WHO'S BEEN EATING MY PLANTS?

So we have solved the problem about what has been eating our herbaceous plants. R suggested rabbits, I said deer. We were both wrong and the wildlife camera solved it -

Is that two sheep?

No actually at least four sheep.

They had squeezed under the back fence by the cattle grid, pushed aside a big plank that was blocking their way and had a feast. We will have to take new measures to deter them.

So I set up the camera just to check if my defences were good enough - !

I think I will need to go to the zoo and get some tiger poo.

Let me get back to gardening, slugs and nematodes, rabbits and pigeons.

The bank below the house has good shape and tone contrast now it is reaching maturity. Just have to pull weeds everytime I walk past.

The cardoon is thriving and the crambe next to it will soon be in spectacular flower. There are camassias all over the place and this white one growing through a haze of fennel is particularly attractive - will save seed.

We do not have a laburnum in the garden but here is the next best thing

Yes, flowers on the sycamore - a pity it self seeds so much.

No sign of hankies on our Davidia but it is only 16 years old.  Have planted out, a bit late as they were getting leggy, the cosmos.

So, weeeeeeeding and hoeing and planting cauliflower and turnip seedlings and mowing and so onning (and Liverpool cannot get the ball in the net).

We have rain and when it is more than drizzle it washes the air so we can see for miiiiiiiles.

When the gardener comes he is going to strim the lower banking as R and a neighbour have decided to have a Platinum Jubilee celebration at the house - a Jacob's Join. This will mean the big clump of comfrey will go. I suppose it saves me submerging it on a bucket and letting it rot until it forms a dark sticky mess (stinky too) to use as a plant feed. My right hand is tingling as, when weeding around the blackcurrants, I grabbed a handful of goosegrass and then discovered a big nettle in the middle. 😒

So on with the tidying and etc. I put the camera on a fence post by the gate and, guess what, the sheep are wondering what I am up to!

So we are almost into June and the longest day approaches - and the temperature hardly gets above 13C.

What happened to Global Warming?

And where are the swallows and house martins?

And why don't Putin and Boris do a job swap?

On second thoughts perhaps not!

A BIG BLOG, GOOSEGRASS EVERYWHERE

 

Never seen so much. Not just in the garden but in the roadsides, hedgerows, everywhere. And boy does it cleave (other names Cleavers, Hayriff, Doctor's Love, Huggy-me-close, Willy-run-the- hedge etc etc etc.

Has been used herbally for piles, skin disease, scurvy, and shepherds used to use the stems to strain hair out of milk. The roasted seeds have been used as a coffee substitute and I can think if a place or two could try it.

Now R has been out pulling rhubarb and putting it in the freezer - forgot last year. Not that we have as many forcing pots as they have at Threave Gardens near Castle Douglas.

We have been to Gatehouse-of Fleet in Scotland with friends and, of course, walked woods and went to gardens - Castramont and Cally Woods, Threave, Hornel's garden in Kirkcudbright and Logan Botanic Gardens. The gunnera was not quite as big as in 1963! The Botanic Garden was excellent even if we did look at the garden at Logan House first by mistake.

Perhaps the nicest garden was on Hannay Street opposite the Ship Inn in Gatehouse.

Back to The Nook.

Not all flowers have to be bright and in your face - 

BUT some are -

R has been trimming and raking over a veg bed to remove stones. I have been mowing and tidying away old bits of wood and wire netting. 

Veg are sown, well some, and I have put in the canna lilies - we had one last year, division in the autumn has given us six.

Down by the pond we have had a visitor - a roe stag at night having a drink. A bit dark but he is on the right.

Primulas, golden sedge and, yes, gunnera leaves.

So much to do, so little energy, I still am amazed that the bare winter garden can produce so much vegetation in such a short time.

It is Sunday and - wait - it is raining again, off to Pam's Cafe in Kirkby for a coffee and then Crooklands Garden Centre. R bought two deep purple petunias (the ones we put in last year are still alive and have begun to flower again.) Also bought cauliflower, french beans and for R nasturtium seed.

Home, it is raining.

Shrubs are a-flowering - 

Viburnum plicatum "Mariesii"and the wild Guelder Rose.

The Beauty Bush, Kolkwitzia amabilis, and a rare Berberis from Cally gardens - Berberis triacanthophora Cally Rose.

Most of our white lilac has died and I have sawn off the main trunk leaving only two slender stems. We hope they will not succumb too.

We get so much life in a garden but there is loss too, through disease or storm and lately something biting off stems of hydrangea, white rosebay and valerian - not eating them, just leaving them on the ground - birds? or our deer?

SPRING ROARS IN

We go away for five days to Gatehouse of Fleet in Scotland, stay at the Ship Inn walk in Castramon Woods for the fabulous bluebells, meet friends and sort of family (J is a cousin of a cousin.)

Then we come home and find the oriental poppies are out.

R is concerned that our Euphorbia characias Wulfenii is not flowering. In every garden we visit it is in full bloom - Cally Gardens, Logan Botanic Garden, etc. We will just have to watch this space and hope.

We went to the local garden centre and bought some extra sweet peas, chard and broccoli, and a rodgersia to put by the pond. 

P and A's geranium maderense goes on giving.

Elsewhere we have orange - welsh poppies, euphorbia and calendula survivors appearing in the forget-me-nots. The yellow azalea is sending out its scent at the woodland fringe.

We have a small red rhododendron and lots of apple blossom.

Something that I realised sitting in J's garden in Scotland is how good a coffee tastes in the sunshine with spring around one. (And good company)

We have planted three whiteish alstroemerias for R and hope they do well. our own bluebells cannot match the magnificence of those in Castramon but they are thriving and the first red campion is out. Down in the meadow area we have a few plants, lots of Yellow Rattle and also plenty of Ragged Robin.

And then there is the blackbird, sigh! I jammed the nest box that fell with the tree in the storm by the beam at the front of the house - perhaps a nesting tit? No, a blackbird has built on top of it! So I mow the lawn, pull up armsful or is it armfuls of goose grass and bindweed and so on and so on. Think of all the things I have to do and go and make a cup of tea to have with a gluten free biscuit. Oh! For a custard tart. 

PONDY STUFF

This is then path down to the pond lined on either side by self sown wild garlic or ramsons. I am now glad we have a hand rail!

In the pond the water crowfoot, a white buttercup that has to be

 

carefully hoicked out before it takes over, and bogbean are flowering.

Now for a little story - last year my good and generous friend P game me a chunk of gunnera and it produced leaves. However this year so far there was no sign of it - until today - and you can see the first leaf by the meadowsweet and golden saxifrage alongside the ditch stream.

Down by this hedge where the pond stuff grows R planted a small stunted eucalyptus fifteen years ago - and it has grown!

Not far away is an amelanchier also known as serviceberry, sarviceberry, sarvis, Juneberry, saskatoon, sugarplum and shadbush just for a few.

 

Anyway back to the pond which attracts many visitors from a plastic egret to a pair of wandering pheasants.

In the pond itself the usual plants are emerging - flowering rush, water lilies, bog bean, irises and so on and though we had a lot of frogspawn I am still to see some tadpoles but they may be hidden under the pondweed. I have seen large water beetles, newts and water boatmen and whirligigs on the surface. 

We seem to have lost our moorhens and the mallard have also forsaken us this year. A heron has arrived for breakfast but whether I can blame him for the shortage of taddies who knows? The kingcups or marsh marigold light up the darkness between the pond and the stream (ditch).

So drought over, May gosling to you all and it is raining, at last. I got the mower stuck again - it slid off the path and into a bush, had to get the big son to help me lift it out before he goes to Grand Canaria, (and sun).

The Muncaster bluebells will have to be missed this year but Carstramon Wood here we come.

Muncaster is well worth a visit and details are on their website - https://www.muncaster.co.uk/castle-gardens/gardens/bluebellheaven.

And there is a cafe and rhododendrons and birds and heron feeding etc.

On the banking above the pond the shrubs are flowering - Viburnum plaicatum Mariesii, lilac and the yellow tree peony. The latter is a cutting from my late mother's tree and many of the family have it now.

Now I have to go out and, after mending the wheelbarrow, remove the clematis armandii that has decided to grow along the washing line.