A SHAKE OF THE HEAD

 The cardoon is assailed and ailing, beset with aphids and stunted. The wilder garden is too wild and after the rain flattened grass. 

The buddleia is out with bees and butterflies - painted ladies, red admirals, small tortoiseshells and gatekeepers not to mention various whites so I won't. 

And there are bursts of colour here and there and in one or two other places.

Though there are a few of the essential whites.

The pond is a dance hall for damselflies even though there is still little water in the stream - there are a few mole hills in there though.

And we have some fruit - a few greengages and apples but loads of plums, pears and damsons.

One colour that I am not enraptured by is pale mauve pink -

 

Acanthus (very prickly)(in fact a vicious plant) and the lace cap hydrangea at the woodland edge.

So, at least, we have bearable temperatures as long as I have my fleece.   

I cannot see why people are expressing surprise - we have been warned for years that if the politicians did not get their act together this would happen - and it has! It is probably too late to do much (except move to Iceland.)

As a bit of a fogey I am not too worried for myself but for young people this might be a nightmare? Time to make selfishness illegal?

Some chance.

FOGEYING ON

So we are back from my reunion - 53 years after graduation down the 'Pool. Covid made us all three years older. 

And the Annabelle has collapsed in the rain, the grass still needs mowing, all the currants and raspberries are inside blackbirds and thrushes, and it all seems a bit surreal.

One of the first things I do after returning to the garden is to walk around and note - what's died, only one shrub, what has grown and then have a cup of tea. We came back via the village of Downham that R remembered from many years ago but wasn't the right place when we got there.

The magnolia grandiflora, threatened by R as it was not flowering, has flowered - big short-lived scented creamy blooms.

And down across the pond Pam's rose is clambering through the hedge. We call it Pam's rose because my much younger partner Pam R gave it to us when we first moved in.

Plants in the house need watering and hidden away in a kitchen cupboard when R is looking for something for the evening meal we find a couple of potatoes. "Stick 'em in the garden," she days and I will - if it would stop raining.

My old friend P from New Zealand is over so I am posting this photo of our flax for him and the agapanthus we saw so much of in Auckland is now beginning to show its best, though I seem to remember we had a white one two and I have no idea where that is - perhaps another casualty of the winter.

The plum is loaded and I regularly remove any dodgy fruit - in fact may have to thin them out though the tree does some of that itself. Nothing better than a ripe juicy Victoria plum straight off the branch.

And the devil is back, Lucifer blazing forth its bloody petals.

So I look out of my window at the pouring rain and what with Liverpool and the weather it reminds me of an old joke (groan!)

A teacher in Liverpool was asking the children what things were and turned to one small lad, "What is thistledown Johnny?" she asked. He had no hesitation in relying instantly, "Rainin' like bloody 'ell Miss."

WILDING ON

 

Today our fortnightly gardener is here. The long grassed “wild” areas are gathering flowers. In the lower garden he has found places where deer have spent the night - presumably our roe deer. The weather has turned cool and damp and the redcurrants have all been eaten by the birds. The netted veg survive. I have pruned the redcurrants hard.

The cardoon has black fly and will need treating with soapy water and this has been done. 

I thought the gunnera was dead but have just discovered one big leaf deep in the undergrowth by the ditch.

The big damson by the veg beds is too big, has low spreading branches and is shading out the rhubarb and autumn raspberries. I do not want to prune it until after the harvest but . .  

Andrew has mown the rougher lawn  areas and strimmed the sides of the now dry stream. He is giving the beech hedge a haircut and may progress to heaving out much of the bogbean from the pond where it is choking everything else. I put it in for nostalgic reasons (it grew on the farm where I grew up) but it is a tough wild plant and thrives too well.

 

I am reading Lee Schofield’s Wild Fell and have reached page 297 and Chapter 18 The Future. I have always wanted to win the lottery big and buy up land, put a low fence around it and go away, let it do it’s thing. Where I grew up at Coniston on a sheep farm much was grass fields though we did have hay meadows. Then there were the more inaccessible rough areas of scrub, gorse and bracken before the high fell. Globe flowers by the beck, orchids, bog asphodel and grass of Parnassus in the wetter areas, it was where I would wander alone enjoying the wildness.

Now the area is peppered with tourists and hikers, a while ago I went to a secret place by the water to find a family having a picnic. But all things must pass as so will I one day. I took the gardener to the far garden and he had not realised we have a hidden corner tucked in the trees.

Flowers and this is the time of the brachyglottis (what a mouthful, the old name of senecio has to be better if not strictly accurate).

Elsewhere the philadelphus has been covered in flowers and the scent wafts around by the kitchen.

Lots of yellows in the garden - the rue and alchemilla to name but two.

And ilium regale, not so good this year but no cardinal beetles at least.

The shrubs by the main lawn (if you can call it that) are overgrown and mowing is done with one arm outstretched to get under the branches - pruning due. The same is true of the plants creeping out onto the main path but they do break up the sharp edges. 

There are times when I long for a window box but then again . . 

Off to a reunion at Uni next week, bit apprehensive but what the hey!