THERMOSTAT DOWN/UP AGAIN

 The garden is flourishing, perhaps too much? Our white birches stand tall at the far end of the garden as do the swathes of uncut grass.

Time for the strimmer?

There are long shoots and tangled thorny clumps of bramble in the wood and the bottom hedge will need laying, perhaps this winter. Unlike the blackberries in the lane hedges the ones in the woodland might flower but do not bear much in the way of fruit.

But we do have apples and pears. I have been up in the far lawn and cut out two twenty foot high osiers that have been flattened by past storms. I used my small hand chainsaw. The chain can come off and I have to be sure I put it back the right way around.

One gnarled old willow is sprouting vigorously and there are signs of ash dieback in some of our mature trees. To remove them would be very expensive so we watch and wait.

We may not have many butterflies though yesterday I noted a few gatekeepers and a couple of small whites. We do have plenty of buddleia flowers if they are hungry.

I do like plants that sow themselves, well some like the feverfew and mulleins and woundwort. Others seem to grow well even in the untended areas - yellow loosestrife and acanthus. The former is, of course. a wild plant. The red flower on the left is good(?) old Lucifer.

And then there is the gunnera getting bigger and bigger.

Not far away is the pond and wild plants - greater willow herb (though this seems everywhere this year), the fat pods of the yellow flag, meadowsweet and thistledown.

So much going on and so little desire to do stuff. Anyway it is raining again.

WHEN IS A

 Garden not a garden, when it is a quagmire. 

Big decisions made. We can no longer manage all this two acre garden so - not really rewilding areas but just letting it go (unless, when it is done, we change our minds.)

And we are not the only thing that is getting older, the shrubs threaten to be trees, and perennials insist on spreading, need dividing etc, bulbs get congested - snowdrops on the surface.

I must cut back the buddleia outside the kitchen window early again to let in more of the weak wintry light.

There are cries of too hot for October in the south east, it is 40C in Spain and here it is warm too but only 16C and RAINING. I have suggestion for the government - a sun tax for the south and a rain rebate on tax for the rainy areas - sort of levelling up?

Dug up some potatoes I had forgotten. They had sprouted in the kitchen cupboard and been shoved in an empty corner of the veg beds. 

Sunday brings a drier morning and a huge wedge of geese flying north, so evocative. I cut back the buddleia and light floods into the kitchen. Wasps are about but not as many as ladybirds. The latter are seeking somewhere to overwinter.

There are also butterflies on the fruit, here a comma and a red admiral.

And suddenly it is Saturday again and colder, only 10C, but sunny (when it is not pouring down).

We still have flowers in the garden, the michaelmas daisies falling over the paving.

Then there are marigolds, okay, calendulas outside the kitchen.

R has been away at a school reunion (Glad Hearts Adventuring) so I have been doing odds and so on. Potted up the Sarah Raven tulips and alliums, bought some yellow crocus which have been put near the kitchen window and replaced the battery in the oil tank sensor.

Suddenly there is sun and went up to the wood despairing at the long wet grass. The contrast between the leaves on the magnolia and the old ash was great and branches of that ash hang down over the woodland path. Pray the dieback stays away.

The beans are done, the sweet peas dead, but lichen can light up a dull corner. 

Then I come upon this and smile.

PHEW!

 We are sitting outside the kitchen in the shade and its is 28C. We are in need of rain and fortunately have a borehole so I can water the garden a bit.

The mower (the little one) has decided to stop and is going in to be seen to.

The May blossom is over as is the hedge parsley - suddenly everywhere, then over. Here are a few images of it at its best -

There is still a little hedge parsley in the garden - I let it sow itself (up to a certain point).

The aquilegias are going to seed and will need cutting back but I will leave them till they have scattered some of their seed. R likes the pale pink ones best.

The wilder areas are doing well, campion in the wood and ragged robin in the grassy bottom garden.

The rhubarb has collapsed in the heat and despite watering will need to be pulled for a new crop.

Elsewhere we have poppies, alliums and camassias on the way to the wood and the elder, unpruned this year has GROWN and is covered in flower. (? fritters)

This is one of the stalwarts of the perennial garden, geranium x magnificum, on the dry banking below the house and elsewhere.

Geraniums are always a good bet to do well.

So Boris is gone (for now)(wait for the memoirs)(though what he will remember might not be what everyone else remembers), and Donald is swinging his clubs at anything and everything - why these two are unable to the a good look at themselves is beyond me.

Time for a bit of 'do unto others' in the world.

Think it is lunch time so off to the kitchen for a sandwich and a cuppa.

And another stag night.

DAMSONS OR FROST

 Here we go, blossom out on the cherries, coming on the plum and damsons and so on - amelanchier, pear and apple to come. But will there be a frost and little fruit. I suppose there is always loads of rhubarb.

And our new gardener has been, dug out the errant buddleias by the septic tank and pruned back most of the rest.

Rosey has been raking off the banking and most of the lawns are mown. Her replanting of the primroses has worked well and there are wood anemones nearby.

We are just back from a wedding in St Andrews, Scotland and approaching Longtown near Carlisle saw two swallows - the year moves on. Saw one flying past here today. The pheasant and his ladies are still around, the greater spotted woodpecker is hammering away in the wood.

Camellias are now suffering flower fall especially after last night's gale and the same is happening to the magnolia stellata.

And the daffodils go on and on, under a cherry and by the path to the pond.

Elsewhere we have anemones and splendid hellebores - yes this is the white one.

Pinks as well as whites - the hyacinths we have been given at previous Christmases go out and Tom's flowering currants are a waterfall of colour. Not all hues come from flowers, the shoots of the paeonies and the leaves of the cercidiphyllums are a bonus at a time of white and yellow.

 

Now, weed I hear the cry and yes the lesser celandine does spread itself but when the sun shines and the flowers open they light up. And other weeds - the bluebell leaves are coming, the hedge parsley and wild angelica, yellow flag iris and red campion are getting going. Mind you the wild flower meadow looks like a sea of reeds - so damp - I suspect it will be a flop but we must wait and see. The lawns are sift and spongy with moss but then I have always said that they are really mown meadow - well, that is my excuse.

But the stars of the moment are the flowering trees like the prunus shirotae.

I would go out but it is raining AGAIN!