A guide to mulberry growing

Having seen a beautiful black mulberry tree at the New Forest Otter, Owl and Wildlife Park yesterday I'm determined to grow one. I've bought some mulberry seeds in the past, but they failed to germinate. This time I've picked up a large number of fallen mulberries and am reading up on the matter before I plant the seeds.



This is the key information that I've gleaned so far...

• Black mulberry seeds are best planted as soon as they've been removed from the berry.


• All of the fruit should be cleaned from the seeds to prevent moulds forming.


• Seeds should be planted below 1mm of compost in a warm propogator and kept moist.


• Seedlings have very fragile roots so shouldn't be handled too much.


• Whilst the tree can survive outside, small seedlings should be brought inside or under glass during winter.


• Mulberry trees drop their leaves at the first sign of frost, spending much of their time in a dormant state. Sometimes the dormant seedlings don't 'wake up', andt if a tree is still dormant by summer then it's unlikely to come out of dormancy. There is a solution... chopping off the top of the seedling and any existing leaves sends it into shock which encourages it to put out new leaves.


• After a year or two the mulberry can be transplanted to their proposed location.

Helophilus pendulus

One of the most regular insect visitors to our pond is the hoverfly Helophilus pendulus. Today I found a pair mating. Upon closer examination it turned out to be three of them. Not something I've seen before, but as Ian put it I obviously need to get out more!





It looks like the pair underneath are mating and the male(?) above is waiting his turn. Given that he's grabbing her by the eyeballs I'm surprised that she hasn't driven him away.

Chrysalis

We have a little friend on the kitchen window at the moment. Like so many others last year this large white caterpillar decided to climb up the house wall and window to form a chrysalis on the upper sill of the window. This one fell a couple of times and eventually gave up, instead forming a chrysalis right in the middle of the window.

June 20th:



July 3rd:



Fingers crossed that we'll be lucky enough to catch it emerging in a month or so.

Pond Dip - July 2009

Having seen Jeremy's blog yesterday I was determined to get some more photographs of the dragonfly larvae in the pond.

This is a common darter:



I found two in the pond this morning.

It looks like all the broad-bodied chasers have emerged because I couldn't find any larvae today. The photo below was taken in June:



I wonder why they are so muddy compared with the darters. When they emerge from the pond they aren't muddy - maybe it's a method of avoiding predators?

I photographed this larva in August 2008. I suspect it's either an emperor dragonfly or a southern hawker.

Native plants

To date we've had a lot of success with wildlife in and around the ponds. Although living in the south of the UK does help, this is probably mostly due to the large number of native plant species that we have in our garden. I'm still compiling a complete list of the native species we have elsewhere in the garden, but for now here's a list of the 39 native species that are either actually in the water or in the bog gardens next to the ponds:

Acorus calamus (sweet flag)
Alisma plantago-aquatica (water plantain)
Athyrium filix-femi (lady fern)
Baldellia ranunculoides (lesser water plantain)
Butomus umbellatus (flowering rush)
Calla palustris (bog arum)
Caltha palustris (marsh marigold)
Cardamine pratensis (cuckoo flower)
Carex pendula (pendulous sedge)
Carex pseudocyperus (sedge hop)
Dipsacus fullonum (teasel)
Eriophorum vaginatum (cotton grass)
Eupatorium cannabinum (hemp agrimony)
Filipendula ulmaria (meadow sweet)
Geum rivale (water avens)
Hieracium brunneocroceum (orange hawkbit)
Hydrocharis morsus-ranae (frogbit)
Iris pseudacorus (yellow flag iris)
Juncus effusus (soft rush)
Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife)
Mentha aquatica (water mint)
Menyanthes trifoliata (bog bean)
Mimulus luteus (monkey flower)
Myriophyllum spicatum (water milfoil)
Nasturtium aquaticum (water cress)
Nuphar luteum (brandy bottle)
Nymphaea alba (white water lily)
Nymphoides peltata (fringed water lily)
Plantago media (hoary plantain)
Ranunculus aquatilis (water crowfoot)
Ranunculus flammula (lesser spearwort)
Rumex crispus (curled dock)
Scirpus cernuus (fibre optic grass)
Scirpus lacustris (true bulrush)
Silene dioica (red campion)
Stratiotes aloides (water soldier)
Trifolium repens (clover wild white)
Typha angustifolia (narrow reed mace)
Veronica beccabunga (brooklime)

A few of these species of native plants can be found in your local garden centre, but there's a much greater selection on the internet. Some of the best sites that I've found for native pond and marginal plants include Puddle Plants, Wetland Plants and Naturescape (though if you order pond plants from Naturescape then be prepared to wait much longer than the delivery estimates on their website).

Broad-bodied chaser

We were incredibly luck today. As usual I had taken a trip down to the pond to have a look around, but managed to miss a recently emerged dragonfly. Ian joined me and we sat on the bench. Only a minute before it took its first flight it caught Ian's eye and I managed to get a few photos before it took off. When it flew it actually hit the camera on the way past.

The dragonfly is a female broad-bodied chaser. We saw a male last year and another female earlier this year, but this is the first confirmation we've had that they're breeding at our pond. The species breeding at the pond also include the large red damselfly, common darter, golden-ringed dragonfly, southern hawker and the emperor dragonfly.

To the right of the chaser you can see the exuviae from which it emerged.





We have also had common blue damselflies and migrant hawkers in the garden, but I've yet to confirm if these are breeding at either of the ponds.

Banded demoiselle

Ian and I have seen banded demoiselles twice this month - firstly at the river Clyst and then again at the Old Sludge Beds Nature Reserve. I've seen banded demoiselles before, but not recently and never in Devon so this was the first time I'd managed to get a digital photograph.

Banded demoiselles are one of only two species of damselfly in Britain that have obviously coloured wings. Although quite common in Britain they prefer stream and river habitats rather than still water.

This is the male: