NO FORECAST?

What will the weather be tomorrow? 

No idea.

Sun is out, it is raining and then - 

Then it is frosty, then it pours. The heron does not seem to mind as long as there are frogs for dinner.

Preening

and away.

There has been very little snow this winter but it does make the garden take on a different look.

Any way one day of sun, albeit cold, and most of it was gone.

And spring continues to crawl forth with the first wild daffodils.

I picked some quince and put in a slender vase which gave it a rather Japanese look.

I am chasing gardeners again, perhaps now to mow? Anyway too wet, new springs all over the place and grass sodden.

Back to the heron - one newt less I am afraid.

Then I find one of the gateposts is going rotten and the farmer has released the gang into the back field (lambs). They will be out under the field gate soon seeking greener grass.

It is Tuesday and the sun is out, wait, wait, - 

Yes it is snowing again, just a shower, not really settling.

Out in the garden the cock pheasant patrols the lawn. When the sun is out it catches the quince blossom.

So, what is flowering in the house? Tulips and cyclamen.

Even if they are from M & S.

PONDY STUFF

This is then path down to the pond lined on either side by self sown wild garlic or ramsons. I am now glad we have a hand rail!

In the pond the water crowfoot, a white buttercup that has to be

 

carefully hoicked out before it takes over, and bogbean are flowering.

Now for a little story - last year my good and generous friend P game me a chunk of gunnera and it produced leaves. However this year so far there was no sign of it - until today - and you can see the first leaf by the meadowsweet and golden saxifrage alongside the ditch stream.

Down by this hedge where the pond stuff grows R planted a small stunted eucalyptus fifteen years ago - and it has grown!

Not far away is an amelanchier also known as serviceberry, sarviceberry, sarvis, Juneberry, saskatoon, sugarplum and shadbush just for a few.

 

Anyway back to the pond which attracts many visitors from a plastic egret to a pair of wandering pheasants.

In the pond itself the usual plants are emerging - flowering rush, water lilies, bog bean, irises and so on and though we had a lot of frogspawn I am still to see some tadpoles but they may be hidden under the pondweed. I have seen large water beetles, newts and water boatmen and whirligigs on the surface. 

We seem to have lost our moorhens and the mallard have also forsaken us this year. A heron has arrived for breakfast but whether I can blame him for the shortage of taddies who knows? The kingcups or marsh marigold light up the darkness between the pond and the stream (ditch).

So drought over, May gosling to you all and it is raining, at last. I got the mower stuck again - it slid off the path and into a bush, had to get the big son to help me lift it out before he goes to Grand Canaria, (and sun).

The Muncaster bluebells will have to be missed this year but Carstramon Wood here we come.

Muncaster is well worth a visit and details are on their website - https://www.muncaster.co.uk/castle-gardens/gardens/bluebellheaven.

And there is a cafe and rhododendrons and birds and heron feeding etc.

On the banking above the pond the shrubs are flowering - Viburnum plaicatum Mariesii, lilac and the yellow tree peony. The latter is a cutting from my late mother's tree and many of the family have it now.

Now I have to go out and, after mending the wheelbarrow, remove the clematis armandii that has decided to grow along the washing line.

SPRINGING FORTH

 Yesterday we sat out in the garden for lunch in the sunshine, this morning as I went out to prune, belatedly, one of the hydrangeas I found the temperature has dropped 10C to remind me that the danger of frost is far from over.

The daffs are going over but they have looked great.

Concern over frosts and blossom always emerge at this time of year and I fear for the damsons and especially the greengage - we are a bit far north for the latter.

The stars of the garden are, apart from the trees, white honesty, flowering currant, fritillaries and the wild flowers like celandines and wood anemone.

I. saw several newts in the pond and the jay was back in the garden as was the greater-spotted woodpecker (though I have heard it drumming for a while).

Other plants doing well are the self sown white comfrey and we have flowers on the rosemary.

The garden never ceases to amaze me, not really organised and planned but just evolved whether the view up the garden or back to the house.

And then I think forwards - there are two spears of asparagus just poking up out of the soil, will we get lots of fruit this year (and if so where do I put it as the freezer is still fairly full from last year)? Will the flower meadow be a grass and reed meadow instead after all the work?

The lambs are out in the track again, the amaryllis are over and R failed to sell or give away at church all the aloe vera plants I potted up, still have four.

The bonfire needs lighting again . . . 

WILDLIFE AND BLOSSOM

Newts in the pond, peacock and Brimstone butterflies, the pheasant still pecking the window though he has also taken to nipping off the flower heads on the Madame Lefebre tulips so I have put them up on a table.

Very dry, today Friday 20.5C and watering the pots.

Monday and 12C, rain.

Thursday and some light snow flurries. Ah! British weather.

Today is Friday again and I am sitting by the garden doors when a stoat with a baby rabbit in its mouth strolls past and up into the wood. Probably storing it. Then it wanders back ignoring me - probably bit big for prey - probably back to the rabbit hole for more.

C and G came to see the garden and C saw our tree creeper which pleased R. Heron on the pond this morning and the fox has been back.

But we are now into blossom weather, the Prunus Shirotae is splendid.

Elsewhere we have camellias out, white honesty on the way down to the pond, the damsons are almost flowering as is the greengage and the Victoria plum is loaded with flowers.

There are swathes of primroses at the wood margin and fritillaries on the banking.

S the gardener has been and the surrounds for the veg beds are completed. I have started to dig and top dress the soil. He has cleared the last of fallen tree stuff from the woodland path but we now have yet another bonfire to try and light.

Having spouted about wildlife earlier the only thing I managed to photo was the cock blackbird enjoying the sun.

I keep feeding the birds and seem to go through a lot of seed - we must have very fat birds here - it is a wonder they can fly.

So let me finish with a few flower pictures -

This is Tom Jackson's flowering currant at the back of the house - we bought the place from him sixteen years ago!

And so to a repeated view from the house up the garden, no straight lines here if I can help it.

All right, not quite done - here is our moorhen on the pond.