Smelly " Blind Wallflowers"
5 comments
Very new to growsonyou and one of the first photos that I uploaded was a picture of my “Blind Wallflowers”.
Of late I thought that the smell from my front garden was originating from the blooms of a lily that I had recently purchased via on-line sale.
The lily blooms had recently diminished but the disgusting smell of rotting flesh was over bearing.
My wife and I did some investigating and following our noses we made a sad discovery. Hidden amongst my jungle of wallflowers was mound of grass cutting, dried flower roots and paper. I gently separated this pungent smelling nest and to our sadness I found one after another a total of four bodies of baby hedgehogs.
If only I had thought to check my wallflowers a fortnight ago. A large hedgehog lay flattened on the road beside our open plan front garden. It must have been the mother to these young babies and been on the way home to feed her young babies some milk.
Poor things must have died of thirst and lack of food.
I did however disturb our resident slow worm that has been in residence for about 15 years now.
In future if I ever see a dead hedgehog I will search the garden for a nest. I’m think now that I will not get rid of that lily and on careful examination we have noted many opening buds on the wall flowers that have taken two years to reach this stage
30 Sep, 2011
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Comments
Oh that is sad :o( especially now that hedgehogs are not such common creatures as they were. Poor little things :o(
I'm pleased your wallflowers are budding. They do take 2 years to flower. They're biennial.
30 Sep, 2011
oh what a sad story her little babies. your wallflowers look great and i love the slow worm.
30 Sep, 2011
That very sad poor little things, great shot of the slow worm.
30 Sep, 2011
Ohhhh so very sad about the Hedgehogs. :-( Poor things, what a sad end to the mother hedgehogs life and the poor babies starving to death like that. So many hedgehogs lose there lives on the road, I sure wish an alarm would sound or they had florescent spines or something when they are crossing the road.
Lovely Lily.
What kind of a snake s that?
Welcome to GOY, I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as the rest of us.
19 Oct, 2011
Hello Angieindgar.
Not a snake but a legless lizard called a slow worm. Eats Slugs, snails, spiders, insects and earthworms. One of the reasons that I do not use pest control such as slug pellets.
I know, it's such a shame to see so many dead animals on our roads but one animals loss is a super gain for the introduced Spanish Red Kite. They love to scavenge and you will start to notice more and more when travelling along the M40 from Oxford towards London approaching the large cut out up towards Stokenchurch and beyond.
19 Oct, 2011
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Oh that is sad :o( especially now that hedgehogs are not such common creatures as they were. Poor little things :o(
I'm pleased your wallflowers are budding. They do take 2 years to flower. They're biennial.
30 Sep, 2011