The cloud finally cleared this afternoon to give several hours of warm sunshine but by the time I got home the clouds were rolling in again.
At home I am concerned to see that our neighbour has made an earth roadway over the stream that flows a few feet from the back of the house, through the bog garden and then about 20ft before flowing into his small lake.
He has put in 2 pipes , about 2ft diameter each but in the winter storms lots of branches get washed down the stream and it wouldn't take too many to block the pipes. It's been a problem just having a wire fence across the stream at the boundary which gets clogged up quite easily.
My concern is that even though he has a gate at the end of the field next to the stables, he has put at least 4 ft of soil over the pipes creating a potential dam so that he can drive his tractor in from either end. I think the level of the soil is as high as the lawn by the house which is already a foot higher than the house , not good if the stream was to flood. It often covers the whole of the bog garden and the path but has always been able to flow down into the lake so hasn't been a worry. The other problem is that our neighbour is not always approachable and is quite precious about his land. Peter thinks the level is just below our garden level but I have asked him to check with the waterways authorities if some sort of flood risk assessment should have been made before we talk to our neighbour. The problem could be resolved if our neighbour would make a dip of a couple of feet over the stream to allow flood water to escape over it. Perhaps we'll just wait and if flooding looks like it is about to happen we'll go over and dig a channel through the top of his dam.
The bog garden itself is looking full of promise at the moment with lots of astilbes and the arum lilies just beginning to show.
A view of the garden from down by the stream.
