THE TOP GARDEN AND WILDLIFE

The garden is beginning to get going - I wonder where all the growth comes from when all there is in the winter are a few shrubs and a coating of manure. White hesperis on the right and purple alliums. I keep hearing that hesperis is a biennial but it thrives as a perennial here. Above the blue forget-me-nots the roses are yet to bloom though in bud and already feeding the blue tits with greenfly.    

Everything is growing - when I put a hazel marker stick in to show where I had planted a small rhododendron little did I think that it would root and sprout! But it has so I have a new tree! A hazel. Nuts!

Today I began the tedious task of lightly forking over the areas of bare earth where the drains were put in, then raking out the stones and finally sowing a rough grass seed.
This is rather boring so I got out the little mower for a change and mowed a way down to the point from the path in front of the house and the lawns to the west - the more formal grass.
It poured all night, even hailed, but this saves me watering the new seed.

A short path has been made from Wendy House to the mown grass at the back of the pond. I put the heron up as I went down the garden.
The path is a base of pebbles overlaid with porous matting and a covering of slate chippings.

This is the way to the wood though the steps need redoing owing to excessive mole activity.
The dominant flower there at this time of the year is red campion, Silene dioica, which seeds itself freely.
At the top of the wood the view is back to the house through the trees, note the bird box on the right and the small figure by the path.

If one turns ninety degrees right then paths diverge - one back down and the other to the far garden.

The far garden is lawn(ish) with a big overhanging horse chestnut tree and borders the field at the back. 
From there one can look down on the new white birches grouped in the southwestern corner.

To wildlife - here is a poor image of the bullfinches on one of the feeders. He really is a handsome bird even if he does like to eat the fruit buds off the trees.

Though the tree sparrows have not nested in the old martin nests, as they were removed last year when the house woodwork was painted, they have done so somewhere. Here an adult is feeding a fledgling peanuts, the young bird littering its wings to get the nosh.


However, sparrows are only one of many things eating peanuts. (We had some very nice almonds with rosemary and peanuts with black pepper and herbs the other day.)


(Everyone else had them with wine but I did not as I was stuffing myself with Metronidazole - an antibiotic related to Antabuse which is a treatment for alcoholism - makes you sick if you drink.)

So, - greater spotted woodpecker and squirrels (of course.)

Yes, this is a pic of a peacock's tail feathers. They are as gaudy as any garden flower but not for us. The squawk of this bird would drive us crazy!

I really cannot believe it is June already, cold and wet and windy like March. I can't believe in lots of things - that Mr Blatter tried to stay on, that one day I will like the soggy sponge at the bottom of a trifle, that the English motorway traffic chaos will improve, that I do not want a cup of tea right now - so to the kitchen and an end to this week's blog.

And a ginger biscuit.