A GARDENER VERSUS THE NATURAL WORLD

I have wild parts of the garden - try to accommodate wildlife, but sometimes it is a struggle. The gooseberry sawfly have finally stripped the bushes. They are too prickly to start picking off the munchers by hand. I do not want to spray anything on the fruit so the gogs will have to be picked now. We repel successive invasions of cabbage and small white butterfly caterpillars on the brassicas, slugs and snails elsewhere and I have not mentioned mites on pears, aphids on currants, wasps harvesting oak from the porch and benches, and blackbirds!

They have stripped the red currants again. I carefully netted the fruit but they forced a way in. I actually caught one inside the nets where it raised a terrible racket, squawking and flapping until it escaped.
And when it had gone the jays arrived.

I do not object to them having some blackcurrants as we have plenty but !!!

We have also had another tragedy with two birds, panicked by Megatron the black cat from down in the village, dying after flying into my study window.

And I have not mentioned weeds - so I won't.

All that said the flowers are wonderful and we have a house and garden full - at the moment - especially the roses.

The last rose is Rosa rubifolia and a seedling given to me by my late Aunt Phebe from the garden at The Manor, Wormleighton.
These are but a selection of the roses, the wild briars, Albertine and others I have not shown.
Most dramatic of all are the two Rambling Rectors - one up the old ash tree and the other sprawled over the flowering currant by the disused well. The first of these was the first thing I put into the garden when we bought the plot.

Gardening at this time of year is a strange mixture of harvest - both fruit and flowers - and a battle with the urge the garden has to swamp me with growth.

And I have not mentioned the unseasonal weather.
It is hot (for us) with temperatures in the upper 20s, has been for over a week and the spectre of watering the ground looms. However we do have our own water supply.

For the first time I can see that the trees around the garden have grown. One oak left in the hedge when it was laid is rocketing skyward and becoming special.

The windows have just been cleaned and the feather powder shadows of birds that have hit them removed.

Time for a pome -

PREDATOR

There is a ghost on the glass,

a sparrow hawk silhouette

in feather dust, wings spread

in a late attempt to brake.

The tree sparrow escaped,

side-flew the predator

at the last moment, scraped

the pebble-dash in panic.

The stunned falcon staggered

away through the afternoon,

flew raggedly to a nearby ash

to recuperate and preen.

The garden was silent with fear,

waited for the grey missile to leave, 

which, in the end, it did, streaked

over the barbed wire, hunting.

COUP DE GRAS

Today we have cutting of grass.
Last week we had cutting of grass.
Next week we will have cutting of grass.
To quote Molesworth - 'Tomow and tomow and tomow...', 'Chiz!' (For those abroad - a book of childish stories about an English school called St Custard's by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle.) "Hello, birds, hello flowers," said Fotherington-Thomas.

Back to the garden - we also have to shear and to strim and to sickle . . .

3 grey squirrels in one day this week - bait Kit Kat or choc' teacake (and a few nuts).

This is the point in the summer when a bit extra is required as nature tries to get out of hand. Some parts of the garden will be left to their own devices, other parts need a little control. (Some parts need a lot of control.) I have contemplated developing some ingenious labour saving devices such as using the pigeons to pull out the weeds in the paths, getting the pheasants to trample areas or harnessing the squirrels to the mower but there have arisen certain difficulties over this!

Here is A Way Through the Woods, one small mower wide flanked by long grass and wild flowers under a canopy of hawthorn, all lower branches and twigs removed to 5 feet height. There is a small network of such paths in the wood and the wild area with one plank bridges over the small stream.

The week ahead is set fair with high pressure building (cannot believe it) and sun and warmth forecast. The outcome of this is that it will be too hot to work in the garden - lifting a glass with ice tinkling in it will be excessive exercise. (This will not be helped by the lemon, tonic, gin and borage flower also in the glass.)

The way through the willow tunnel is two small mowers wide. I should have planted them further apart so I could use the sit-on but hindsight is a very annoying thing.

This is where the chimes were (was?) hung but R could not hear them so they have been moved nearer the house where she can (if the wind blows) and I can reach a bit easier. In the previous location there is now a long piece of washing line hanging from the tree as I cannot reach the top to cut it off. Suggestions (polite) as to what I can do with this piece of line please.
R does the flowers for her church so what to put in this weekend? It looks like alchemilla and catmint (hope the pong is not too strong nor offensive) with white valerian (hope no one eats it) and tree lupin. Roses do not really last long enough and shower petals as they fall.

So, Whizzo, here we go!

SOUR GRAPES AND FREEZERS

Here I am blogging away for ages and now R and her mates have just started a blogging online soap opera and are in the papers and on the tele - the grapes are not very ripe!
I am left at home looking out at the rain (at least we completed weeding of the veg and flower beds yesterday despite it being R's birthday) with a freezer in the back of the car (I could go around Ireland with it and write a book?) waiting for an exchange.

There was worry, as the old upright failed, filled with fruit from last year not yet consumed. New one on the way but the delivery vehicle is too big to get to the house so have had to arrange a tryst nearby for a swap.

The asparagus is struggling but recovering a bit. At least all of the crowns are alive if only just. I must improved the drainage of the soil.
On the regular garden tour I noticed half of a nest box roof had gone - squirrels again - and will need repairing.

The garden is full of young, tiny froglets by the pond, yellow blue tits on the feeders, fledgling tree sparrows skittering over the Wendy House roof.

And suddenly the greater spotted woodies are back, one male trying to drill holes into a thin pole acting as one end of the raspberry cane support (it was part of an old flagpole from a previous house)(the pole was there when we arrived), the female on the peanut feeders and all other birds keeping well away.
Tree sparrows are raising a second brood in the house martin nest, we can hear them chirruping above out bedroom window.

Many of the plants in the garden are splendid - the crambe enormous, a white peony with flowers eight inches across and scented. R, she of lost taste and smell, having been to Norwich to see Prof. Carl, thinks she has some back but only nice smells. We hope improvement continues.
Here is a picture of the white tree lupin - a shrub exploding out of the banking. As the flowers age they turn pink and lavender tinted.

Having just caught a squirrel in the trap and thinking that that is the lot for now, I looked up from my keyboard and there is another on the shed roof outside my study window! The little breeders.

So, this morning R is off to meet the BBC and I am off to the supermarket with a freezer in the boot.
Such is life.

I AM BLOGGED IF I KNOW WHY

. . . if I know why I am blogging away about an unruly jungle turned into a monster by the manure I covered it with. And then the bits that escaped have gone barmy too - except the asparagus.
There are times I long for three plant pots containing shrivelled remnants of some plant or other and a paved yard. Then I would just visit other gardens - go out to Holker Hall and break their rules eating a surreptitious lunch on the big seat, back to the wall, soaking sun and scent . . .

Anyway it is raining, it is dull and dreary and who wants to wander through a wood dripping water down one's neck. This is not good news for the sun dial but as it is in the shade it does not matter. It will need moving from its overgrown location.

The roses are out at last but William Shakespeare has put on so much growth that his branches are bent to the ground. The oriental poppies are a sad collapsed mess except where supported by the tangle of grass on the upper banking and the crambe had gone askew despite staking.

The thoughts of strimmers hang over me, cutting back the grass beside the paths and the stream. R has trimmed the upper beech hedge and cleared some of the mess from underneath, I have tidied the paths, mown the lawns and emptied the two big containers that had been planted with tulips and pansies. The tulips have been popped in spaces in the cutting garden and the pansies in any spare bits of bed such as at the back of the house.

Granny's Bonnets are going over but I will not cut them back yet - want the seeds both to store and allow to scatter for next year. Other self sowers like foxgloves and poppies are now coming out and livening up the garden.

Growth has been so great this year that paths are becoming impassable especially if it has been raining (or is like now). The alchemilla, particularly, holds water to its hairy leaves and decants it on the unwary passer-by.

Elderflower is with us promising another crop for the cordial. We still have some left from last year but, as the summer was so dreadful, we did not have the hot weather it deserved.

I forgot to net the broccoli so it is broccoli and caterpillars for supper! The little wrigglers get everywhere.

I look out of my window and it is so dark, wet and forbidding up in the wood I think I will put Wimbledon on the television, but then they are playing with the roof closed. Of course, silly me, it is Wimbledon Fortnight - that is why it is raining.

Then I look at this blog and all the pictures are of sunshine and colour!
I am blogged if I know why I am blogging away about one (2,3,4,5 . . . ) bad day.

There are things to do - in the word of that star of the television, Bill and Ben's friend, 'Weeeeeed'.

FLOPPY POPPIES, PAPERS, VISITORS AND DEATH

Another bird has died - flew into the kitchen window - a female blackbird. So sad but happens every year despite moving some feeders further away and so on. They just do not see the glass when in a panic.

The first two pics are looking both ways along the hoggin path that runs around the house and up to the veg beds.
You can see that summer has a-come in and all the herbaceous plants seem twice as tall as last year. All down to horse muck. And the weeds are three times as large.

The bed that I am filling with oriental poppies looks a bit sad - rain has flattened many of them - and, of course I forgot to give them some support. A horizontal mesh might be best but make weeding very difficult. Perhaps a deep mulch first would be the answer.

We have had visitors, friends, and they did a garden tour. I noticed all the weeds, poor plant specimens, weeds, scruffy corners, weeds and so on. I wonder, did they?

Other news - I have had to move the seed feeders as they have been emptied by hanging squirrels, the other house martin nest (not the one taken over by tree sparrows) is full of blue tits! No swallows either this year.

We are featured in the Westmorland Gazette, Me and My Garden, in a well written article. You can guess who wrote it then?

We do not have one of these insect house things as such - you know, sawn off bamboos and so on - but we do have a very decrepit log pile, the wood too rotten to burn now. It is ideal and crawling with creepies.
The tadpoles have legs and so are froglets now and the mysterious plant that has erupted around the bottom pond is clearly Mimulus (Monkey Flower).

It is forecast that we are in for a wild weekend (weather not social) so that will get me out of mowing. Just as the fruit is ripening the upright freezer is looking a bit dicky. I may have to get jam making to clear room in the top-loading one.

So there it is - and I have another 6 month reprieve from the giant polo in Manchester (scanner) so no excuses for sloppy gardening.
Time for a nap.

SOMETIMES PICTURE'S ARE ENOUGH

Sometimes words are not enough. The garden is bursting with colour whichever way I look. Nuff said.

SQUIRRELS IN BUTTERCUP JUNE

R was up about 5 with Cawthwaite.com going around and around in her cranium. She made tea. I woke and, as usual, went to the window - rabbit on lawn ten feet from Mrs Pheasant and her last chick. It is a poor brood this year but she always seem to lose a few.
Bed, book, tea then R calls to me. She is at the window and now two grey squirrels are inch-worming their way along the path, synchronised moving, wooing I suppose.

The sky is all Turkey Lurkey and wet. Then the sun comes out down the valley and all is golden fields. I have never seen buttercups as good as they are this year. They are everywhere in abundance (including the flower beds). I wonder, is it the long cold spring or the long wet autumn and winter that has produced this show.

We have had two to three weeks of lovely weather (about time too) and then light in the garden, especially the woodland has been amazing. The first picture is the lower garden between the stream and the willow avenue.

In the upper garden the azaleas have been spreading their wonderful scent making it a pleasure to walk there, though, not now as the rain has caused then lush growth to flop over the paths causing wet trouser bottom moments.

The forget-me-nots are all but over and will need removing. They will not be composted but chucked up in the wood to seed themselves.
There have been white fly on the roses but the change in the weather to wet will deal with that.

Down in the veg beds we have lost all the squashes - slugs, mice perhaps.

However the variegated horse radish is splendid.
We have a few spears of asparagus but it looks like another disappointing season. Perhaps the soil in the bed is not light enough - some sand is called for?

I should have supported the oriental poppies as they are prone with the weight of rain - some rescue stuff needed.

Every year, at this time, I look at the garden and am flabbergasted (good word) by the change. Only a few months ago there was some scruffy grass and the odd spring bulb yet now the flower beds are waist deep in vegetation, plants fighting for the light.

Now I am going to town for a coffee with friends and then to lunch with N, another good friend.
I have earned it. The Family History I have been writing for six months is done, Dropboxed and distributed.

I gaze in an abstracted manner from my study window and see two squirrels eating the bird food, one hanging by its back legs from the roof of the shed, the other on the ground catching the shower of seed dislodged by its partner.
I open the window and shout, 'Aaaaargh! I'm going to get you!' They ignore me, well look up as if to say who is that old fogey and what is he blithering (good word) about now.
So I have just got up, gone outside and moved the seed feeder to a place of more difficult access, not that that will deter the furry acrobats. It is time to get some so-called squirrel proof feeders.

Time to think of names for them - how about Hou and Dini!
That is not really apt for they do not have to escape as they do not get caught - and if they do get into my squirrel trap they definitely cannot get out.

Back to the weather. It will have to be Chicken and Licken.

TROUBLE IN GOOSEGOG LAND

The gooseberry bushes are laden with fruit but today the sawfly has made its appearance and just to make things worse, here comes the mildew.
The squashes I planted have suffered - only two surviving, but the tomatoes are ok.

Germination has been sporadic with beetroot and carrots and I have made the old memory gone faux pas - the squashes were planted where I had sown other things. I thought - oh yes I will remember where I sowed the stuff - and forgot. It will be most interesting to see what comes up where.

Just been to SRs to see her garden and have come away with a car boot full of stuff including a Viburnum plic. mariesii - the one with horizontal branches of white flowers. She has given us two of the smaller comfreys - bright blue and white - and lots of lovely Cosmos.
I need a greenhouse. That does not necessarily mean I want a greenhouse, can think where to put a greenhouse, can afford a greenhouse. (Glasshouse in US)

Down the garden we have been trying to create contrasting tree colour - six white birches against a backdrop of mature trees including a copper beech.
For our ruby wedding R gave me the tree shown, its purple leaves showing up well in front of the far path up to the wood.

The house martins and swallows are here, not here, nesting, not so doing - the bird world is crazy. We know the pheasants have at least one chick but they are elusive in the long grass.

We have now had a warm dry spell for the first time this year - had to use sun cream and an awful floppy hat - the sort of object the Nesbit children would have worn when confronting  It.
Watering is becoming an increasing necessity which is ok for us as we have a borehole. I did make the mistake of not having a tap put down by the veg beds when we built the house but, as I did not then know where they were going to be . . . !
A shower would not go unwelcome but at night please.

Surely it is time we did something about the weather - summers where it is sunny in the day (not too hot for me please) and then a few gentle showers of rain at night?
Then that would be a fictitious place a bit like Cawthwaite or Shangri-la - Ah! Remember, walking in the sand . . . . . .

Fingernails!
I am a non glove wearer - you cannot feel the weeds with them on. Oh Yes I will wear them when dealing with brambles, roses and nettles - well, most of the time.
But I have them black 'uns, grubby and tatty ( and bitten).
Of course bitten - I mean finding the gooseberry bushes covered in mildew and sawfly is enough to maker anyone chew their nails. (Not R as she nips into town and has them done!)

And all them little old creases in the hands and fingers get black - Swarfega I hear a cry - you can use washing-up liquid and white spirit - similar thing - but it don't half dry out the skin.
R, I cry, where's the hand cream?
Not the smelly one.

POSSESSED OF A NEWT

Well, 4 actually.
Went to S and had a tour of her garden. She netted the newts for us, popped them in water in a soup container and we brought them home and released them into the top pond. No taddies in the top pond.

I am pooped - just trying to eradicate the lovely (ha ha) Carex pendula from the bottom pond side. Could not dig it up - it is a thug and seeds all over the place. So this is where I have to humbly bow my head and concede that I used a little Round Up. Otherwise we would have had to get a JCB in.
I have weeded the nearby bed and removed two wheelbarrows full of horrible buttercups - they have roots that grasp the soil like talons.
R weeded the small bed beside the Wendy House, muttered something and declared she does not like gardening.

I have also weeded the seed bed but germination has been disappointing. The wallflowers and sweet williams are ok but the calendulas and other things are few.

On Thursday I bought some new Wellies at West Cumberland Farmers to replace the ones lingering in Herefordshire, 3 tomato plants on the market and some sequestrene and tomato feed at the local garden centre. One of the Fatsias and one of the Skimmias are struggling - too much lime in the soil from the hard core put down when the house was built. I use diluted tomato feed everywhere - house plants, garden, everywhere.

Another 5 lbs of rhubarb is in the freezer
and the plants have had a good feed and a soak. The hose pipe is out as there does not seem to be any rain in the offing.

The new fence I put in earlier in the year to hide the veg beds and cold frame from the house is too garish - new wood - so I have bought, risky as hardiness up here questionable, a passion flower and pink clematis armandii. They are probably ok down to about -5C but . . .  They are evergreen and, hopefully, will hide the fence along with the climbing rose already there.

This morning I looked out of the bedroom window on to the roof below and there were 4 tree sparrow fledglings, a tree sparrow feeding them and one cock house sparrow looking a bit confused.

The Cow parsley, Queen Anne's Lace, Adder's Meat, Bad Man's Oatmeal, Eldrot, Keeshion, Gypsy's Umbrella, Kelk . . . many names in many places . . . is filling the road sides, spreading into our garden - we do not mind - and R has a vase of it in front of the wood burner (not on). The flowers do shed all over the floor though.
It surrounds the post with our gate button and a tiny sign to the house. It is part of our countryside though, it was, at one time, connected with the Devil.

The important thing with the garden at the moment is to keep on top of it - of course failed - or at least try to. I suggested to R that there should be a gardener in the Cawthwaite Project, http://cawthwaite.com, especially as one of the writers is a gardener. Perhaps I could get the writing team to do some work experience at The Nook - weeding and bramble clearing?
I have a feeling that will be greeted with scorn.

So to a cup of green tea - R has us on some sort of diet where we do not eat for 24 hours - I think it is called starvation or something.

SUMMER HAS A COMIN' IN

It is glorious, warm, sunny, at last - at last!

But will it last - not much hope of that in this country. Yet, while it lasts it is wonderful, short sleeves, old hat, sun cream, drink outside, family here - C and P - what more can one ask for.

A wood pigeon has just passed the window with a beak full of dry grass for its nest in the ash tree behind the house and the tree sparrows in the house martin nest chatter and scold me as I pass.
I have cut back the grass around the shrubs on the lower banking disturbing a frog which landed on my shoe. Tortoiseshell butterflies and wood whites have appeared in numbers. I have heard a few bees - all bumble bees - no honey bees.

What were empty swathes of soil are suddenly full of growth.
I have planted out the butternut squashes and covered them with netting supported by piping. I have sown rocket in the gaps and courgettes in pots.
Where there is a space in the flower beds nasturtium and calendula seed has been put and wild flower surface sown on the rough ground near the asparagus. (6 spears up so far).

I have realised that the camassias planted on the top banking in the grass are a dark blue when I wanted the larger pale blue. Must make a mental note for the autumn but I shall probably forget.

And what can one say about oriental poppies - splendid, gaudy, vulgar? Red and green go together so well.

Last autumn I collected a lot of aquilegia seed and have just found it in a brown envelope. So, up to the wood and scattered it  about. As they are biennial plants next year will tell if it worked.


Time for a cuppa - just been up onto the hill behind the house and enjoyed the view south to the Fylde Coast and the whole of Morecambe Bay like a carpet, east to the Pennines and Ingleborough, north to the Lake District mountains and west to Kirkby Moor.

The garden is in one of its magical phases, flickering light through the trees, gentle rustling in the new leaved branches, every green a different green.

Two blogs in two days - too much? It is just that the garden is so full of everything at this time of year.

And, to cap it all, R got mentioned on Radio Cumbria this morning.
To find out why visit http://cawthwaite.com.

SQUATTERS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE LATE SPRING

R checked her diaries and calculated that the spring/summer is running three and a half weeks late. Let us hope autumn is not early.

Unfortunately there have been consequences to this - the house martins finally arrived only to find that a pair of tree sparrows (the ones with the brown head (male)) had taken up residence and were well on with their brood. They can be heard chirping away from below.
The swallows still have a choice of nests - three to be exact - but do not seem interested much in any.
We have fledgeling great and coal tits emptying the feeders at high speed.

In the garden it is weeding and mowing and trying to find time for ideas. The alchemilla is great ground cover but getting out of hand. The redcurrants have set and are now well protected with netting.

Alliums, oriental poppies, granny's bonnets are all out in profusion but the seeds I sowed in the cutting garden bed are slow to germinate. The first asparagus has made an appearance and fingers are crossed, butter ready. Broad beans are through and sweet peas beginning to recover from planting.

The garden is still full of birdsong and I hope the late season will mean we have that for longer.
The promise of something white is growing - the white rosebay has spread on the upper banking and the crambe is in bud.
I planted three Azaleas - the yellow smelly ones - by a woodland edge path and the aroma when one passes is glorious. Just above, on an ash branch, we have hung a big set of wind chimes, albeit not quite high enough as I was never a boy scout so the the knots got confused - running slips and so on. You can only hear the gentle sounds when near but the chimes are hidden from view by a beech hedge (had their first trimming) so they come as a surprise.

It  is confession time. Despite all affirmations to the contrary we have not got around to dividing the primroses so less clumps but bigger next spring. The butterfly in the picture is a wood white, one of few insects in the garden.
Today it is sunny and warm with just a shallow breeze. One can almost feel the leaves soaking up the sunshine.

My butternut squash are ready to go out but I need more netting for the alkathene hoops. I have put in sweet peas where the dead raspberry canes stand forlorn and sad so if all goes well we will have a house full for the summer.

So many jobs to do now and so much lethargy!
R is already helping with the weeding and some of the buttercups are enormous - obviously liked the manure I covered the beds with in the winter. They look so succulent they could be eaten - not really of course.

So, off to put the mower away and get the shears out to clear grass from the trees and shrubs on the banking.

Phew!

DON'T GO AWAY?! TALIESIN

So, a quick pop off for a whizz around Dumfries and Galloway and the Spring Fling. Bought a big set of chimes for the garden from Melkinthorpe, did not buy any more metal birds from Adam Booth in Kirkpatrick Durham but was glad to see they have appreciated in value.

And, up at The Nook, the green grass grows all around around around etc . . . .
The garden is bursting with growth driven on by the muck I liberally applied during the autumn and winter.

Some shrubs are getting too big - R will have to wield her pruning shears with vigour later in the year.
One very dry, almost soilless bank is smothered in euphorbia but it does save weeding - except where it has decided to grow up through the paths.

I have concern about whether our fruit has set - there seems to have been a dearth of bees this year. Usually the blackcurrants are humming but - silence.
The house martins have not returned and the swallows seem unable to make up their mind as to whether they want to nest with us or elsewhere.

The rhubarb has exploded with the rain and two days of warmth - well not literally - that is what happens if one eats too much?


It was interesting, in Scotland, that we saw a hare, slow worm, reed bunting and a lot of white butterflies - especially small whites, and wood whites. We found a fabulous wild retreat, Taliesin, near Auchencairn - see at    http://www.swcwt.org/index.html
for details.

So I have returned with scraps of paper littered with ideas - different ways of mowing, bench positions and many others. There might even be a concession from my chaotic semi-wild jumble to R's organised, controlled environment, (might be).

Almost a whole row of raspberry canes are dead. Rather than cutting out I am going to grow sweet peas up them and then reorganise in the autumn. I cannot envisage a summer without fresh raspberries, nor later, making raspberry jam so summat wil 'ave to be done, a new bed and new canes, I think.
And therefore I am, off to have supper - porridge - after three days of rich food a la Masterchef.
Tomorrow a walk around the garden and a list to be made.

FLYING FOR JOY?

I have just looked out of the window and seen our first house martins pass, then four swallows - already investigating the old nest outside the kitchen door - and finally a swift scimitarred above the trees.
Winter is definitely over, rhubarb is in the bottom oven. The sound of chattering martins and swallows is wonderful. They fly like they are just enjoying the experience - a bit like otters playing.

This is May and the garden, though two weeks late, is beginning to burst at the seams. As the daffs go over and the primroses get swamped by new grass the forgetmenots and tulips come into flower.

Celandines, a bone of contention, are everywhere - R thinks they should be eradicated from all flowerbeds but I rather like these harbingers of spring and the leaves die down soon enough.
Many years ago I was reporting on a square
for the Botanical Society of the British Isles' Atlas of the British Flora and sending my reports off to Franklin Perring, I think, at Cambridge. One of my cards came back with a request to check whether the celandines had bulbils - they did not. There are two sub species of celandine in the UK, one with bulbils, one not. Those with tend to be more common in the east of the country.
These are small offshoots and each produces a new plant - lilies also have them.

As I speak the damson blossom is fading and legs, fingers, toes all crossed the fruit has set.
The plum, pear and greengage are still in flower as are the cherries. The wild blackthorn has been rather disappointing this year.

This morning I have been digging up and potting up black and red currants for my daughter who has a new house in Herefordshire. Every year I give out cuttings to friends and also shove a few in the far corner of the garden - spares you might say. These are for the birds who especially love the red ones.

The oaks have young leaves but the ash none - they do have some flowers. So we are in for a splash rather than a soak though last year we had both and more.

At R's suggestion, last year I scattered some Hedge Parsley seed in shaggy places - grassy bankings and such - and this year we do have some plants. The 'Queen Anne's Lace' is splendid to behold in roadsides but will need some watching in the garden, albeit the wilder areas.

Nothing goes to waste if I can help it. This morning I burned the bank statements etc as I had completed the accounts (and anyway I can access them on line) along with other receipts and so on. A bit of potash for the fruit garden. I wish I could burn the tax bill but then I am not a multinational corporation - well, have a bit of a corporation but that is all up front and . . . .

GETTING INTO GIGHA

We left our garden in full daff and primrose glory, grass mown, hoeing done, a cowslip mysteriously appearing on the upper banking, spotted flycatchers hawking, swallows wheeling - off we went.

North to Scotland and hope for a fine day, that was the plan.
Come day two we went south down the Mull of Kintyre, a quick ferry crossing and voila!

The only good weather day this year and we were on the Isle of Gigha - not in the garden working hard as we should have been. Good weather, good friends and a great garden.
We had stayed at Achamore House some years ago and the whole time there it rained, and rained. This time the sun was out and the day was glorious.
The work done to the gardens there was amazing. So much achieved since our last visit.
The viewpoint at the top of the garden revealed the western coast, a seal on a rock, head up, tail up and buzzards wheeling.
The rhododendrons were two weeks ahead of home and bursting with colour, especially the deep reds.
Camera was out taking visual notes - the pond, camellia walk, walled garden, bamboo tunnel - ears bathing in birdsong.
Summer was on its way.

But it did not arrive!

Next day was back to rain and cold and so on. We fled to Arran on a wallowing ferry, two of us looked a little green.
We fled home a day early - well, we could tidy up the garden.

It was raining, is raining and the grass has grown six inches, most of the daffs are dead (R deadheaded them yesterday), it is too wet to cut the lawn so I have to just watch the jungle rising from the turf.

It is amazing how much change can come to a garden with a day of warmth. The cherries, pear, plum and greengage are in blossom as are two of our damsons. Flowerbeds, empty a few weeks ago, are tumbling with growth. Forgetmenots seem to have seeded themselves everywhere (or did I scatter the seed?) They are in the rose bed, up the bankings, in the wood, down the bankings, everywhere and wonderful. Other surprises reveal themselves on closer inspection - two teasels in the main beds - they can stay, the japanese anemones I removed from the rose bed have come forth - must have left a smidgeon of root behind.

All in all it is so difficult to leave one's garden - the control freak in me - to its own machinations.
On a final note - the cling film on the back windows seems to have deterred the blackbird from attacking its reflection, the human hair down the mole holes has not worked too well. Mowdy is tunnelling away with renewed vigour.

At least one good thing - the previous owner had planted Spanish bluebells near the gate - I assassinated them last year and they seem to have disappeared. I can almost hear our native bluebells in the wood breath a sigh of relief.

BRAMBLIN' ROSE

Bramblin' Rose, bramblin' Rose
How you do it, heaven knows,
Though the thorns scratch, they are no match,
They can't defeat a bramblin' Rose?

I should explain - my wife, formerly known as R is actually Rosey to her close family, Rose to her sister and cousins and Rosemary to others.
She attacks the tip rooting monsters in the upper garden with vigour and they have to give sway.
She divides snowdrops and primroses and spreads joy and makes me a cuppa when I am fatigued.
When she spins I wonder if she will change into a superheroine (can I say that?) superhero.

The swallows are back, a pair orbiting the house getting back their energy for eggs and stuff. Mrs Pheasant has gone awol so she must be sitting. He is still strutting his stuff. We had a moorhen on the pond this morning. 

The daffs have been fantastic this year though late and the persistent autumn planting of a sack a year has payed off. Soon the deadheading will begin, then a feed just to get the bulbs nice and fat for next year.
My sweet peas are trying to get out of the shed but it is too early at the moment so they will have to bide their time.
Seeds have been sown in the cutting bed - Ammi, Love-in-a-mist, Sweet Williams, Wallflowers, Honesty, Calendulas, Green zinnias, Rhidolphia and larkspur, hesperis and sunflowers. I know - capital letters all over the place but you cannot have everything.

The willow tunnel, more like a willow avenue now, is lined with daffs as shown (and mole hills) (hidden). The honeysuckles and clematis planted to clamber over the willows are doing ok and should look good later in the year.

I have a confession to make - I have fallen for an advert on the telly. In amongst some plants, especially the raspberries are some tenacious weeds - nettles, buttercups, ground elder and so on. I do not want to dig the lot up at this moment and replant so have succumbed to a small pot of Roundup gel. You spread it on the individual leaves and hope the victim does not suffer too much. I intend to try it on the bindweed amongst the herbaceous borders later on - will report back. 
I know - it is not all compost and organic stuff and that but I tried to live with the weeds and do best I could but it did not work.

Back to Brambles and stuff - time for a love poem from our distant youth -


BRAMBLES

We were in love
and blackberrying in the rain.
One wisp of hair
lay soaked upon her forehead
and water sequins
crystalised her eyebrows:
though we were drenched 
we did not care about the damp -
kisses laced with drizzle
are strangely sweet
like mulled bramble wine;
our lips and chins
were stained with juice
and all the furrows of our hands
were dyed deep red -
we did not care,
we were in love
and blackberrying in the rain.

Bramblin' Rose, bramblin' Rose . . . . . . . . .