I took a few more apple tree branches off this morning. I’ve propped them up by the bird feeder as perches. I’ve buried some more wooden discs below the feeder for me to step on. One has been firm for a while, so I’m hoping the others might be allowed to settle.

I found another wood anemone in the woodland bed and the grape hyacinth are starting to open. The lungwort are looking properly pink now too.

Into the triangle, the fuchsia has some green growth at the bottom. I weeded the remainder of the bed and uncovered a couple of bear’s breeches. I’m hopeful they might recover this year and help fill in the spaces.

The water in the pond wasn’t too cold, so I removed half a bucket of elodea and removed a number of stones from the bottom, disturbing some hornwort, which I threw back. Happily, I saw a number of diving beetles, the first of the season.

I found a small hole in the front wall of the liner, so in the afternoon I patched the hole. I can’t really move the sand without getting under the liner, so I’ve tried to tighten up the liner and glue it more closed. Really it needs  something solid to lean against it under the water, but I’m not sure a paddlestone is stable enough. I’ve put a staple into the top of the liner to help too.

The creeping jenny one the front ledge is waking up and looks hopeful. There’s a big patch of bare liner as the side goes down to the beach, which can only possibly be covered by vegetation. I mixed up some mud and started a layer there and going outside to see how it looked I discovered some new celandines beneath my feet. So I dug up a couple and planted them in the new mud.