Hibernaculum

Hibernaculum at the back of the nettle patch

A new shelter on the South side for our newts, frogs and toads to help them get through the winter. We’ve used alder and willow from the recent tidy up and made a shallow, log-filled pit topped with larger logs.

The leaves piled on top are to help keep the heavy rain out. No doubt various beetles and wood lice will take up residence too, and perhaps some other invertebrates.

Froglife have a page showing how to make one in your garden.

Madder

July 2025

A perennial (Ruba tinctorium in the same family as coffee), the fleshy roots can be harvested for use after a few years [1] to yield one of the most light-fast of natural dyes (the main colourant is alizarin). The plant roots used in our local cloth-mills’ dyehouses may have been sourced locally, though after the mid-1700s most was imported from France, the Netherlands and Turkey.

October 2025

The particular mordant, which helps bind the dye to the wool fibres, and the temperature of the dye vat affects the colour: brick red, oranges and pinks with alum (notably in the medieval period when this mordant was imported from Spain and Southern Europe), bright red with tin chloride (from around 1800, when the Dudbridge dyeworks led the way, for coarser flannel and soldiers’ uniforms), and browns, grays and purples with iron sulfate (copperas) [2]. By 1885 synthetic alizarin had supplanted madder.

Madder was also used in mixtures with other dyes, eg in a recipe for black (eg affording a speciality broadcloth from hereabouts, thanks to the effect of the natural salts in the water); and in the Woad vat [3], perhaps to help with fermentation and the reduction of blue indigo to soluble leuco-indigo, as well as modifying the particular hue.

We will gather roots in summer 2026 for test dyeing and post pictures of the results here.

References

1 Wild Colours - Madder dye plant

2 Encyclopaedia Britannica vol. VI 1797

3 The History and Practice of 18th C dyeing by John Edmonds, Historic Dye Series no. 2

Pollarded Willows

The late autumn clear continues. The pond has been opened up to more light by cutting some of the Alder and pollarding the smaller Willows at the water’s edge. The suppler branches will be used to replenish the woven willow screen and fence. Still a bit to cut back on the larger trees next week, to reduce the twigs and leaves that drop in and contribute to the organic detritus. 

All being well, together with the removal of the excessive amount of reeds and decaying hornwort in the pond earlier this month, the water-quality should gradually improve.

Candlesnuff fungus

Also called Stag’s horn, has appeared by the woven-willow fence on the West side of the Reserve. It is a saprotobe (feeding on organic matter), found on decaying wood where it decomposes the complex sugars, helping to compost the host.

The fungus, particularly the mycelium, is bioluminescent, phosphorescing with a very faint greenish glow.

Here, following rain, the water droplets on the ‘wicks’ are almost spherical suggesting superhydrophobicity, perhaps due to a nano-structured hairy and/or waxy surface.

Further images and information 

First Nature - Candlesnuff fungus

Woodland Trust - Candlesnuff fungus

Woad

All the plants in the Colour Wheel have thrived, with Woad (Isatis tinctoria) growing particularly well during 2025, so next summer we will harvest some leaves for dyeing. We will use a much simplified and less odiferous process than of yore, which should take just a few hours to extract the ‘dye’ from fresh leaves and produce a blue cloth after steeping in the liquor.

Woad was a major crop in the Middle Ages and the leaves were processed close by, being macerated in a horse-driven mill, squeezed into hand-sized balls, and then left to sun-dry for a few weeks. Couching (grinding and wetting then leaving to ferment) initiated the release of blue indigo. After drying, the couched woad was sent to the dyer. Further fermentation over a few days was needed to transform the colourant to soluble, yellow-green leuco-indigo. The wetted cloth could then be immersed in the solution and, when removed and left in air to oxidise, the blue indigo would re-appear, with the insoluble molecular-aggregates now trapped within the wool fibres (so strictly a pigment and not a dye). Blue Row off Meadow Lane, opposite Dudbridge Sainsbury’s, was the site of the specialist dye works for Kimmins Mill, and aptly named as the area and stream must have been heavily tainted, though dyeing here was not restricted to indigo. 

Woad in flower May 2026

Some woad was grown hereabouts, notably in the medieval period around Wotton-under-Edge, Dursley and Tewkesbury, and perhaps around Uley (noted for ‘Uley blue’), but much was imported from France, particularly Toulouse. Production in Europe then plummeted around 1600 with the import of Indian indigo (which gave a superior blue without any pink or green tints) though a small quantity of woad was still required by the dyers to assist the indigo fermentation. Commercial growing of woad stopped in the 1930s as synthetic indigo and chemical treatments replaced natural production and the ‘craft’ process.

Further information 

Wild Colour by Jenny Dean, Octopus Publishing 1999

Historic Dyes Series No. 1 - The History of Woad and the Medieval Woad Vat, John Edmonds 1998

All About Woad

Elder

The large elder bush on the South side of the pond was featured amongst ‘Nature’s Bounty’ in September 2024. A year on and only a few of this year’s elderberries are left, the fruit having developed early following the ‘unusual’ summer, and most already snaffled by the blackbirds, finches, pigeons, robins, thrushes and tits.

The shrub’s habit and characteristics are described well by PJ Kavanagh in his eponymous poem:

… chewed by cattle springs up stronger;
an odd Personal smell and unlovable skin;
straight shoots like organ pipes in cigarette paper …
In summer it juggles flower-plates in air,
creamy as cumulus, and berries …
purple fruits in a rattle of bones …

The bark (skin) becomes characteristically furrowed and corky, and while the flowers begin with a sweet, honey aroma in time this changes to a somewhat obnoxious odour (so it’s best to make your ‘champagne’ early on).

Comparatively few insect species, just 19, feed on elder, because the plant produces protective glycosides. Of course, one species of aphid has evolved with a resistance to the toxin, so you might spot colonies of these on young shoots in spring. A number of moth caterpillars have also copied the trick: white-spotted pug, swallowtail, dot moth and buff ermine.

The elder is allelopathic, ie it suppresses the growth of surrounding shrubs and trees, though it seems to be having little effect on the brambles that are growing over the one by the pond!

Further information and images:

Woodland Trust - Elder

Pond snails

 

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You will often see Great pond snails floating on the pond, sometimes upside down with their foot at the surface, as in the image above. They have a typical spiral shell which narrows to the tip. Spot the snorkel in the picture; they breathe oxygen.

The other large snail in the pond is the Ramshorn, easily distinguished as in this image. These snails also breathe oxygen in a single lung, regularly exposing it at the surface to take in air.

Bladder snail

Besides these two types, there are also the much smaller Bladder (or Tadpole) snails. They also take in air through a siphon and like the others can store some in their shell for buoyancy, expelling a bubble when they want to drop to the bottom of the pond.

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A ‘rout’ of Great water snails

All of our water snails offer huge benefits to the pond, feeding on algae and decaying plant detritus, so keeping the water a bit clearer and reducing deoxygenation problems somewhat.

More images and information:

Freshwater Habitats Trust: Snails

Hornwort

Newt amongst the hornwort

Poor fish, poor pond. The high temperatures of late together with the abundance of hornwort in the pond and the low water level have resulted in oxygen depletion. As a result many in our small shoal of sticklebacks have perished. All being well the newts and beetles and other pond creatures, including the recently laid damselfly and dragonfly eggs, will survive.

Water pumping from the Frome in progress

To alleviate the problem extra water has been added from the river and some hornwort taken out, with more being removed later in the year.

Hornwort pile, waiting for any hidden
creatures to find their way back to the pond

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While hornwort, a native water plant, is a brilliant oxygenator during the day, and the main one in the pond, during the night it takes in oxygen and just now is absorbing rather more than it’s producing.

The plant, which floats under the water, has other benefits, absorbing some nutrients from the pond to limit algal growth and offering a habitat for our newts and other aquatic creatures like the dragonfly and damselfly nymphs. You will also see some in the canal, providing a hiding place for the fish.

Scarlet Tiger Moth

Probably recently emerged, resting on the branch of a horsetail in the sunshine on Wednesday morning, a beautiful moth.

‘Scarlet’ because the hindwings are a stunning colour, peeking through here, but seen most clearly when they fly.

This caterpillar was crossing the towpath in mid-April, perhaps having arisen from its winter dormancy ready to feed-up, pupate and, a month later, transform into an adult moth. Not unexpected in the Reserve as its food plants include Hemp Agrimony and Comfrey, which are growing in the Orchard, besides nettles and bramble. Typically adorned with a colourful warning pattern (aposematic colouration) and toxic hairs to deter predators.

Keep an eye out over the next few weeks as the adult moths are generally only around through May and into early July.

Further information and images

The Wildlife Trusts: Scarlet Tiger

First Nature: Scarlet Tiger Moth

Marginal pond plants

Over the past couple of weeks we have put in some more plants (purchased from Naturescape) around the boggy edges. The images below illustrate the flowers, from the eight different species, that we hope will appear next year.

Cuckoo flower - 10x plugs

Lesser spearwort - 3x super plugs

Marsh mallow - 5x super plugs

Marsh marigold - 3x 9cm pots

Purple loosestrife - 10x plugs

Ragged Robin - 3x 9cm pots

Sawwort - 3x 9cm pots

Water avens - 10x plugs

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