COUNTING BUTTERFLIES

You come home from holiday and the grass has grown - where it has not succumbed to the drought. A little rain has helped. The weeds are rampant and I have been mowing and mowing.

The courgettes in ten days have exploded into marrows.

The rhubarb has also recovered and the hacking back has done wonders - pulling crisp young stems again and topping up the freezer.

My mate the cock pheasant is mooching about under the feeders and looks not too bad despite some moulting. When I refilled the feeders there was no action for about two hours then they were swamped by goldfinches and sparrows with the chaffinches underneath waiting for dropped delicacies.

The scruffy bit of old rose bed into which I threw an assortment of annual seed is looking colourful and not too awful. Some cosmos has taken but is not yet flowering.

In the garden the butterflies have appeared with the flowering of the buddleias. The gatekeepers seem to  like the marjoram particularly. It does well in the garden.

So I have done my first 15 minutes of the big butterfly count - 
https://www.bigbutterflycount.org 

and saw large and small whites, gatekeeper, peacocks, red admirals and a painted lady - but where are the small tortoiseshells?
On the left a peacock with wings folded - difficult to see - on the right a painted lady.

Just finished filling there log shed with the wood for the winter and phew! I need a muscly man to do this sort of work, but then, I had just mowed the steep banking and cleared around the pond earlier in the day in 26C so . . .

The red rose up the holly tree is in full flower - we call this Pam's rose as she gave it to us. There are a lot of things in the garden given to us by friends, some of them special where a friend has since left us like Sue's reedmace and the maple. We also have one or two things that she passed onto us with the statement that she didn't know what it was but bung it in and see.

The magnolia grandiflora has been reluctant to flower this year until R warned it that, no flowers and it was being cut down. At least this was the gist of what she said. This seems to have done the trick (for now). I wish that method would work with everything especially seeds - if you do not germinate I'll - but what?

A couple of superb reds are the zinnia to the left and the alstroemerias to the right. We really want white alstroemerias but the only ones that seem to thrive are the deep red ones.

It is high summer and hot. We are off to see Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale al fresco - and the forecast is for the first real rain for ages - typical British weather. 😕

1. It did not rain till we got home.

2. We did not see the blood moon.

3. It is Sunday and raining now.

4. Outside my window 19 goldfinches and chaffinches are feeding. (plus odd blue tit, great tit, woodpecker and pigeon).

5. When I opened the back door this morning there were 10 house martins wheeling around my head.

Last night I gave the Brushes Ap another go à la Hockney - somewhere back of Coniston Water from memory.

A DISASTER STRIKES AND THEN . . .

There is something special on a sunny day after hard gardening and a shower, sitting outside the kitchen in a recliner eating cheese straws (that K brought last night) and drinking a rather good bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, well not the whole bottle (but it is early yet). We can see the ferries setting out for the Isle of Man from Heysham twenty miles away across the bay as house martins whirl over the pond.
  Anyway, to the disaster.

Our lovely Prunus Shirotae is in trouble with wilting brown leaves and dying twigs. It could be the drought but I suspect we have a fungal disease here. So sad.

  And the veg sowings are disappointing, carrots ok, some parsnips and spinach but the rest useless so have sown more beetroot, chard and topped up spinach and carrots. Here's hoping.
The variegated plant with the foxglove on the left is also a vegetable, horseradish. If you think peeling onions makes the eye water try grating the root of the horseradish!

Here is one of R's favourite plant combinations, catmint (nepeta) and Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla).

The oriental poppies just get better and better - the tall one is the splendid Goliath. The early day lilies, the smaller yellow ones are coming into flower and giving a splash of colour.
  The rosa rugosa hedge at the top of the garden has finally reached a decent height and though most of the flowers are pink there are some white ones too. Lower down, by the lawn, the beauty bush, kolkowitzia, is smothered.

And this is a time for the perennial geraniums, especially the blues on the dry banking below the house. When they are finished they will need shearing back to allow new growth to come.
  Another similar coloured plant is the knapweed, centaurea montana, in semi shade and very dry soil under the spreading branches of the big sycamore where it seems to thrive, which is good as not much else does.
   It is very early but the first red currants are ripening with all the sunshine - and the blackbirds are gathering for the feast. I must get some new netting to try and keep them out.
 
And then another disaster -
This brick is supposed to be a loaf of spelt flour bread!
Did all the usual and put it in the oven then forgot about it for two hours! Carbonisation courtesy of the Aga range.

I woke this morning, June, and found myself singing 'In The Bleak Midwinter' and wondered why. Then it dawned on me that my mother, who had sung professionally as a mezzo, had sung that song and that must be why I like it. Sadly there is no recording of her singing but inside my head (and I presume other heads).
  R has taken a dislike to the rose Grouse, a ground cover plant at the back of the house. She has decided to tidy it up, something I am definitely avoiding. It is one of the thorniest things I have come across. It will be scything the long grass for me.

And it is crambe time, the giant ball of flowers is back.

So to mowing, clogged mower with the longer grass, battling the clegs (Horse flies) - got one, they got me three times.

Tuesday and it is raining, no it isn't, a few spots and then it is gone.

Now, there are some moments in life that transcend others - like when your specialist says you do not need any more CT scans for your cancer - Phew!!
Time for a beer or few too.

GARDENING GETS GOING

R has been transplanting the snowdrops whilst I clear more from the rosebed and put the plants in one of the veg beds. The raspberries have been retied where they have come loose but they are ageing and will need replacing. I have pruned some low new growth off the gooseberries so they are 'on a leg'.

The primroses and wild daffs are a treat and other daffodils are coming on well. The little burst of finer warmer weather has brought the rhubarb forward. (see below)

I have stripped the ivy that was trying to climb the big sycamore but, no doubt, it will be back.
I considered treating the lawns for moss but then there would be nothing but bare earth so have left it alone.

The stipa gigantea has been cut back and the stems are like bamboo canes - now I have to think what to do with them.

So the signs of spring are here - lamb gangs mucking about in the lane having crawled under the gate, golden saxifrage by the stream and contrails in the sky.

I think I prefer the black and white version.

And Mr Pheas. is strutting his stuff - there are at least four hen pheasants in the garden, a veritable harem.

Water is an important part of the garden (which makes it so boggy) whether tumbling though tree roots, disappearing into the bed of the stream and emerging either in the ditch or as a new spring in the lawn, or at the pond.

I have taken the step of giving my strimmer away to my son-in-law who needs it more which means I shall have to rely on the more old fashioned scythe - much quieter.
The rose bed is almost empty and waiting to be moved further down the garden. One pleasing thing is the depth of soil, both here and in the veg beds - a good spade and a half to two spades - so loads of preparation and top dressing has been successful.

And then there is the promise of things to come like the unfurling rhubarb leaves, so long delayed by the cold weather.

Finally I have succumbed to badgering from R and the other R to do a bit of painting - something I find hard work and do every ten years or so - so here it is - last spring under the cherries.