WE HAVE HANKIES

 

Yes we have handkerchiefs on our Davidia. We were given it seventeen years ago by my brother and sister-in-law and it has finally flowered.

We watch the tv, visit gardens like Holker Hall and everywhere are thousands of tulips (at some expense) but it is beautiful. We have a few around, must get more for next year. So we potter - well I do, my main gardener R weeds away whilst I fail to light bonfires, put in some purple sprouting broccoli and cosmos, and write blogs. The other gardener A has mown and so on. He got out my mower for the first time after servicing and petrol poured from the filter - a stuck float or something. I await the mower man.

The white comfrey has spread and R has decided to experiment by cutting one plant back hard to see if it will regrow. Talking of regrowth the big osier that was damaged by the snow and was cut right back is sprouting like an unshaven chin.

To the woods, to the woods - that reminds me of an Abbott and Costello film - where the primrose banking and bluebells are in fine fettle. We do have some cowslips and violets too but the wild garlic will have to be watched as it is acting like an alien invasion force.

The red rhododendron is flowering though the yellow azalea is not yet out. The scented rhododendron is almost over, its petals fading and falling.

Here is the glorious sight of a dug and manured veg bed waiting for plants. The other bed alongside it has still got broccoli and for some reason Sweet Williams in it. Another bed waiting is suddenly showing potato leaves - I must have missed them last year when digging them up.

So where does it all come from?