Absence Of Frogs
I have a wildlife garden with a fish-free pond that I keep specifically for frogs. Usually by this time of year it's been a roiling soup of amorous frogs followed by spectacular amounts of frog spawn. This has happened every year for the last ten-fifteen or so that it's been in. This year, nada. There's a handful of the resident frogs that gave been there since early spring buy absolutely no signs if breeding. Any other UK gardeners experienced this?
Posted Apr 15, 2018, 10:31 AM UTC
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Maybe the cold spring we've had has had some adverse effect
I'd wondered that but my daffodils have flowered and are near done, lilac is heavily in bud and all the nestboxes in the garden are claimed/occupied. There'll all later than usual but not as late as the frogs.
Not had a peep from my lilac, but then again I did chop a big chunk off it in the autumn, maybe it's in a huff with me.
IME lilacs can be moody, or at least the well established one I inherited when I bought my house twenty odd years back. It sulks if I don't cut it back enough, it sulks if I cut it back too much, it sulks if it doesn't have enough fertiliser and it just produces a ton of leaves and no flowers if that fertiliser is to rich. A couple of times I've thought it on its last legs.
However, I've had quite a lot of success cutting hard back after what should have been the flowering season and applying plenty of compost. After a couple of months it's put out decent suckers and the following years I can get into a decent routine with it before it starts being a dick again.
Hopefully it doesn't need any of that, even though mine is in bud it seems very late compared to recent years, yours may be the same.
Yes I've inherited mine as part of a very large very neglected garden. Unfortunately it's in a bit of a rubbish spot where the light gets crowded out by a horrible beech. I have a bit of a project with the garden on though, so the lilac is unfortunately quite low down on the list.