Frosty morning 3 - bark and black plastic

A garden is a lovesome thing God wot, but our garden has a fair few unlovely areas, it must be said.  Still, a degree of dishevelment  is good for the wildlife, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  So the ceanothus which died in the cold winter we had last year mostly still lies where it fell, its bark peeling off, as the frost picks out..  I daresay something is using it for food or shelter, if only micro-organisms.

Black plastic has always played quite a significant role in garden management hereabouts, the heavy duty kind sold for making silage clamps.  Currently its holding the raised vegetable beds in stasis. I can't really claim that it's especially eco-friendly as its main purpose is to stop anything growing, but toad and newts and bugs and snails and such like do live under it, and it does do interesting things when it freezes, and the puddles  which collect in it trap dead leaves and other litter.

It's held down by pieces of old roof slate and rocks, which the thrushes use as anvils to break the snails they find in abundance in the many neglected corners of the garden.