What's outside

He must have Gower connections! Clearly a good bloke! I arranged for groups of Sunday School kids from Swansea to visit Gower when I found they had never been there!

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Heddiw - today.

Cacynen dingoch - Red tailed bumble bee.

rhosyn gwyllt - Dog rose.

Gwyfyn teires lleiaf - lesser treble bar.

Melyn brych - speckled yellow.

Teigr y benfelen - the cinnabar.

Cheers J.P.

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No, it isn’t knotweed; it’s a creeping pansy that seeded itself.

Raymond

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It was much like that on Wirral but they seemed to admit defeat long ago.
Raymond

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I’ve two pictures today. Our weather has been beautiful while areas to the South of us were getting thunderstorms. So the first is to show how the paeony has developed. One decent thunderstorm will knock off most of those petals which would be a shame but the garden does need water.


We used to keep an eye on a young lady with MS. Being a Lancastrian I would never have chosen a white rose for myself but she decided that because we now live in Yorkshire we should have one. This is it. Oddly, it has put out a good show of flowers each year since she died. And it’s scent is heavenly.

Raymond

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I love foxgloves (Bysedd y Cŵn) and loads have come out in my garden this year - all self-seeded. Most are the usual purple type, but this one has appeared from nowhere and I’ve never seen one like it anywhere nearby

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A genuine mutation? Or a very non-dominant set of genes which hardly ever all pop up together?

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Don’t know - foxgloves do come in other colours but I’ve rarely seen that in the wild. Maybe one of my avian friends has delivered the seeds from a cultivated variant in someone’s garden!

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Foollish me! I didn’t think of that! We had a load of foxgloves growing wild on the cliffs on Gower and I truly can’t remember if any were ever white. My gut feling is that they were not!

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Ah ok. Is it really small? If so I think I have them climbing on my garden wall.

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Heddiw - Today.

Aderyn du ar ei nyth hi - Black bird on her nest.

Lindys trilliw bach - small tortoiseshell caterpillar.

Cheers J.P.

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Yes, I had one come up white a few years ago. So, when they set seed I remove the pods of those that were purple and let the white-flowered plants set their seed. It’s quite slow as it takes two years for a foxglove to flower, but there are some white-flowered plants each year now. However, this year I have a pink-flowered plant. Just the one but I’ll get you a picture of it when the sun shines next.
Genetics can be fun!

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Heddiw - Today.

Alarch ddof newydd - new mute swans.

Cheers J.P.

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Ive just looked up Cygnet. Apparently in Welsh it’s Alarchen or just cyw (chick/young animal). Possibly even cygnet, but then again I might have misunderstood the GPC dictionary. Its not the easiest to follow :slight_smile:

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Is not “Gower”…a failure of English speakers to pronounce the Welsh ‘(Penrhyn) Gŵyr’.

So if people get triggered by the use of “the”…why not the corruption of a Welsh placename !

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Cyw alarch or alarchen I get from other dictionaries bachan

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Alarch is swan, so cyw alarch makes all kinds of sense. And (to me at least) alarchen sounds like the word for a “young” alarch . . …

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Bad pic and I do not claim that starlings are rare, although, as I have reported before, they used never to come here! But we seem to be breeding them very effectively now. Can you imagine the row with this lot? Babies yelling for food, adults arguing about who gets what for their young… with our back door open you can hardly hear yourself think!

as side effect of global warming, I think I’m going off it! We have started rationing what we put out for them. This scrum is under what was a fat candle about two hours earlier!

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I think I can almost definitely say that it’s not Japanese Knotweed - Japanese Knotweed leaves are slightly more triangular and less heart shaped, they aren’t as glossy, are a little paler and the stems should be a pinky/red colour. Hope this helps! :slight_smile:

We have lived with Japanese Knotweed for a year and a half now and as per the conditions of our mortgage are under a programme or eradication from a reputable company. It’s very tempting to go to it and attack it yourself - there have been so many times I’ve nearly lost my temper and tried to annihilate it myself. But in truth, most local authorities and mortgage companies now will only accept and recognise treatment programmes from registered/professional eradicators using certain chemicals and you’r certainly not allowed to illegally dispose of it anywhere. We’ve been warned not to touch it with anything - not to cut it or burn it and to live with it until it’s the right time of year to treat it again with the correct licenced weedkiller - it will take years to fully eradicate it properly, which is going to take a lot of patience, but will be worth it in the end. It’s a nightmare!!! :fearful:

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Thanks. Was not sure of current law. Interesting. In our village there was a clump on a verge owned by nobody unless, technically, it is still part of Penrice estate, most of which was sold when death duties hit unexpectedly when son died before mother, who then died. Everyone knew it must be killed but nobody knew who by! I left about then!

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