This morning just happened to be one of those times when I was able to capture a lot going on in the garden. From top left to bottom right, and from left to right:
1. Quiet please! Aphid herders at work – ants on greenfly on Black Cherry Plum (Prunus cerasifera). 2. One of the swales in the Upper Garden. The blue-tipped posts indicate underground water, and cover the whole property, part of my hydrology survey. 3. Small-leaved Lime (Tilia cordata) (foreground) and Chestnut (Castanea sativa) (background) in the Coppice area of the Upper Garden. 4. Common Milkwort (Polygala vulgaris) in the Upper Garden. 5. Robinia (Robinia pseudoacacia) (right) and Hazel (Corylus avellana) (left), with a self-seeded oak (Quercus spp.). 6. Dog Rose (Rosa canina) and self-seeded oak (Quercus spp.). 7. Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor) (right) and Mouse-Ear Hawkweed (Pilosella officinarum) (left), with Ox-Eye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgara) in the background. 8. Marsh Fritillary butterfly (Eurodryas aurinia) on Yarrow (Achillea millefolium). 9. Young vegetable plants hardening off outside the polytunnel. 10. Two of the ‘Three Sisters’ in place in the Lower Garden; Maize (Zea mays) and White Haricot (Phaseolus coccineus) will shortly be joined by Butternut Squash (Curcubita moschata). A very old forest garden technique in which the beans grow up the maize and fix nitrogen, while the squash grows all around suppressing the weeds. 11. Red Gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa) (foreground) and Raspberry (Rubus idaeus) (near wall) in the Lower Garden. 12. A two-tiered bat house which I have recently put up. Last year, I had bats behind a window shutter (out of shot to the left), so I put the bat house at about the same height. It is a south-facing wall, so they must like to be warm while they’re asleep!
The Sombrun Forest Garden Project 
It will be interesting to see it all growing over the coming years. How do you know where you have underground water? I am intrigued!
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Hi Anni, yes indeed, I will be watching! Ah, I have a water diviner! Someone of great experience and understanding who is even able to tell roughly how deep the water is. I was by chance able to verify this after his visit by finding water where I had some terracing work done behind the house. Position and depth were pretty much exact. Unfortunately I don’t have a spring, and also these underground ‘streams’ tend to dry up in drought conditions such as we had this summer!
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