SUMMER AT LAST

We went to Muncaster and missed the bluebells as they were over but the rhododendrons and shrubs were good.

After all the moaning about the cold weather it is Wednesday and 26C. We have been given some canna lilies and now I have to decide where to put them!

I have sown parsley and courgettes, some carrots and tied up the remaining straggly sweet peas - not given up quite yet.

Lawns mown and every time I walk about I pull up broad-leaved willowherb and goosegrass (cleavers).

The banking grass is growing apace and the farmers here are silaging hard.

The woodland floor is mostly red campion but where we have scattered forget-me-nots they mix with there wild pignut to give a different carpet.

The path back down to the house winds between the may and a camellia still out - June!

Over the last couple of years I scattered the ripe seed of the Allium purple sensation and they have now produced flowers.

The wild flower meadow area does have a few yellow rattle but so far little else - lot of work, not much return, keep hoping. The sorrel is flowering but that was there anyway. One plant that is looking good is the white camassia and I have several more in bud but I have forgotten what colour they are so will it be a surprise? Actually unlikely.

Elsewhere the white birches look good in the sun - now reaching maturity. 

We have two benches at the far end of the garden, well planks and such - 

And it is not only flowers that give colour - many new leaves have their own attractiveness whether the choisya or the rhododendrons.

One structural feature of a garden that is without massive structure detail is the curved path in from of the house, looking away or back.

I am now off to seaweed feed and water the sweet peas again - pray for them!

I leave you with the red campion in the wood.

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.