Wordless Wednesday: Teeny Tiny Snails
For Apple Day: Eat your way to the river
It's Apple Day, one of my favourite days of the year and what better way to celebrate than to tell you about my recent trip to Longney, where Gloucestershire Orchard Trust have 18 acres of apple orchard under their tender care. Here you'll find older orchards with some trees well over a century old, plus their newer plantings of around 94 Gloucestershire cultivars which have just acquired national plant collection status at Plant Heritage . The jury's out on the actual number as DNA testing has revealed at least one locally named variety is actually a more well known one: Ribston Pippin in this case. Don't worry, there are dozens there which definitely have their origins rooted firmly in Gloucestershire and their cultivation at Longney is vital to their continued presence and preservation. There were around 200 local varieties at one time and today it's around 100 still in existence. Steve Mason - the Trust's Curator - was our knowledgeable guide who invited ...
Oh they're pretty. Will they grow up to be huge hosta-eating snails though..?
ReplyDeleteVery cute..... but also grrr snails :)
ReplyDeleteCJ - I'm intrigued by them. They look very much like the tiny freshwater snails I'm used to seeing when I do stream survey work. But which of the familiar ones in the garden do they grow up to be? I'm sure they'll like my hostas though!
ReplyDeleteGaz - yes they are! But half an hour later they'd disappeared :/
They certainly are different from the baby snails in my garden, which have pretty flat shells. Perhaps you're about to become a site of special scientific interest!
ReplyDeleteWhy do babies of any species look so cute?
ReplyDeleteWhat was their fate?
Did they live to see another day or did you despatch them?
Helen - we nearly moved to North Wales a few years ago and the house I liked the look of did have a SSSI in its garden!
ReplyDeleteDobby - they simply crawled away! I'm trying to find out what they were because they're unlike the usual garden snails we see and they look much more like freshwater snails.