THE WILDERNESS EXPERIMENT AND RAMBLING ON

Well not quite but a lot of lawn is now long grass.

Saturday morning, our new parasol has arrived and it is pouring with rain!

Up in the wood then long grass and wild flowers are a treat. There is what I can only call a clearing at the far  end of the garden, surrounded by trees and with a view out over the countryside to the west. There is an old square fence post as a seat and it is a retreat from the hectic world (well not so hectic now we cannot go anywhere.)

 However down in the lower garden where I would mow the grass for extensive lawns, the grass has been left with only a scattering of paths cut through it.

 I would like more wild flowers in there but it is early days. We did have yellow rattle but it seems to have gone so that will have to be corrected.

I was surprised to find how many yellow flowered plants there were by the pond - wild yellow loosestrife and there are large clumps of yellow flag iris some of which has variegated leaves and the mimulus, monkey flower, has self seeded itself as usual. In fact a few plants have appeared by the compost heap.

 Further up on the banking are the large shrubs of Brachyglottis and hypericum.















In the long grass area there are three grey foliage trees - Eucalyptus, weeping silver pear and grey poplar.

I have begun picking the red and black currants - very early this year but it is war! Me versus the blackbirds.

The roses are doing well, you have already had the Rambling Rectors pontificated about but there others - The wild dog rose, Climbing Golden Showers from Davis Austin Roses (we have two), a rose we call the Kirk rose as it was our son-in-law's parents who gave it to us and a red rose on the shed also given to us - by A and P. This last rose is entwined with Lonicera halliana and a clematis montana. 

 
 

The lawns were wet yesterday so no go with the sit on mower - it just clogs up - so out with the other one and a long walk. Still it always looks tidier after a mow. 

S been again and found the source of the spring is under the roots of a willow tree! Being a willow it will not mind.
I have cleared out a lot from the smaller shed - an big old rug, part chewed by mice, and a rusty set of golf clubs - went to the tip where the men said they could not help me hoist the heavy rug up into the skip because of me possibly contaminating them with the virus! 
So I left it at the bottom and either they will have to lift it up or - well, I have no idea. Their problem now.
We await a heatwave though this far north a two day one! 33C expected in London, perhaps 26C here.

So on with the dead heading and weeding.

In the garden there are one or two plants I find special but probably not for any special reason - like the variegated horse radish.
Another is the wild red campion at the woodland fringes. En masse it is a spectacular plant and flowers and flowers before setting seed for next year.

 R bought an evening primrose last year but not a yellow one - a soft pink - and we thought we had lost it. But, no, it is beginning to flower, fighting its way through the overplanting in the bed by the paving. 

Things grow so fast, Doc is almost submerged by the deutzia and a mound of thyme, a little trimming needed there. 

This Doc (well ex doc) also needs a little trimming, if the barbers ever open again. I have threatened to grow a mullet or at least have a ponytail!

That would scare the blackbirds off the currants!


Thursday, 8 am and 20C, going to be a hot day. It looks like the grey squirrels have predated the house martin nests but they are not giving up and building a new one.

We have had the new brolly up at last.

BLISS IS A GARDEN LIKE THIS

It is the weekend and we are in the kitchen drinking coffee. Outside the air is full of liquid sound - an indefatigable blackbird sings.
Yesterday, mowing the lawns at the far end of the garden, a tawny owl glided out of the sallow tree in the hedge, this morning there were hungry rook fledglings being fed in the back field, two birds fluttering their wings, on the outside table the same but this time magpies.

 A buzzard circles over the trees. A pheasant croak cracks the bliss. A small bird, perhaps a young sparrow, flies in through the open garden doors and leaves a message on the coffee table.

I have been down the garden trimming back the osier around the compost heaps - not surprising that the grow so well, probably take all the goodness from the compost.
The white rosebay is in full flood as is the Rambling Rector rose. The peonies are finally out.

Sitting in our extension after having weeded the asparagus bed and saying goodbye to the** gardener who has found two more springs next to the one he has drained is bliss. The flowers are magical but the birds are singing less and getting on with raising their young.

At the point above - ** despite saving in large font the New Blogger is determined to have the type in normal size 😠. See later . . .

The white rosebay is now well out (have to watch it as it is as invasive as the wild pink form) - if it is good enough for Sissinghurst's white garden it will do for us -  and the peonies are just enormous (Sarah Bernhardt)

Colour is everywhere -

the yellow of the first senecio bush (except they call it Brachyglottis greyi now.) The geraniums growing semi wild on the banking are a sea of blue flowers and the red of the oriental poppies go so well with green, any green.

AND TO DRIVE ME MADDDDDD Blogger have changed the way I can write my blog and insert photos and it is taking ages and I want to wring the neck of the idiot who devised this way of doing things - AAAAAAGH!

To move on to some other white stuff -

Rose Rambling Rector to the left - one of two, the other goes 12 metres up the old ash - and the first Ammi major on the right.

Cut-leaved elder is heavy with flower heads which is surprising as it got flattened earlier in the year.

 Outside the kitchen the Philadelphus belle etoile is getting going and pushing out its scent. The Mock Orange I love the best.

One surprise is that the strange foxglove below the kitchen has turned out to be a mullein (verbascum). We did have such a plant there a year or two back but it has obviously self seeded.

The fruit trees and bushes are doing well, too well - the Victoria plum is going to break its branches with the weight of fruit - thinning and propping needed, the black and red currants are colouring up already! Far too early, Can I beat the blackbirds to the fruit?

We will have a good crop of pears and apples but are still a bit far north for the greengages.

Just found I can still use the old Blogger - hooray! And when I look at it the font is the same throughout! And if I then change to the new Blogger the font is the same size so all I have to do is continually switch between the two formats. 😬

Out to the veg beds - hoe and sow more broad beans and broccoli.

I keep waiting for the downpours but all we get are a few drops of rain. However, the other night we had a visitor - 

No wonder we have no hedgehogs, the badgers roll them over and uncurl them.

I am going to ramble on about the Rambling Rector roses again, they are fantastic, the small one to the left, the other up the ash tree right.

 And then there are the wild roses - the pink dog rose or this, the white field rose. They can be vigorous and need controlling yet their simplicity is beautiful.

 Last year I sowed a new bed with poppies and they did not do much. Now the opium poppies, left, and the Californian poppies, right, having survived a mild winter are flowering abundantly. Perhaps not quite on the scale of the Himalayan uplands nor the Californian desert but this is England so cannot complain. 



Finally, when we sit out, we can hear this faint scraping noise all the time. It is wasps gathering wood for their nest from the benches and table (and sheds) leaving behind horizontal marks where they have chewed off some of the surface.
In a few thousand years there will be no benches left.

The weather this year has been so good I do hope that we have not had our summer - it has happened before.

Spoke too soon, Walk around garden, got drink and crisps to enjoy sunshine and - we are awash with torrential downpour, gutters overflowing, plants beaten into submission, only good thing is I will not have to water the garden!

GARDENING ON (BIT OF A LONG BLOG)

Thursday, overcast, worried about our paeonies as the buds seem not to want to develop. Given seaweed feed and water. Picked 8 different roses for a vase, we have about 12 varieties if you include climbers and ramblers. (Also wild roses).
 

The Golden Showers on the left is now full of blooms and the Rambling Rector is just getting going. We have two of both. One of the latter sprawls through a clump of flowering currant, the other twenty feet (6 metres) up the old ash tree I can see from my computer chair. There will be more photos of this rose as it explodes in white up the tree. 

Friday morning and R is doing Zoom yoga on the kitchen floor whilst I am doing the crossword in the extension. The heavens open and it hails. Two cock pheasants fly in heading for shelter in the shrubbery. Then the sun comes out and the garden sparkles in the washed air. I dash out with the camera before the rain comes and drives me in. Just a shower but welcome to a dry garden. The weather has always been a talking point in England but it seems to have lost the plot recently - washed out and flooded in February, record rainfall, and now the driest spring/hottest May on record. I heard today that the average temperature in Siberia has been 10C above average. At this rate we need not worry about any virus as the weather will get us anyway. 

With the rain, lack of contrails in the sky and pollution from vehicles the light is so sharp even some of the leaves, wet and back-lit are stunning. I have picked up the larger stones from the track to the house and barrowed them away. The plants I put in Monday are OK but we have lost one cosmos - neatly chewed to a stem. I have been to the shed and only about six of the parsnip seeds have germinated so far. One would expect more to so do. The sweet peas are the same. When you pay through the nose for the seeds you would expect a better percentage success. And yes I soaked and nicked the sweet pea seeds.

One lot of plants that are good value are the perennial geraniums. We have five or six different ones including these two. After flowering shear them back and you can get a second flush later in the year. 

Saturday, rained in night. I am getting fed up with all the restrictions, they do not announce the many thousands that die of cancer or heart disease every day - we live with that and get on with things. We are going to have to get used to this bug as well. 

Enough - lots of flowers out, Gladiolus Byzantinus, a white veronica, good old chives, red hot poker (Kniphofia) and Allium christophii. The white rosebay is coming out on the banking and swamping our poor old fig. I have cut down the 1.5 metre tall chard as it is going to seed. Shed roof repair time and D is coming today or tomorrow or Tuesday or sometime. The house martins are in the nest and making it bigger. Have not seen the ducks for a few days.
R dragged me out for the three mile walk at back of Penny Bridge - Smithy Green, High Farm, Scathwaite, Bowstead Gates, Ashplants and Toppin Rays. Saw first swifts, now need a rest (again).

And so to Sunday but not as overcast most of day - mowed lawns ducking under the branches of the Victoria plum heavy with fruit, wondered how the field maple Sue gave us has got so big, thought I would show you the last of the aquilegias as R is dead heading them (and chopping back the flowering chives).

Monday, gardener S is here, finishing the spring drain but found another spring nearby! Everything has grown so much since the rain - especially the weeds and long grass. He is now putting small chippings on the paths. 

In afternoon tidied the rose bed then trimmed the knotted willow - and fell over into a hole with my feet above my head. Could I get up - only with difficulty after working out how. 

In the wood are the remains of an old engine and S said he might come and take it for the scrap man. The harden used to be a small-holding and there is a place in the brambles where the previous owner dumped stuff - bottles, old tyres and the remains of an engine.
  
Tuesday and dry (for now). D is replacing the shed roof, the shingles were rotten. Now the shed roof, the old one, is burned. 
This is the rather chaotic half of the cutting bed I have not yet got to. Sweet Williams in front (Stunkin' Wullies in Scotland)(Duke of Cumberland) and red alstroemerias behind (that R does not like much).
There are also some struggling gladioli, white phlox and other things, somewhere.
It needs digging up and de-weeding, then replanting.
    

Just finishing in the garden when I found our resident wasps nest in my garden trunk! They are going in by the padlock (and out). And one of them found me - amazing how fast an old arthritic man can run!  Winegar for wasps please!
 
Wednesday and rain.

Thursday, grey day, windy, can't be bothered to garden so publish blog.