Raided Wasp Nest

There is not much happening in the garden at the moment and not really any colour. We cannot plant any of the usual pretty flowers in an English Country Garden because most things we plant are eaten by the deer. Although there is a riot of colour in the spring, by late summer very little is flowering and the garden is mostly shades of green.

If anyone has any suggestions about late-flowering plants that are not eaten by deer, I would be very interested to hear about them.

I had a walk around the garden today and there are still plenty of butterflies - mostly whites and speckled woods. However, the most interesting find today was the wasp nest which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. When I first found it, it was a small hole about 3 cms diameter. This weekend I found that it has been raided. Quite a big hole has been dug in an effort to reach the nest, but I don't think the marauder was successful because of the tree roots in the way. If you click on this image to enlarge it you will see that there are still plenty of wasps making their way in and out.

I would guess that the culprit is a badger. I believe that badgers eat wasp larvae and sometimes wasps, too. This wasp nest is right next to the badger latrine, which was probably not a very sensible place to build the nest!