Tattered Silk and Fabulous Ferns

I was thrilled to see a small frog in the pond today .... no photos unfortunately. It was too fast, travelling like an arrow under a lilypad.

But I did capture this strange looking creature. It might be a dragonfly larva.

It is worth sitting quietly on the huge log slices and just watching. You never know what you might see.

On closer inspection of the verbena boniarensis, I spotted this startling crab spider.

Amongst the multi-headed stems were myriads of other insects hiding. I will be looking again next time. They obviously find it a great hiding place.

Just before the weekend we had strong winds and lost a Teddy Bear sunflower. I was most upset as it had about 30 flower heads still to come out.  We had to make do with these in a vase.

 

 

We love to see the bunting fluttering in the breeze but I am rather thinking this may be the last year for this silk set.

Luckily it doesn`t show from a distance.
 

 

The fernery is looking superb. Our fern expert friend Nick, thinks they are all doing very well. I need to get in amongst them to get rid of some stray nettles.

The new turfing we did earlier in the year, has nearly blended in. 

We picked pears, eating apples and cooking apples.

When the pears fall it is a race to see if we can get to them before the guinea pigs.

And I am still picking bunches of statice and tiny, precious bouquets of Mammoth sweetpeas. They have long stems, wonderful perfume and flower on, well into the autumn.

 

 

 What a joy!