SOME RAIN AT LAST

Except it makes the grass grow and difficult to mow.

The potato has had its chips and succumbed - so to the compost heap.

We have had P doing the paving last R's request, redoing the grouting.

It is Thursday afternoon and rain is falling - as I have heard in Ireland - a soft day.

When we were away we visited a few gardens on the way home - Aberglasney and Powis Castle.

Two images from Aberglasney - one of the fountain and one of a gunnera flower - hope our plant will one day flower but too small so far.

At Powis Castle we admired their hollyhocks and enormous hedge - I am glad I do not have to trim that.

I came home yesterday to find a cormorant in the drive. It struggled through the fence into the horse paddock. I could not see any injury - perhaps it was just tired?

The amount of work in the garden just seems to grow - weeding, dead heading, cutting back etc but I do not yet have the courage to really let parts go. There is an inbuilt desire just to keep things under control.

We still have opium poppies in the garden and I am letting the seed heads be - for more next year and anyway because I like the link of them. The pink Japanese anemones are also coming into flower - all a bit earlier this year including hedges now full of blackberries.

Some plants are often not welcome in a garden like the nettle, urticaria dioica but they are a feed plants for butterfly caterpillars, flying flowers, so a patch is always worth keeping. A garden in a way is itself one large complicated organism with flora and fauna interacting. Neglecting one part can well affect others. I am not taking zoology nor botany but ecology. It is always interesting to observe the interactions between different aspects.

Not many plums but eating those we have from the tree. The apples are a flop, the pears look good and we will have some damsons - and the rhubarb is BIG!

Here and there is the self sown white mallow my sister gave us - still thrives both ibn the flower beds and on the wild banking.

Paving pointed the "wildflower meadow" has been now strimmed and the cuttings left to lie for a few days so seed can settle. 

Still picking the seed peas -

HOME AGAIN

So - home again from Wales and it is cold - 12C today - and raining ++. Everything is overgrown. Weedy paths and weedy beds and weedy paving - all to do.
I have cleared the ash and brambles and nettles from the gate down the lane - and then it rained so panic dash to get the washing in.

Though the feeders are empty, within half and hour of restocking there are birds everywhere. (And a squirrel). (And three rabbits on the lawn).

All the remaining gooseberries have gone and the bushes are plagued again by sawfly caterpillars. There are no redcurrants left and the blackcurrants have taken a beating.

On the way to Wales we stopped at Aberglasney Gardens near Llandeilo - we have been several times since the restoration first started and was on Welsh Television. That was before digital tv and we lost the ability to get signals from the Denbigh transmitter.

In the sunken garden is a fountain shaped in a ball - spot the photographer.

There is an ancient yew tunnel near the front door and a lot of work has gone on in the woodland.  The large leaves on the right are gunnera. The house is just visible through the trees.

 

In the garden there is a collection of different rue and one or two interesting planting contrasts like here with the calendula and the cerinthe.

At home we have finally got in the garden and I got in the pond - unintentionally! I was cutting back the mimulus when I slipped on the liner and splash - up to the knee on the left. R has been dead heading and weeding. I did some of the same, wove the willows in around the posts of the compost heaps.
Whilst we were in Wales R bought me a seat to hang in a tree. Now I need to find the right branch to fix up a rope or chain and hook - and some decent weather.

Thursday and finally mowed - after the rain some areas really boggy despite draining. Have cleared the top banking now and it looks better. It will green up quickly.
R weeded the veg beds.
I dug up a few miserable red potatoes for supper, picked about 30 raspberries (the ones the blackbirds have rejected) and then salvaged a bowl of blackcurrants to give me a job picking them over in front of the tv tonight.
I have also put weedkiller on the paths AAAAgh!! shout the organic gardeners but as I have a total staff of myself and R and a lot of paths . . . . . well?

In the wood found a large branch fallen off an ash tree. This will need cutting up for the wood burner.

To the alchemilla question - this lot have been sheared by R but there are other clumps not yet done. There are seedlings everywhere, in beds, on paths etc etc.
Lovely as it is it is becoming a bit of a weed - and difficult to get out.

To the weather question - there is a danger of frost tonight in some places - expected to be about 4C here - in July/August!!
My son and daughter-in-law are basking in 24 hour light up on the Arctic Circle. If I were them I would stay there where it is warm.

Friday and the last day of July - I am listening to England winning the cricket against Australia. (For those in the USA this is like baseball but with only two bases - you run back and forth instead of round and round and a match can last from an afternoon to five days. Statistics are, however, a big part of both games.)

Finally to the mystery of the blog - I have just had 219 hits from Italy! I have not  mentioned Berli-whatsit who is ?off to join Gerard Depardieu in Moscow? The mind boggles.

Ah! Sweet mystery of blog. (Naughty Marietta.)

BIRDS AND WASPS AND WAISTS

Let me tell you 'bout the birds and wasps  . . . (Jewel Akens?)

No, I must stop moaning about my ITCHY!!!! arms where I was stung (got an allergic reaction) - so I will.

Insects are not the only danger - here is lovely rue but beware the sap - a blistery thing.

This very small out of focus photo is a NUTHATCH! Finally after 8 years we have one visiting us - about time.

Treecreepers go up trees and nuthatches come down as you can see. They usually hunt in cracks in the bark for goodies - well for them - would you like to eat what they eat?

Just now R was in the kitchen when two swallows flew in, did a few circuits and then left by the open garden doors. We have also had wooly bears (the caterpillar type)(this is England after all) in there, presumably looking for a pupating spot.

I have mentioned other gardens before and this one is Aberglasney near Llangathen in Wales. In the old days of Analogue television we could get Welsh tele from the Denbigh transmitter about ninety miles away. We watched the programme on the restoration from the start.

Now we are DIGITAL we have lost the Welsh tele and often all the rest too as fine weather interferes with the signal. So much for digital being better!

Moving on - have begun to clear out the ditch/stream by the bottom hedge and cut back weeds and grass. Geraniums gone over are clipped and the early pale lavender sheared.

Two stars in the flower world are these white beauties - lilium regale on the right and nymphaea alba, the white water lily on the left.

The pond liner has not yet arrived and I was wondering where, out of the rain, I could put it - then I realised - twit - it is going on the bottom of a pond and can be left out in the rain!

I am sometimes surprised at what plant breeders and hybridisers can do with roses. On the right is a simple rose akin to the wild briars, on the left Emnma Hamilton from David Austin Roses, big and blowsy, heavily scented but fragile in the rain. Yet they are both closely related.

The plums and damsons are ripening and will need picking soon. We still have plums from last year in the freezer so jam and chutney making time is coming to make room for the new crop.

One veg I have found does not freeze to well is (are) (no is) broad beans. I will have to soup them, removing the chewy skins.

My son R has challenged me to a diet as I am a big fat flabby chappie, my wife moans about my biscuitophilia and I have several shirts I have not got into for a few years.
No more secret Kitkats, diet coke not beer.

I will report on how much I have lost but I am not going to tell you what I weigh - I mean I am stocky and have big bones and all that.