WHAT A DIFFERENCE

A mow makes. Finally got mowers back from service and have lightly scalped the grass.

Gardener came and has built two new compost bins by the far wall. In time, when the old bins are empty they will be removed and then will have to decide if that area just reverts to grass or . . . ? 

R has been dividing and replanting snowdrops. I trimmed back the miscanthus a bit more and finally managed to get the bonfire to burn - ash on the blackcurrants next to the emerging chives.

Before the mowers returned I tidied the shed, just in time. Then a seedling order from Sarah Raven arrived - sweet peas (yes, I will not give up), ammi and verbena bonariensis.

Would not want to be a frog as heron paying regular visits.

We went for coffee at friends and I took some white phlox and red alstroemeria. I did warn him the latter tends to spread.

We have had all weather - rain, wind, hail and even sunshine. Actually no snow yet - only on the fell tops.

Inside the extension the Canna lily is glorious. Outside the Madame Lefebvre tulips are the same but vulnerable to the wind. As I have said before they were one of my mother's favourite plants - what an amazing colour - a blast to the senses.

It was, I think, named after Louise-Rosalie Lefebvre (18 June 1755 – 22 September 1821), also known as Madame Dugazon, was a French operatic mezzo-soprano, actress and dancer.

         

We have several big trees in the garden, the largest is this sycamore - registered as a Notable Tree by the Woodland Trust.

Sometimes one digs up the past. I know someone who might recognise this tile.

The introduction of a nyger seed feeder has brought in a shower of glorious goldfinches but one snag of where the feeders are on the cherry tree is that the pheasants and squirrels trample the daffodils below. I leave you with one of the birds.

MARCH HAIR

Spring is here, sunshine and daffodils, primroses and first leaves. Must get to a barber when I can and it is allowed. If the government saw my hair they would be opening a barber straight away.

Best of all wild daffodils -

The veg beds are raked, the pond is skimmed for algae (growing fast as the water warms up) chippings placed where paths have become muddy but the mowers are not yet back - so I cannot mow - even if I wanted to. 

Euphorbias are flowering and the Wulfenii that was flattered by the gales has started to grow upwards again - I should have staked it.

  

We have lots of white plants beginning to flower including the white daffodils across the stream in the wood - the Clematis armandii I thought was dead, violas, comfrey and pulmonaria let alone the winter flowering honeysuckle.

And of course other colours - crocuses, camellia, tulips and flowering currant, the other pulmonaria.

 

In the house the canna lily is exploding with orange - R's favourite colour.

Of course there has been a bit of gardening going on - a bit. The cutting bed has been spruced up and I have replanted the old herb pot with thyme, violas and a gardenia.

The willow in the bottom garden may need to be pollarded now. And the birds are getting fat - well they should be on the amount of sunflower seed they are consuming. They are picky and any seed they discard falls into the waiting maw of the pheasant. Squirrels and pigeons also wait for dropped offerings along with chaffinches that seem to like ground feeding more than clinging on to a swinging feeder.

So we wait for our second jab to stave off the virus though here we have had no cases in the last week. It has been suggested that social distancing and masks may need to be used for a few years - cannot see that happening, British too stroppy in the long run. Our Scottish holiday hangs by a thread of Harris tweed, everything crossed.

So the garden is tidy (ish) and here is a lazy man's collection of things not put away outside the kitchen door.

Yeh! Yeh! I will get to it one day.

ON MOTHER'S DAY?

I get my love of gardening from my mother? Her father? Even if it was, "Can you rake the gravel again, please." On the stairs we have a water colour painting by my Grandfather of his garden at St. Anne's Mount in Liverpool, and the rose garden.

Today is Mothering Sunday - and it is raining.

Again.

I am sure that winters are becoming much wetter, the lawns soggier, the surrounding fields muddier. These are the waterlogged lower lawn areas sown for wild flowers! Fingers crossed.

Anyway - gardening now is about pacing and short bursts - dig, flex knee, stretch back, go over to seat and sit till pulse settles to normal, then repeat. Lots of tea and too many biscuits.

I pick up a few small feathers, a tuft of rabbit fur, perhaps scratched out in a fight? Stick them on top of a post for birds to use as nesting material. One alstroemeria and one phlox have turned into twenty plants of each - I just cannot throw them away so they are deposited on a heap of soil by the apple tree. In fact the red alstroemerias have hundreds of underground roots like long thin potatoes and if I leave just one it will sprout later in the year - as bad as the Japanese anemones.

Wednesday it poured with rain, then Thursday morning we woke to the results of the gale. Fortunately only one pot broken.

Benches on their backs, pots spread around, the Euphorbia characias Wulfenii streamlined across the bed.

Even the bench down by the pond on the decking was on its back.

I have removed the broken pot and put the box into  another. I have still not decided what to do with all these box plants - a hedge, perhaps a bed of box balls at the back of the house?

So the weather varies but this has not deterred the frogs from spawning in the pond, mind you the heron was there this morning looking for breakfast.

There are signs of spring, hellebores flowering and cascades of golden catkin rain in the hedgerows.

When it is cold, wet, windy and foggy then the best place to be is by the wood burner with a good book or the crossword. The small chair is actually the one I was nursed in as a baby!

The amazing Canna lily in the house is flowering again. It is getting so big we will have to build a new extension just to house it. 

Outside the quince is stirring and we will soon have flowers on the flowering currant.

Up in the wood some of the flowers Tom planted many years ago are out, his daffodils and crocus.

Mr Tod has been through the garden again fascinated by the camera - There may be a light he can see on it. Having said that he might be a vixen so possibly Mrs Tod.

And there are flowers coming outside the garden - this is Petasites Albus - the white butterbur, flowers first then the big bristly leaves. The small leaves here are wild garlic. It is in the side of a road up the valley.

The world is a garden - alright not of trimmed hedges and manicured lawns - but sometimes the wild can outdo the ornamental garden - I cannot wait for the bluebell woods to flower in early May - glorious.

And a message to Neil, my good friend, get well soon for we shall be released from lockdown and the Masons' Arms awaits.