VIRAL GARDENING

We are so lucky to have a large garden inn this time of isolation.

We may be in a drought situation soon but the good weather does make self isolation easier. We do our daily walk, chivvied out by the task mistress, and today we stood and watched a sparrow hawk watching us from ten feet away sitting on a wall.

Talking birds a blue tit landed on the top vane of our windmill, it was motionless, but the impetus of its almost weightless body started it rotating and suddenly the tit found itself heading for the ground. It flew up to the peanut feeder obviously startled.
I have decided to have a go at some of the brambles up near the wood but it will mean digging them out. A job for gloves I think.

No sign of ducklings yet. She is still sitting. 
Here are the mallard on the pond at night, the drake attending to duck who has nest full of eggs up the banking at the back. She comes down in the dark to feed and preen

and here she is heading back to the nest.

Tuesday, at least I think it is Tuesday, I get up and look out of the window. There is a rabbit on the banking, a cock pheasant calls with a voice like a football rattle and a jay flies past in a muscular, crow sort of way.
There must be a pheasant nest somewhere but very well hidden.

The asparagus bed is weeded, my back aches and knees are creaking but that does not stop the 2 mile walk before coffee.

The damsons are in full blossom but there was a frost last night so we pray it has not damaged the crop. We had enough with the pocket plum last year.

Up near the wood there is a rhododendron we bought at a garden near Matlock some years ago and it is gloriously scented - sort of gingery - cannot remember the name, cannot remember when we went to Matlock, cannot remember at which garden we were when we bought it, just that the owner had flown in Vulcan bombers with my brother-in-law.

The small bed by the back door (the one at the side) is looking good with self sown pink and white honesty,  tulips and the Magnolia stellata in full flower. The round mound is a sarcococcus placed by the door we use for its winter scent.

Looking up past the pruned Magnolia grandiflora to the pieris (that R does not like) is the small slate house was made for us by my late brother-in-law Roy and now is is nor concealed. Self sown forget-me-nots and primroses grow by the path (which reminds me R has asked me to water the primroses further on by the wood so they thrive and can be divided and spread everywhere.


Time for a break, a cup of tea and some Roy Orbison.

Wednesday and first swallow seen, orange tip butterflies in the garden (the garlic mustard (Jack-by-the-hedge)) in flower, their host plant, and in the field at the back a male jackdaw finding titbits and giving them to his partner.

The quag gets worse and I wonder if a tree root has got into the septic tank soak-away pipe so it is leaking - not smelly though.

The sun still shines relentlessly and a light frost again last night. Weeding to do etc etc. The herbs in the back bed coming on nicely - sweet cicely to the left (good with fish), apple mint centre and lovage, another lemony fish herb far right.

The plum, right,  and greengage, left, are flowering well - however the greengage is at the northern limit of its range? So far we have only had the odd fruit - keep hoping.

And forget-me-nots are self sown all over the place -

Started digging ditch to drain new spring and borrowed waders from G. to get into (and probably fall over in) pond (unless I can get Sam the gardener to do it)(not fall over).

GARDEN, GARDEN, GARDEN

And drink a lot of tea and coffee.
 So lots of flowers in the garden, duck still on nest, sunshine and no rain.
Saturday, sun and I forgot to shut the shed so at dusk I went out to do so and as I turned to the house a white ghost floated past from the garden - the silent magic of a barn owl.

First asparagus spear through, time to put in potatoes, silencing with the self isolation, the birds sing and the minimal drone of traffic distant, and in the wood the first bluebells are flowering - in early April! The spring is moving earlier.

 So, what to do with all the photos of the garden?
Obviously inflict them on you -

The cherry trees are just amazing so lots of them - mainly shirotae but the great white is coming out too. Its is not quite so dramatic as the flowers come with the leaves rather than before.

 Then there are the other prunus - this is the Victoria plum but the greengage and damsons are also in flower.









The garden seems dominated by white and yellow at the present, even the bark on the birches are shining and the honesty is in full flood even escaping into the horse paddock next door.

But then there is the woodland where a dry stream tumbles out of the upper garden. The forked tree on the right is a field maple.

And up in the wood are dog violets, wood anemones, forget-me-nots, both pink and blue, one lone cowslip, a mass of wild primroses, flowering currant and fritillaries

With the dry weather I am having to top up the pond but that is okay as we have our own borehole. And bees are buzzing on the skimmia outside the kitchen -

These tulips have flowered year on year fort a decade, orange is R's favourite colour.






















All the camellias are loaded with flowers, the best they have ever been and on Friday we walked to the church and R put a small posy on the memorial where her mothers ashes are.

Easter Sunday service online with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the vicar from our nephew's church in Ealing.

I know this us an early blog but with the virus I have so much time to wander the garden with my camera, so . . . 

OF MICE AND ME, OF DUCKS AND DROUGHT

Nothing to do with Steinbeck (any way life feels more like Neville Shute or as R's blog says - John Wyndham. (https://roseydarbishire.com/blog/2020/4/4/not-krakens-or-triffids)

Just been to the shed to get the hoe and check on the cosmos and ammi plugs I potted on.
AAAAGH! Something has eaten most of the leaves and I think I know who (no not R) - the mice are back. The trays are old photographic print trays, not used much now with digital photography. 
  And the pond is starting to look a bit low.
There are two drakes asleep today at the top of the pond, perhaps they both think the chicks belong to them?
 

And the duck is still sitting on her eggs though the camera caught her sneaking out at night tine for a dabble on the pond. She is in the tuft of grass on the left. The video camera caught her returning to the nest from the pond.

Plum and damson blossom now so praying not to have a frost.
  I am fed up walking the lanes but there is not much I can do. The taskmistress will not allow me just to vegetate in a comfortable chair.
  Bonfire again lit a second attempt.
R is starting to deadhead daffodils.
 

More blossom though any tree will struggle to compete with the cherries.

The amelanchier is flowering and the bronze leaves are coming on the  cercidiphyllums. 

  I have put final muck on small bank below house where these tulips have come up year on year with their splash of orange.


Apart from that it is just primroses and wood anemones and violets and fritillaries and so on.
  So, if we get some sun and warmth I shall sit and look out at the garden, mug of tea in hand, chunk of chocolate cake in mouth. Might even take a nap - sometimes not much else to do in this plague year.
 

Sam the gardener has been again and trimmed the stream sides (dry from the drought) and laid a new paved crossing from the wood to the veg beds.
I trimmed the rosa rugosa so have a line of cuttings.

And so lots of images of garden as it is so photogenic now.
  

Finally watered pots and seeds - sown more rows, cauliflower, broccoli, parsnip and courgettes in pots, no rain forecast for a fortnight - thank heavens for a borehole.