THE BEST TIME OF THE YEAR

 So, there I was going to the new veg beds, newly surrounded by chicken wire fencing and about to sow some Sweet Williams and wallflowers for next year when there was a disturbance and a large rabbit jumped the fence and scurried away. Where I had planted some broccoli there was a big hole and no plants!

That is all I need - leaping rabbits. I mean sheep and deer are bad enough but - 

I love this time of year, May and June, the birds still singing, everything growing, light and shade though this photo is a bit of a cheek as it is of the Green Lane at Orcop Hill in Herefordshire!

It is Sunday and I look up the garden from an upstairs window. There are four rabbits on the lawn! Two adult, two smaller and they are eating the grass. Later I walk down to the compost heaps to empty the kitchen waste bin and then search for a rabbit hole. Nothing! As R says they are coming in from all sides to dine on our luxurious plants.

So to flowers, flowers and a few favourites -

This is one called The Poet's Wife and given to us by our children.

Of course, having a wild garden (jungle) we have wild flowers too - The simple meadow buttercup, foxglove and green alakanet.

Do not talk about veg beds - no germination of carrots or parsnips, some signs of beans, chomping slugs despite nematodes though first signs of potatoes albeit put in late. We have let the asparagus go, there are signs that french beans are appearing and fruit is on some of the fruit trees. The currants look good but they will also look good to the blackbirds.

Sometimes it is not colour and contrast that catches the eye, shape and design can too like the Allium Christophii.

At the moment I am reading Time Song by Julia Blackburn about the lost world of Doggerland in the North Sea. It makes one realise that everything in the garden is so transient as is life in general. It has been suggested that we are heading for a new Extinction like with the dinosaurs (though they fly around the trees today - birds) but this one is caused by a plague called humanity. Actually a dinosaur is still pecking on our glass doors.

Cheer up lad, the Rambling Rector rose is flowering in the old ash tree and has survived the winter storms.

So I leave you with rabbits, again - a small one having breakfast by the pond.

It is only when the wind gets up that you realise what you have forgotten to stake so job to do.