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moosey
head gardener
14 Sep '07 6:20 pm
Me too - I loved reading all your news, Bambi, and peering at the pix of the snake hatchlings. My goodness! I'm just amazed by their beauty.
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Liza
gardening consultant
Waterloo, Belgium
Lovely news and photos!14 Sep '07 8:13 pm
Yes, dear Bambi, you have SO many bloomers this year!!Your cyclamens have stolen my heart!!And , like Jacquelin says, what lovely colours already on baby sneaks! Tell me now, where are all these newborns going to live in the house as adults?? They have a special room? Cause, I imagine, each one needs its own separate space/home, non?
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Faith S
Perpetually learning gardener
Alabama, USA
Great photos!15 Sep '07 2:46 am
Dear Bambi, thanks for re-posting all those photos. They are great! I also enjoyed seeing the photos of the hatchlings. While viewing the first batch, I was thinking that I wished you had one with your hand showing the scale. Then I saw the next post with the tiny snake in your hand. I especially liked the last one showing him/her? coiled around your finger. So sweet.
I know there are not so many people who would have such tenderness and love for snakes, so I am happy to know someone who represents the best in our human species. All baby creatures are beautiful and lovable because of their trusting innocence.
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GardenGnome
Happily Toiling Away
Regina, Saskatchewan
English Contry Garden15 Sep '07 4:44 pm
Hi Bambi, I read your big post the other day and was indisposed to respond at the time. What a wonderful summer you have had! I so enjoyed catching up with you and your hubby and all the snakes. Our fuschias just didn't do well this year. I bought what was advertised as a Mexican Heather and it looks very much like your heather, although mine is so much smaller, like a dwarf heather. I think your garden look immaculate.
One thing about fungus and mold. Mom always freaks out and flies into action when ever she sees moss or mold on any of the plants. She immediately scrapes the moss from around the plants as soon as she sees it and scolds me for not getting to it first. She said the moss can rob the plants of moisture by sealing the soil and making the water run off.
We had some fuzz on some of the roses and a couple of other plants. She said it's from poor ventilation in the plant, not enough wind or air moving through. So perhaps you should take note of where your tomatoes are planted and next year pick a spot that the wind visits more easy. Mom said that mold and fungus can sneak into your garden from plants you buy and it sneaks in from the nursery. She said fuzz does occur naturally by blowing in on the wind and finding a little eddy to settle, but this is very rare and most likely you inadvertently brought it in, even on your shoe. We bought a fungicide to take care of the problem and it works for aphids and insect problems too. I don't like to use an insecticide in the garden but it is necessary when there there is an infestation. One or two bugs is okay, but a million or so could kill the poor plants. I'm including some pix of what we got to control outbreaks.
And it had to happen, we had a killing frost last night and lost about half of our plants. I brought my pumpkins inside today and they look like the best yet.
I love your little wrigglers. Now THAT'S a hand full.
Christopher
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Bambi
Slowly Learning Gardener
Kent, England
19 Sep '07 1:22 am
Thank you everyone for your encouragement and enthusiasm!
Yes, the hatchlings’ patterns are stunning, and their colouring will develop with age – most of them will turn more reddy-orange, which is the natural colour for corn snakes, but I think there’s at least one that has a colour morph in that he’s more black and white than the others. A couple of them have had their post-natal shed now and they look absolutely stunning – so velvety and bright!
With regards to where they’re going to live, I’m afraid that we’re not going to keep any of them, even though we’d love to keep them all! Right now, they’re all in individual tubs, but of course they’re going to grow and need loads of space which we just don’t have. We have converted our guest bedroom into a reptile room, but even that’s nearly full to the brim with snakes! Hee hee! Plus I really want to get my bearded dragons soon and they’ll fill up our last available space! Eventually, when we move, we hope to have more space for our reptiles, as we’d love to breed them all – we’re already planning on breeding a few of our other snakes: our royal pythons will be adult size by next season and two of our other corn snakes will be too – I’m really excited about what we’ll get from them, as they’re both really lovely colours…
Oh, and Faith, the photos of the snakes are in fact in my hubby’s hand and not mine, so they may not be as small as all that (he has big hands, mine are v small!! Plus, I have nails as I work in an office!).
Christopher, thank you so much for the advice re mould/fungus, etc. I’ll have to have a think through about the wind factor. I don’t claim to be completely organic in everything I do – sometimes all you can do is give something a good spray – but I have been trying not to use chemicals where I can get away with it, after all, I love all the little critters and wouldn’t want to harm them, but I suppose this particular problem can’t be solved by a few ladybirds, unlike an aphid infestation! I think, to be honest, it’s too late for this year, and I’ve looked online for this Floritect but I can’t find where to buy it over here. I have, however, found something called Bordeaux Mixture which says it treats fungus and mould on plants, so I’ll keep the link to this and hope not to need it next year!
I’m so sorry to hear about the frost – I do hope your lovely plants rally! Well done for rescuing the pumpkins though, I’d love to see some photos when they’re ripe. I bet you’ve got great Hallowe’en plans for them again!
Onto more news, and on Sunday evening we were just sitting down to dinner when I heard a scuffling sound outside the back doors. I turned the outside light on but couldn’t see anything so I thought it was just some leaves or something. Well, later on, hubby just happened to look out the window and he saw a small, dark shape moving around the bird feeder pole and guess what? It was a hedgehog! I was so excited as I didn’t think they could get into our garden as it’s totally enclosed by wall and fence, so I ran upstairs to get the camera and I managed to snap off a couple of shots before it decided to pack up. I’ve put out some of the cats’ dry food for it at night since then and kept peeking out the window and I’ve seen it every night since then and the food’s always gone by the mornings, so I think he may have taken up residence in a pile of detritus that we have sitting waiting for a skip! Unfortunately he’s not going to be able to stay there, so I’ve downloaded plans for a hedgehog home and hubby’s going to build me one at school. Here’s hoping he’ll stay…
Talking of exciting garden wildlife, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but back in June, we had a different kind of visitor. Again, I heard him scrabbling against the back door, but this time he was a stag beetle – our biggest and most impressive-looking insect! We caught him gently and hubby took tons of photos (this was when our camera was still our friend!), then we let him back outside. I just found the pictures sitting there in the camera when I downloaded the hedgehog ones and thought it’d be fun to share them with you aswell…
Other than that, I did some more pottering around over the weekend; I planted two of my lavenders either side of the honeysuckle and a thyme in front – I think I’m creating a sort-of herb bed but with other things there too, or perhaps it’s a scent-garden, I don’t know, I just put things where I think they’ll look nice and if they don’t I’ll move them! Hee hee – good planning eh? I also planted the hyacinth bulbs I got at the local show – I have to admit that I forgot about them and they’ve been sitting there waiting for me for about three weeks now, I hope they’re not too upset with me! Anyway, they’re now happily sitting in the earth so maybe they’ll forgive me. I found another three tiny geraniums (or is that gerania?) in the lawn where I dug out the first one – I must have missed a bit – so I got them out and have added them to the “wild” flower garden, along with two sedums (seda? – sorry, going a bit overboard with this grammatical thing!) and an unknown which my neighbour gave me. Also, down the side of the house is a lovely colony of harts-tongue ferns so I transplanted a couple of them over to this area aswell in the hope that they’ll like it there just as much, if not more, and that corner is starting to really fill out now! I’ll have to take some piccies to show you.
Best sign off now and get some work done, but I hope you enjoy the pics!
Bambi
x
PS I'm having trouble posting the pics at the moment (intermittent internet connection - grr!) so will upload them in a minute in a separate post.
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Bambi
Slowly Learning Gardener
Kent, England
19 Sep '07 1:30 am
Ok, let's try this again...
DSCF0316a.jpg
"My" little hedgehog is the brown blob just in front of the low wall!
363.63 KB / Viewed 63 Time(s)
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Bambi
Slowly Learning Gardener
Kent, England
Hedgehog update22 Sep '07 1:31 am
Hi all, I've been away for a couple of days as I've been "observing" at a local Primary school, just to check things out and see what it's like - sort of a make-or-break, do I want to do this? thing. Well, needless to say, I loved it! And I'm going to set up a few more dates to go back again and get the ball rolling towards making it a permanent change. Wish me luck!
Anyway, I got home yesterday and hubby told me that a local cat, one that we think has fought with our Jeeves a couple of times  , was in our garden. He scared it away by spraying it with water, but I then saw it again later on in the evening. Again, I shooed it away, but I'm now concerned that it's him who's been eating the cat food I've been putting out and not my hedgehog, as he's obviously loose in the evenings and possibly all through the night (we bring Jeeves and Wooster in overnight, so it can't be them). I'm going to have to find a way of ensuring that he can't get to the food, but the hedgehog can, otherwise I won't be able to keep on feeding my little spiky visitor  Will keep you posted.
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Dixie
garden enthusiast
Waikato-New Zealand
Hedgehogs22 Sep '07 6:46 am
Hedgehogs are wonderful wee creatures in the garden.I think they eat woodlice.Put out some food that the cat won't eat such as grated apple or something.He might be looking for a place to hibernate,like in a bundle of straw.The beetle sure is a fearsome creature.
Dixie.
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Mark
Home gardener & plant fetishist
Berkeley, California, USA
Bambi I love your critters!24 Sep '07 3:30 pm
I so wish I had hedgehogs. We get posums but they're big, ugly rat-looking-things where as your little guy is totally cute. The beetle is impressive. Is that native to England? Wow. I like the preying mantis and walking sticks we occasionally see along with dragonflies and big spiders but we have nothing like your beetle. Very prehistoric looking.
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