Lough Derg

I was fortunate to spend a day on Lough Derg last weekend with a few friends as we trundled back and forth across the lake calling to a few of the lakeside villages on the way. 

lough atorick, clare

lough atorick, clare

garden stream

As part of the garden's design I have diverted some water from a boundary stream across the site to another stream to create this water feature. The fast flowing part of the stream is developing into a nice pebbly bedded stream. The fast flowing water has eroded all the mud and left just the large stones and pebbles. However as soon as the water enters the pond area, it slows down and dumps all the silt into the pond floor. I have to figure out a way to prevent this silting up, without restricting the flow of water into the pond....

Ideally I would like the same sort of pebbled and stoney bed in the pond area and perhaps have some fish in it eventually. Some thinking to do.

doneraile wildlife park

While on a visit to friends in the rebel county we took a rainy stroll through Doneraile Wildlife Park. It has some fine mature trees and riverside walk. 

tadpoles

I spotted some frogspawn a few weeks back. I forget about it until today when my daughter ran up from the pond announcing the discovery of tadpoles. There's hundreds of them, all nice and plump. It'll be interesting to see how many make it all the way...

doon lake

doon lake, near broadford, county clare

work during august

During August I did a little more work on the garden. Mainly I was regrading and re-contouring the soil. Unfortunately the weather continued extremely wet. The water table is high in any case, but the soil gets very sticky when it's as wet as it was this summer. It made progress difficult as I couldn't really track on the same area for too long. I would have liked to hardcore more of the paths, but perhaps the winter will be drier.

got a 7 ton machine this time

hard to see what was done, but a lot of re-contouring and rough grading

took away the steep edges to the stream, and widened in places

created the first seating area in the garden

add another layer of gravel to some of the paths

soil

Some soil moved and some mushroom compost delivered.

And a start made on a water feature.

streams

A large stream and a smaller one surround the site on two sides. But I want to bring the water right into the heart of the garden.