MAY BUSTING OUT ALL OVER

 Just thought I would start with a cheerful picture.

Then have a moan about sweet peas - what is the problem between me and them? I prepare the soil assiduously, lots of feed and water etc etc. and they just shrivel and die. Admittedly not all of them - I have tied in the few straggly remains in a vain hope of a miracle.

The weather is finally warming up and I managed to mow the lawns on Thursday. 

The gardener has been and taken a load of plants from the pond. They will now sit on the bank for a while to let the creepy-crawlies get back in the water. He has taken some away for someone else's pond. He has also dug up a few hypericums as they self spread too much and replanted them away from the flower beds.

G and L want some welsh poppies, yellow and orange, so I have potted  up a plant of each.

Talking of yellow flowers the azaleas are great and their scent wafts over the woodland margin.

On the lower banking are two Viburnums - the Mariesii and its horizontal branches covered in petals and the wild Viburnum opulus or Guelder Rose.

Another flower just now coming out is the Hesperis matronalis var. albiflora, since I got it from Sarah raven it has self sown and is also 

scented.

Then there is the prettiest tree blossom - the apple.

Of course many trees are flowering now, not least the huge sycamore - this is where the endless seedlings that plague the garden originate. No wonder it is so successful in the wild. In the back hedge by the field grows the wild barberry or berberis. Not common here though there is one other locality not far away.

I wandered down to the shed to check on the seedlings and the pink strawberry is well out. Then I found a clematis in a tree I had completely forgotten about. A nice surprise.

The forget-me-nots are like a blue cloud in the flowerbeds. Self sown they are something for nothing.

We went to Muncaster Castle to see the bluebells but they were over, more or less, Anyway, good to get out in these years of the virus.

 

As are the buttercups in the grass that has been left - I do not mind that but they are a pest if they grow where I do not want them.

Elsewhere are other forgotten plants - the potatoes I missed have come up - do I remove them or just earth them up?

Perhaps I will simply cover them with layers of compost as they grow - thinking about that idea.

And so many Granny's Bonnets, columbines, aquilegias, whatever, self sown and self crossed.

Time for a break, get the soil from under my finger nails, two of the grandchildren are coming to stay so we will be busy.

MAY - MAYBE?

Well, we have had it all, nearly, Sunshine (almost warm), now rain and also hailstorms. The latter flattened my newly planted out seedlings, blasted the petals off the tulips and so on.

It is a cold May and the ash are just getting their leaves - so we will be in for a splash as the oak is ahead - no soak then, or so we thought until Thursday.

We have no swallows. no house martins just house and tree sparrows taking over the nests. The one at the north gable fell off with the death of two chicks.

In the garden I have removed the dead rose and lavateria and tidied the dead wood on the buddleias. I have lightly trimmed the box balls.

 We went to Beetham garden centre for a lunch (and met Ruarri!) and bought a white lupin for the gardening and a stephanotis.

In the house we have an epiphyllum (not the big ones) that belonged to my mother - she died over twenty years ago - and in the garden the yellow tree lupin from her garden. Talking of yellow flowers the welsh poppies are doing well self spreading, the azaleas are full of flower and the berbers is heavy with blooms.

Leaving from the house the top banking is full of the blue camassias and the first oriental poppy is out. The pieris is struggling to escape the clutch of the Rambling Rector rose.

On to the woodland and the start of the glorious display of red campion. The pignut is already lighting up the bankings.

Then to the sanctuary in the far corner, a seat surrounded by trees.

Coming down through the bluebells we reach a working part of the garden with the new compost heaps and bonfire heap. The scar of an old bonfire in the foreground provides wood ash for the fruit bushes.

On to the lower garden past a patch of daisies in the "lawn" - we love them and our lawn would not meet the requirements of a purist - just cut grass, plantain, daisies, the odd thistle (I try to minimise those). The crab apples, a bit hidden away is terrific and the lilac is well in flower above the pond.

The pond is getting full and R is mentioning having steps from the house down to it as shown in this mown path.

Recently, on Facebook, a discussion re Green Alkanet and its relations discussed comfrey. In the garden we have the Common plant and also the white version. I have not yet tried to make Monty Don's smelly fertiliser from them.

Finally I shall finish with a view from the shed up the garden over the pond whilst the sun actually shone.

 

A TRUNDLE IN THE GARDEN

. . . on a dull day.

We come back from a holiday in the Outer Hebrides and the grass needs mowing, the beds need weeding etc etc. 

S the gardener has been and cut back the sallows using the trunks to edge the paths.

I see house martins. A bird flies out of an old nest above the extension window - it is a sparrow.

I put in both sorts of broccoli and a few extra sweet peas. The other tender plants in the shed - ammi, cosmos etc will have to wait. It is still cold. A friend E M who has been keeping records for over 40 years says that April was by far the coldest on record so I am wary.

R wants the pond plants thinning out. The rhododendrons by the top fence are too big. Anyway, I think they may be ponticum and so must be well trimmed back or go.

I have never seen so much flower on the redcurrants. We will have fat blackbirds and thrushes later in the year.

The rhubarb is in fine fettle but the asparagus is disappointing so far - possible the cold spring?

Time for the trundle - out from the house and down under the cherry tree with the bird feeders where the forget-me-nots have self seeded again splendidly. There is still blossom on the pear and greengage, the crab apple and, my favourite of all, the Bramley apple.

Passing the old compost heap where the white honesty is self sown (and goosegrass - so everywhere I have spread the compost the weed is growing) I head for the wood and rhododendrons and azaleas, and scent.

 

And so up to the bluebells. 

I find yet another horse chestnut seedling spawned from the big tree next door that hangs over the top clearing. One of these seedlings (conkerlings?) is now twelve feet high.

Coming back I pass the longer grass on the upper banking, was daffodils, now camassias and cowslips.

There are less of the former today as several lambs wriggled under the field fence and helped themselves. I have put a plank down to close the gap.

Back at the house I see the first welsh poppies, well the orange version rather than the wild yellow, another plant that is allowed to self sow.

The violas in the pots by the back door are thriving and the magnolia stellata just flowers on and on.

R has been weeding, my excellent co-gardener. I try to please her - the convolvulus cneorum is ok but next to it I have failed with the lavateria - looks like it is dead. Perhaps I should wear shorts more like Ben Fogle who was sitting at the next table on our holiday in Tarbert, Isle of Harris.

And I still have to decide what to do with all the box plants in pots . .