The star of this week’s ‘Six on Saturday’ is this wonderful waterlily.
It’s the first of the waterlilies in our pond to flower, growing from a division of a plant we bought a few years back, and it’s absolutely stunning.
Next up are sweetpeas, which have very short stems, and I guess that’s a symptom of heat stress. But they still smell just as good.
My lovely husband has cut back some of the wildflower patch to enable access down the pathway to the sweetpea tower.
The buddleia by the kitchen window is often full of butterflies, this morning this red admiral was happy to pose for pictures.
It’s still very hot and dry around here in south west England, so the pond is popular with wildlife as a watering hole.
This ruddy darter likes to perch by the pond, and really didn’t seem to mind my putting my phone camera right up close to it’s beautiful little face.
We popped to the garden centre last weekend and picked up a bootfull of bargains to fill out a few gaps in the borders. More shopping than gardening, I admit, but it’s been tricky to keep the place colourful in such hot conditions.
So that’s a six for the week. I’ve put the sweetpea stems into a tiny vase with a little yellow bird on, which gives me an excuse to mention my ongoing bird-song-guessing game developments. 🙂
This week I was curious about the carbon cost of using AI to make a mobile app about nature. Obviously it would be ironic to boil the oceans when I’m hoping to share and enjoy the dawn chorus and celebrate avian biodiversity. I have had this in mind from the start, which is why I’m using ‘GreenPT’ for most of the computing power, as that’s all running on renewable sources. The total carbon cost for making the game has worked out at about 2kg of carbon cost, about the same as a ten mile drive. I’m reasonably comfortable with that, it is a lower carbon footprint than quite a lot of pastimes.
If you’d like to try my birdsong time travel guessing game, you can play (its free!) at https://bird-times.lovable.app
For more garden highlights this Saturday, visit the Garden Ruminations blog.
Have a lovely week
Jen xx
Fabulous photo of the darter and the waterlily is lovely. I’m very impressed by your shopping haul!
Lovely ruddy darter! Also, red admiral! It is normally such a common butterfly here and this year I have not seen a single one. Actually, I have seen almost no butterflies at all this year which makes me sad. No swallowtails, a couple monarchs,. I saw a sweet and tiny moth (I think) and a couple of Peck’s skippers. Loads of cabbage whites. I am blaming our weird spring. Hopefully they are doing better in other areas and will make a comeback. The colors of the sweet peas are very nice!
It took me a minute to remember what a boot is. That water lily is exemplary. We tried three, and all of them were eaten by something, probably a turtle.
Oh yes, I wonder why we call the trunk the boot? Or vice versa 🙂
Buddleia are fabulous at attracting butterflies. This may be a reminder for me to replace mine which died a few years ago. Kudos on that dragonfly shot…..WOW!
Definitely a stunning water lily!
That’s really interesting – I didn’t know about GreenPT, but it sounds like a good idea. I sometimes feel a little guilty using AI, but then I think about how many AI queries one transatlantic flight is equivalent to, emissions-wise (I think about 1.5 million – so pretty much a lifetime’s worth) and that puts it somewhat into perspective.
The water lily is absolutely beautiful! And so are the sweet peas. Mine were short-stemmed for some reason, though they bloomed way before the heatwave.
That’s a beautiful waterlily and a great photo of the Ruddy Darter. New plants are always exciting.
That’s a lovely waterlily, and it’s great that the local wildlife can stop by your pond for some relief. I hope to rehab out pond one of these days as well… do you use any sort of filtration?