Ivydene Gardens Home: Site Map

Pollution is biggest threat to Wildlife on our UK waterways.

"Why is our water in such poor condition?   

Pollution in freshwater ecosystems includes pathogens from human and animal waste, nutrients from wastewater and agriculture, organic matter from agricultural run-off, and chemical pollution from pesticides and runoff from mines.    

1 Sewage and storm overflows – Water  companies  require permits  to discharge untreated sewage into the local environment, which is allowed under certain exceptional criteria. However, recent monitoring has exposed the alarming rate that sewage is being discharged into our rivers. In 2020, water companies in England discharged raw sewage into  rivers 400,000 times, and  over 100,000 times  in Wales.   

2 Excess nutrients from agricultural run-off –  Agricultural practices often use fertilisers, manure and slurry containing nitrates, including ammonia, and phosphates. These can spill over into our watercourses and feed algae, making oxygen levels in the water to drop, water quality decrease and kill animals and plants living in the water.   

3 Pesticides  including  herbicides  –  Often applied at scale in agricultural systems to control unwanted plants and insects, pesticides can have  significant negative effects  on aquatic plants and wildlife. Costs arising from the contamination of drinking water with pesticides in the UK, has previously been  calculated at £120 million per year.  These costs are then passed on to people who pay for them through their water bills.    

4 Chemical pollution  from mines – Active and abandoned mines and waste heaps can cause pollutants, such as heavy metals, to be washed into local watercourses. It is estimated that over  1,500 km of rivers  in England are polluted by mines, and in Wales, NRW has recently estimated it will cost  £282 million  to end water pollution from existing mines.    

5 Plastic pollution (a  recent report  found that the River Mersey in England was proportionally more polluted with plastic than the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) and

6 Pharmaceutical residue (The  Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development highlights  some stark concerns about the impact of pharmaceuticals entering freshwater systems, including increased risk of some cancers and antibiotic resistance in humans and changes to the behaviour and reproductive success of aquatic species) are emerging threats to our freshwater systems but their impact is understudied.   

Whilst several pressures are causing the UK’s rivers, lakes, and other freshwater systems to be polluted,

• agricultural and wastewater pollution are currently recorded to have the largest impact. 
• Latest reports  from England found that 40% of water bodies are suffering from agricultural pollution,
• and 35% from wastewater from the water industry.
• In Wales, agricultural pollution has caused water quality failures in  113 waterbodies. There is very limited data available on the reasons  behind failing water quality in Northern Ireland, and this lack of transparent information is a recurring issue.    "

from New Report reveals pollution is biggest threat to wildlife on our waterways. Wednesday 15 September 2021 by The Wildlife Trusts.

Verse 1 of Hymn 777 states the following:-

A wiggly, waggly worm, a slipp'ry, slimy slug,
a creepy, crawly, buzzy thing, a tickly, wickly bug;
of all the things to be, I'm happy that I'm me.
Thank you, Lord, I'm happy that I'm me.
I'm happy that I'm me, happy that I'm me.
There's no one else in all the world that I would rather be.
A wiggly, waggly worm, a slippery, slimy slug,
a creepy, crawly, buzzy thing, a tickly, wickly bug.

I have adopted the worm as my logo.

Explanation of Gallery Structure and its expansion capability of this educational non-income-generating-for-me website hobby with more than 217 folders containing more than 17,000 webpages; each of which may be downloaded, copied into a Word-processing Package, the 2 side tables removed and the midlle data table resorted to your requirements:-

Each Plant Description Page may have the following photos in 150 x 150 pixel or larger pass-through graphics:-

• a Flower
• Flowers to show flower distribution
• Leaf
• Foliage to show how the leaves are arranged
• Shape to show overall natural shape
• Fruit/Seeds to show juvenile, mature and old fruit/ seeds

then in each Comparison Page in 50 x 50 pixel pass-through graphics there will be:-

• Flower,
• Foliage,
• Form,
• Shape,
• Fruit/Seeds or
• The plants in Flower Beds

Comparison Pages:-
The comparison pages (see Website Design History Page) in all the other photo galleries including the Cultivated Plant Galleries (See for example the Bulb Gallery) show thumbnail photos / butterflies on the same page for selection purposes. Clicking on the thumbnail photo adds another page (which you can move elsewhere on the monitor screen) giving the detailed text description of the plant / butterfly with more and larger photos. From October 2014, it changes the Comparison Page to the Plant Description Page - currently this is being done for new and previously created Rose and Heather Plant Description Pages (October 2014).

then in the Flower Colour per Month and the Colour Wheel Pages in 50 x 50 pixel pass-through graphics there will be:

• Flower

This adds up to a fair number of photos.

It is worth reading and using the Comparison Menu like the following above the compared images to understand the image and the information in its text box below that image:-

Each Site Map Page is limited by the length of a displayed Page to about 400 web filenames, so with the Comparison Pages this limits the number of Plant Description Pages to about 330.

Because of this for example; the Site Map Page that you link to from the Main Menu on the top left for Bulb is the Gallery that contains all the Bulbs from the other Galleries in 1 of 6 Flower Colours in each of the Months that Bulb flowers in:-

• Autumn Bulb
• Colchicum/Crocus Bulb
• Late Summer Bulb
• Lily and Woodland Bulb
• Spring Bulb

These bulb names are in the Bulb Index Table on the right hand side in every page of that Gallery. This Bulb Index then links to the relevant Bulb Description Page in the relevant Gallery. As more plants are added to a Plant Type like Bulbs, then perhaps another new Gallery will be added to the expanded list and prefixed by ... in the Menu list.

Each expanded list will only then appear in the relevant galleries. This system is repeated for the Wildflowers, Roses, Climbers, Perennials, Shrubs and Trees.

..........

For the Alpine Plants, there is only the following:-

• Alpine List page in Plants Topic,
• in the Evergreen and Herbaceous Perennial Galleries have a blue background to their plant names in the relevant INDEX link to Plant Description Page table in those Galleries. Those galleries also provide the Plant Description Pages and Comparison Pages of those Alpines,
• Rock Garden Plants suitable for small gardens in Colour Wheel Gallery and
• the following pages from Infill Plants Index Gallery:-
  • Alpine Shrubs,
  • Alpine Conifers,
  • The Alpine Meadow Pages 1, 2, 3
  • The Alpine Border
  • The Alpines that Dislike Lime
  • Alpines and Walls
  • Alpines and Paving
  • Sink and Trough Gardens

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IVYDENE HORTICULTURAL SERVICES’S HYMN

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.
But what we never mention, though gardeners know it’s true,
Is when He made the goodies, He made the Baddies too.

CHORUS

All things spray and swattable, disasters great and small,
All patios paraquatable, the Lord God made them all.
The greenfly on the roses, the maggots in the peas,
Manure that fills our noses, He also gave us these.

The fly that gets the carrots, the wasp that eats the plums,
How black the gardener’s outlook, though green may be his thumbs
But still we gardeners labour, midst vegetables and flowers,
And pray what hits our neighbours, will somehow bypass ours.

The greenfly on the roses, with garlic round each root
Ivydene then assaults their noses, and gives the fly the boot.
The worms that eat your compost, the worms that eat the shreddings,
Help production from your roses for red flowers in your weddings.

All things bright and beautiful ……

I watched the program about the slums in Bombay, India last night (15 January 2010), where the inhabitants wanted fresh drinking water and sanitation.

Perhaps if they had a self-imposed tax - of donating 1 day per fortnight and the pay of that day for those who earn money - to pay for and create that water supply and sanitation. For those too old to earn money, they would only donate 1 day per fortnight of their time.

A large pipe could be attached to the wall alongside the river into which pipes could be put from the latrines overhead. The pipe could lead to a new lake area downstream where the effluent could flow through reeds set A that would clean it up (BritishFlora know which plants to use). If there is no area to create the lake in, then cover over the river for about 300 yards and use that (0-50 yards are cleaning reeds A, 50-100 is solids settlement/ vegetable area, 100-200 settling lake,150 clean water pumped out for recycling to sewage drains and irrigation for vegetable area, 200-250 vegetable area/ solids settlement, 250-300 are cleaning reeds B). When the water in the lake is clean enough, a small fish farm could be set up in the middle of the lake to provide protein for those too young or too old to work. If there is too much clean water for recycling, then the excess can simply be allowed to irrigate vegetable area B, which can be used to grow vegetables for those too young or old to work. The remainder of the end water could then be recycled using solar power to the start of the latrine pipe so that the effluent would drop into a pipe with flowing water in it. Every few months (vegetable growing season time period) the sewage would be switched to the other set of reeds/vegetable area, as would the irrigation water and the excess soil created in the last vegetable growing period could be sold off to become a mulch on the fields for the farmers outside the city. Excess cleaned water could then be discharged to the river.

Another large water pipe could also be attached to the same wall and small plastic pipes could be led off it to 1 of 24 water areas. Each water area would receive water in one of the 24 hours. These small thin 1" diameter plastic pipes could be either put under the walkways between the houses or at first up on the outside walls and strung over the gap to the next house. Smaller diameter 0.5inch pipes would then be taken from this 1" pipe to each household.

Sanitation could be done using 4" pipe under the walkways and leading into the river sanitation pipe (The toilets in the houses could be fitted with macerators to create a sludge to put down the 4" pipe, rather than solids/liquids). Washing up water could be stored and put down the outside drains at the end of the hour when water is supplied to the household, thus clearing the drains in the street or into the household sanitation pipe where the macerator is. Recycled water from the lake could also be used to flush the 4" sewer pipes in the same hour and same area; when the fresh drinking water is being supplied to that area.

About once every 4 months, all workers in one water area could carry out a major project on sanitation/water supply on the same day, like submerging the fresh water and sewage pipes under the walkways between the habitations. These might be put into a Civils Polychannel SK system to provide easy access for replacement or additional pipes.

Low-growing sedums (Enviromat) could be planted on areas of roof to provide oxygen to breathe, flowers and cool the room below.

Vertical vegetable growing areas could be created using the Mobilane system and solar-powered irrigation.

The above systems could all be manufactured, installed and maintained by the slum dwellers, without cost to the city. It would improve the morale and living conditions of everyone living there.

Even the rubbish tips could be split into 2, so that quick-growing trees for paper production or plants for Bio-fuel for vehicle engines could be grown and the methane produced underground used for heating communal showers/laundry water. Once harvested, that surplus ground soil is sold off and the rubbish tipped onto that site, before the other rubbish site then grows that crop.

Perhaps Herbert Dreiseitl from The American Society of Landscape Architects can improve the above idea, since he has the holistic approach and interpersonal skills to be able to improve any environment.

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"It has been widely reported that Einstein said that without bees to pollinate our food crops humans would die off in just 4 years. He was wrong, we will die off in 7 years. We have been warned, but will it do any good? We are the most intelligent animal that has ever lived, but we have not yet acquired the ability to learn from our mistakes, and we continue to elect politicians who promise us jam today and jam tomorrow. Isn't it time we grew up?" from The Bumblebee Pages

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Heather created the original single folder website and now she has gone up in the world with photography. You can also view her other 154 images as a slideshow.
Chris Garnons-Williams has increased the number of folders to over 200.

This row gives a very clear overall description of the
Cultural Needs of Plants
from Chapter 4 in Fern Grower's Manual by Barbara Joe Hoshizaki & Robbin C. Moran. Revised and Expanded Edition. Published in 2001 by Timber Press, Inc. Reprinted 2002, 2006. ISBN-13:978-0-
88192-495-4.

"Understanding Fern Needs
Ferns have the same basic growing requirements as other plants and will thrive when these are met. There is nothing mysterious about the requirements - they are not something known only to people with green thumbs - but the best gardeners are those who understand plant requirements and are careful about satisfying them.
What, then, does a fern need?

All plants need water. Water in the soil prevents roots from drying, and all mineral nutrients taken up by the roots must be dissolved in the soil water. Besides water in the soil, most plants need water in the air. Adequate humidity keeps the plant from drying out. Leaves need water for photosynthesis and to keep from wilting.
All green plants need light to manufacture food (sugars) by photosynthesis. Some plants need more light than others, and some can flourish in sun or shade. Most ferns, however, prefer some amount of shade.
For photosynthesis, plants require carbon dioxide, a gas that is exhaled by animals as waste. Carbon dioxide diffuses into plants through tiny pores, called stomata, that abound on the lower surface of the leaves. In the leaf, carbon dioxide is combined with the hydrogen from water to form carbohydrates, the plant's food. This process takes place only in the presence of light and chlorophyll, a green pigment found in plant cells. To enhance growth, some commercial growers increase the carbon dioxide level in their greenhouses to 600ppm (parts per million), or twice the amount typically found in the air.
Plants need oxygen. The green plants of a plant do not require much oxygen from the air because plants produce more oxygen by photosynthesis than they use. The excess oxygen liberated from the plants is used by all animals, including humans. What do plants do with oxygen? They use it just as we do, to release the energy stored in food. We use energy to move about, to talk, to grow, to think - in fact, for all our life processes. Although plants don't talk or move much, they do grow and metabolize and must carry on all their life processes using oxygen to release the stored energy in their food.
Roots need air all the time. They get it from the air spaces between the soil particles. Overwatering displaces the air between soil particles with water, thereby removing the oxygen needed by the roots. This reduces the root's ability to absorb mineral nutrients and can foster root-rot.
Plants need minerals to grow properly. The minerals are mined from the soil by the plant's root system. If a certain mineral is missing, such as calcium needed for developing cell walls, then the plant will be stunted, discoloured, or deformed.
Some plants tolerate a wide range of temperatures, whereas others are fussy. If the temperature is too high or low, the machinery of the plant will not operate satisfactorily or will cease entirely.

The basic needs of plants are not hard to supply, but growing success depends on attending to these needs with care and exactitude. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to a discussion of these requirements, with the exception of mineral needs, which are discussed in Chapter 5.

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