've seen in my garden this year.

Only now do I think I should have taken a photo to put on blog here. Can't rush out now as I am waiting for a fridge to be delivered and the door between the kitchen and conservatory is blocked by the trolley loaded with all the stuff that had been in the old fridge.

Lovely Sunday Morning

It's a beautiful day, sunny with a light, cooling breeze.

I was tying up tomatoes before breakfast. A nice job - easy, not too long, with a feeling of a job well done at the end of it.

I then picked autumn raspberries which I had with my breakfast sitting in a deck chair in the garden.

Saw what I think is a Gatekeeper butterfly, which I have never seen in the garden before.

Then off on my bike and picked blackberries, and it is still only 10.30 with the rest of the day to enjoy!

Light in urban gardens

I asked my neighbour if I could come into her garden and cut the branches of the buddleia that hang over my garden from their base.  As expected she agreed and said I was welcome to cut it all down.

Today I had an hour sawing and then lopping the side bits for easier stacking.  I didn't do more as, though I had the stamina to carry on, I didn't want to overdo it and hurt my back and shoulders.

Cutting this bush down will give me morning light in the middle bit of my garden - the vegetable patch.  It will also give Dorothy a lot of light in her garden too.

Gardening writers rarely seem to appreciate the problems of lack of light in small urban gardens -  I expect because most of them, and their clients if they design gardens, have lovely, big gardens.

Butterflies will miss it, but I only occasionally see them fluttering around it.