POTATOES, RHUBARB, A NEWT AND ROTATING SHEDS

Today is Sunday and we have been to look at a garden at Tomsteads in Woodland. B and B saved us some excellent cake and a mug of tea before we walked around the seven acres - mostly wild garden, extensive water but good hard landscaping from B & B's son C. Tomsteads has otters - jealous! It is warm for May, 24C, and we sat out when we got back even though it had clouded over. No doubt it will be chilly again next week.

Sometimes a day can change abruptly - Monday and it starts with a planned haircut and visit to the doctor.  It is 25C and I mow the lower banking and at 12.30 - the highlight of the day - our first asparagus - wonderful steamed and dressed with a little melted butter. Things are looking up (I still have mot get my hair cut (it has gone quite white) and go to the Doc.

I have tried to grow new potatoes in sacks before and failed but seeing Monty Don do it on tv I thought I 
would have another go. The sacks are old wild bird seed containers and I have put several drainage holes in the bottom, put in some very well rotted horse manure (9 years old) and a potato - then covered it. They will need watering well and as the plant grows, topping up of the sack - a bit like earthing up. 

At this time of year the garden is awash with birdsong and down the garden a rhododendron we bought near Matlock several years ago is flowering and the garden is also awash with its scent.

I have cut about 40 sticks of rhubarb - R taking it to church to sell as we still have loads in the freezer from last year.

When we were at Ripley Castle recently we saw this shed on wheels and a rail - a bit like George Bernard Shaw's writing shed - so it can be turned to face the sun - well it could if the rail was not clogged up.

Back home the second amaryllis  has seven flowers and tulips from the cutting garden are a treat.

Down in the land of fruit and veg a brachyglottis (aka senecio) has died in its pot. The root had blocked the drainage hole and with all the rain this winter it drowned. It was difficult getting it out but having done that I put a box in the pot to be shaped at a later date.

The strawberries are flowering well and I must get out the straw to protect the fruit.

This is a Genista - a bit like a broom but more compact and scented. In fact it is out before the broom on the lower banking. I have moved the table and bench we got from Ikea out onto the paving though the side planks of the table are rotten and will need replacing. Another little job to add to the list for the joiner.

Sadly it is snowing on the lawn, but not cold - the cherries are shedding their petals.

R has just found a newt by the pond - I think a male common newt - Triturus vulgaris. Only trouble is it is dead. Nevertheless we introduced them few years ago and saw nothing - till now. If they escape predators like snakes and hedgehogs they can live for ten years! No newt like an old newt!

MORE CHERRY STUFF AND LEAVES

There are all sorts of cherries, not just trees - Bob Cherry (Billy Bunter's schoolmate), Trevor Cherry (Leeds and England fullback), Cherry Wainer (organist with Lord Rockingham's XI), the bake off lady Mary Cherry - no hang on Berry - actually a cherry is not a berry it's a drupe.

Where did I ramble to - Pondicherry, Cheeryble Brothers - now this is getting out of hand.

Anyway there are more flowering trees at it in the garden than cherries - amelanchier, magnolia stellata, damsons, Victoria plum, wild plum, blackthorn - you see what I mean.

 I cannot stop nipping out to take photographs like the one above.

Though blossom and daffodils are the main thing at the moment (chuck in a few thousand bluebells) new leaves are also a treat. Left Acer sango-kaku, right a cercidiphyllum. The small shrub below cost virtually nothing at a Christmas Fare. I wonder if the white and green is the reversion or the gold.

 There are other flowers in the garden - the forgetmenots in the rose bed (and up in the wood where we chucked the remains from clearing the old plants over the last few years.)

Managed to nip out and do a little mowing before heading to the jungle at the top of the garden and debrambling it. The soil was so soft I could pull whole blackberry plants out of the ground.  So half done and cleared. Hopefully the bluebells all spread and fill the area. Later in the year I will gather seed and help the process.

The first few asparagus spears have appeared, a bit early but who's complaining.

R continues to deadhead the daffs and I have dug out the stream in the far garden. After 36 hours of rain, though, the lower garden is a sponge - sodden.

And finally some warmer, drier weather.
Just been away and R has taken a fancy to a Snow Gum - a white barked eucalyptus so now I am searching for one.
We managed Studley Royal with Fountains Abbey, Newby Hall and Ripley Castle gardens in one day and then went to the RHS at Harlow Carr the next!

At Harlow Carr there was an eye blinder of a tulip bed. And with little photoshopping a rogue tulip appeared! Can you spot it on the right? 

We have so much rhubarb I am wondering what to do with it - making rhubarb and ginger jam is a fussy drag and the freezer is still full of last year's crop.

Anyone wants some and will come and get it let me know.

Today has been a mowing day and a discovery that after waging war on ground elder I have failed and it is spreading on the bankings. If I had a gun (or a ballista) I would shoot the Romans who brought it here. The same goes for rabbits, I mean shoot the Romans for them too.

Now R wants to saw the posts off our four-poster bed - sigh!
I'm going to have a beer.