Gardening seems have more than its fair share of risks, although generally fairly minor. Most weeks I have to remove at least one splinter from my hands and I regularly get stung by stinging nettles, not that there are many in my garden!

This summer, however, it has been wasps that have been bothering me most.

Until this year, I haven’t been stung by a wasp since I was a young child. So far in 2018 I have been stung six times on three separate occasions. The worst was a few weeks ago whilst I was clearing a load of brambles from the car par at the new hospice shop in Standish, Wigan. I had four volunteers, who I hadn’t met before, coming to help. I arrived early and started to hack back the brambles with my petrol hedge cutters and seem to have disturbed a wasps nest with them. The first I knew was when a felt a sharp sting on the top of my chest. I looked down to see the offending wasp, which I flicked off. When I looked up, there were the volunteers, somewhat amused by my cursing. Wasps were everywhere, so I advised my helpers to make a quick exit and that I’d meet them at the front of the shop when I’d put the hedge cutters back in my van. As I walked around I felt two or three more stings under my shirt. I whipped off the shirt, much to the amazement of those watching. They must have thought they were working with a nutter. The wasp was dealt with, but I was left feeling very shaken.

I was stung again this week, when I got too close to a nest which was in a hole in the ground. I was using a pickaxe to clear weeds from the wildflower area. A wasp must have seen the axe and decided that it wasn’t going to allow me to get any closer to it’s nest. It worked, and I backed off! I did, however, go and get my camera for some photos and a video, which you can watch below.

I was amazed at how many wasps were going in and out. Apparently, there can be as many as 10,000 wasps in a colony. When it gets colder, all the workers and the old queen will die, leaving just the newly mated queen wasps to hibernate over winter. They will emerge in the spring to build a new nest. Hopefully next year I won’t get stung as many times.

Wasps haven’t been the only abundant insect recently. There have also been lots of ladybirds too. Here is a native 7 spot ladybird on an achillea flower.

The wildflower garden has been looking great for most of the summer. It is still flowering with some poppies, oxeye daisies, achillea and loads of corn marigolds.

The wildflower garden hasn’t been all plain sailing. We’ve had an invasion of wild parsnips, which have taken over a fairly large area. I am slowly digging them out. We’ve also had lots of brambles returning, adding to my splinter count!

Other highlights in the garden at the moment are the rudbeckias and the self sown sunflowers from the bird feeders.

I love the pattern seen on the sunflower seed head.

It is so long since my last post, sorry, that I haven’t given any updates on the NGS Open Garden and the North West in Bloom inspection. Both went really well. Our visitor numbers were up on last year and the RHS inspectors were most impressed, especially with the wildflower garden. We will find out on Friday 2nd November what award we have been given by the RHS. Fingers crossed!

I will blog again shortly because I’m doing a totally gross job at the moment and I want to tell you all about it. Till then, bye!