FRUIT TREES AND BERRIES AND WONDERFUL FLOWERS

The Bramley apple blossom is the best I have seen it and for the first year have good blossom on the crab apple John Downie which is good for cross pollination. The Conference pear has put out some flowers but not a lot and the greengage is growing well but no blossom. We will just have to hope for next year.

The strawberries are also full of flower, and promise. Even though they do not make the best setting jam their taste is so special - especially when they are picked and eaten straight away. We have several varieties but I cannot remember what they are all called - Royal sovereign, Cambridge favourite and others.

On the right is the sad picture of the pear tree, half dead and dying. However I remember at a previous house we had a hazel pear, very old, riddled with beetle holes and yet it gave lots of small, rather nutty fruit. On the left you can see the gooseberries are coming on and, so far, no sign of mildew and sawfly - so far. 

I have been at the brambles again and am well nettled and scarred despite gauntlets. However the far garden is coming on. When I have finished I will have to decide what to do with it. One good thing was as I cleared the jungle I found frogs! This is one of our rhododendrons flowering well at the woodland margin.

This is one of the stars of the May garden - a glorious blue poppy.

And we are getting out first roses  - this is Rhapsody in Blue (even though it is not really blue but what rose is.)

Flowers are not the only colour, the leaves of this shrub light up a darker corner especially when the sun is shining. Leaf colour can be so important in a garden - after all the most common colour is green.

Just watched birds on the feeders outside my windows. The tits grab a sunflower seed and head for a nearby twig where they carefully remove the coating before pecking at the contents. The finches take a seed and twiddle their beaks until the coating comes off, then swallow the seed, then take another. 


Here us the cock pheasant bedraggled in the rain - hence the steamed up window through which it was shot (chaffinch for a bonus item).

The yellow tree peony just goes from strength to strength - such a good colour.

And today I started rejuvenating the pots - osteospermums and pelargoniums plus a herb pot on the left - variegated marjoram, dill, puple and green sage and thyme. The pot beside it is apple mint left over from the winter window sill. There is loads elsewhere in the garden as there is rosemary and ordinary marjoram, sweet cicely and lovage.

Today we went to Langholm Mill and then stream garden - our trickle struggles on - envy!