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 -

IRISH MIST

For some time now all the Bushnell camera has caught are squirrels, rabbits and cats plus the odd bird.

But now a glimpse of a badger then - 

Reynard is hunting in the garden.

So we went to Ireland gathering ideas for the garden - on the way we stopped off at Castle Kennedy for a coffee and a walk in its splendid walled garden and herbaceous borders. Then we walked down to the big pond/lake that needs a bit of dredging.

The red hot pokers (knifofia) were indeed splendid, ours flower in June not September. 

One place we visited was Glenveagh Castle in the wilds of the Donegal Mountains, surrounded by coach loads of Americans.

At the back of the castle was a walled garden with interesting plants. R said take a picture of that, and that, so I did.

In Falcarragh we went to Cluain na dTor Nursery & Gardens, a fascinating place with this display in front of mirror glass. 

Also R was taken by the idea of grasses grown in the lawn instead of the flower beds as we have now.

We have had this one in the garden but it dies. I think it is Anne Folkard. The anapthalis is another she chose which we have had in previous gardens. Obviously some shopping to come. There were a couple of interesting ideas though - Growing marigolds with red cabbage and vegetable with cosmos. as shown here. Companion planting is something we must try.

One thing at Glenveagh that appealed was the lily pond by the lough - it used to be a heated swimming pool - okay but the thought of midges would be a worry.

And then it was good to get home and mow and weed and pick up fallen twigs and cut the banking and find we had yet more marrows on the courgettes and feed the birds and wonder what has happened this years to the seasons with things flowering two months late because of the drought or, in the case of the sweet peas, yet again not flowering at all.

THE WILD WOOD

Here at The Nook we have tried to recreate a small area of native woodland and we do have most of the native common wild flowers.

Today, Saturday, we went to Sea Wood, managed by the Woodland Trust, and experienced a true wood in spring. 

There are well trodden ways through the trees but this means the rest of the wood is left to nature. Some of the trees are old and gnarled.

The place is full of wild flowers -

Primroses

 Lesser celandine

Dandelions and Wild Garlic or Ramsons,

The wood anemones formed extensive carpets and there were some pink variations. Even in the limestone rocks and boulders there is new life - here a small seedling tree. Jays and woodpeckers flew between the greenery, there were wood mice holes in banks and bumble bees competing with the calls of birds we could not identify. We love the spring.

Mind you the ash and sycamore seedlings are a pest in the garden and I have to yank them out incessantly. There were swathes of bluebells but they will need another week or so before they attain their peak like these from last year at Muncaster Castle.