You definitely have to be careful what you wish for when it comes to the weather. June was hot and very dry. I then go away for 2 weeks holiday and come back and it seems like it has been raining for all that time. The difference on the Moss is amazing. An inch or 2 of water lies across the moss surface making every step splashy, the ditches are trickling and burbling and the whole moss has swelled and bloomed with colour. The sphagnum has been transformed from a faded, dry and crispy carpet to a luxurious, soft bright duvet, the difference is like a pot noddle before and after you have added the water. The time of cotton grass is almost over and now the later bog flowers are coming out. The spikey, canary yellow bog asphodel are coming out while the alien looking bright red, fleshy sundew are sending up in complete contrast their delicate snow-white drop-like flowers.
So as always with bogs water is the key and as this is a raised bog, that is the dome of peat is raised above the surrounding land the only source of water is going to be from the sky.
I did speak to a farmer later on today and he quietly (so his neighbours couldn't hear) admitted that it had been getting a bit dry even for him so secretly he was a glad for some rain, at least his second cut of silage will be OK. It isn't often that a bog manager and a farmer agree !
