The TV gardener’s experience of welcoming wildlife into his garden seems to have both positive and negative effects.
Gardening legend Alan Titchmarsh has made an incredibly alarming discovery. The television personality who is known for his love of horticulture admits being gobsmacked when a fish in his pond appeared to be a creature.
Although he didn’t anticipate large creatures like otters in the wildlife pond he dug about 15 years ago, Alan, who will be gracing our TV screens this Sunday on ITV’s Love Your Weekend, did look forward to hosting “Newts and dragonflies, damselflies, and perhaps the odd kingfisher.”
In a brief chat with BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine, Alan revealed that for a while, he enjoyed a bustling enclave of miniature beasts skimming his pool’s surface – until an unexpected development occurred. “But then, from somewhere,” he reminisced, adding: “Probably on the webbed feet of a visiting duck, roach arrived.”
Roach are small yet resilient freshwater fish, which can grow up to 14 inches and survive under challenging conditions. Notably, scientists have found that roaches are often the last survivors as rivers or ponds succumb to pollution, reports Gloucestershire Live.
Roaches have voracious appetites, but they are also durable enough to satisfy my needs. “Thinking it was just another species of wildlife to gleefully add to my list, I bought some fish food,” Alan said.
Before Alan said, “Whenever I sprinkle it on the water, the surface turns into something reminiscent of that scene in the James Bond movie where the baddie is eaten by piranhas,” he said. Before all the food disappears, the once limp pool transforms into a foaming cauldron for the entire 30-second period.
Unfortunately, Alan’s roaches have also ravaged the insect population that initially delighted him, not just the occasional banquet of fish food.
In an effort to rebalance his aquatic ecosystem, Alan has even encouraged the growth of an alder tree over the pond in an effort to entice kingfishers to eat the roach.
The destruction of Alan’s beloved cherry blossom was the most depressing of his wildlife encounters. He recalls how “my small, but now 20-year-old plantation of the pure-white “Shirotae” cherry typically causes gasps in early April.
“We spent the weekend away this year just before the festival was scheduled to open.” We left our barn and hurriedly walked around the anticipated view. “.
However, the scene Alan and his wife Alison encountered was “pathetic”. Wood pigeons had decimated the welter of buds.
He lamented that the only blossoms left were those on the slender branches, which were too fragile to support a peckish wood pigeon. He called it “heartbreaking.”
Source: Mirror
Leave a Reply