Aphid creche

I have no idea what is going on here.  None of the other fallen rose petals around had aphids on them, and by next morning they were all gone, albeit with a few nibbles to the centre of the petal.  Aphid creche, or the insect equivalent of when polar bears get cast away on broken ice floes?

Going...going...

Goodbye peonies, you were beautiful while you lasted, all ten days or so of it.

Early June garden

Lilac, bloomed and now going over in a matter of weeks...  shrub rose that I tended to last September now flourishing... Mountain bluet/knapweed/perennial cornflower invader from next door still producing buds... the promise of Delphiniums from out of nowhere in the shared bed... Aquilegia salvaged and replanted along the edge of the pathway beds now at its best... the pink Hibiscus bush leafing up nicely... electric blue glowing in the early morning light... foxglove buds yip!

I'm just popping to the shops

Oh, I might pop into Wilkinsons while I'm there, just to get some pot plant food (and some sunflower seeds, and some useful plant supports, only £1!).  And I'll pick up some strawberries for dinner, from the grocers in town, that also imports perennials, at a bargain price, 2 for £3.  Well, the poppies were a little bit more, but they'll grow through the campanulas so nicely...

Is it just me?

Cut bluebells from the garden.  I "should" have thrown them out a week ago, but I think they look as stunning when setting seed as they did in full flower.

Rescue

Everyone in the street has this beauty (or weed, depending on your tastes) popping up in their garden at the moment.  My neighbours have stacks of it, taking over their front borders, and yet frustratingly none of it has self-seeded in my garden.  However, seek and ye shall find as they say and, whilst pootling in one of the stony beds in the back garden, I found this lone battler growing right up through the centre of a very dense bush, flowering away unseen in the middle of its crown. 

I managed to extricate it without too much damage to root or flower and have transplanted it to the front garden, against the boundary wall and behind some purplish geraniums.  "Do your thing" I whispered to it as I watered it in, crossing all my fingers and toes.  Another welcome (free) addition to add Summer colour to the front garden.

Having a lovely time in...

Furzey gardens! An impromptu trip to the RHS Chelsea Gold winners' garden whilst we stay with family.  Enjoying some respite from the heat in this lovely shady patch.  More photos to follow.

Spot the OSR

Ever since the oil seed rape has come into flower A and I have been playing "spot the rape" on the long motorway journeys we take most weekends, because that's the kind of fun us accountants and agronomists get up to in private.  Oil seed rape has a tendancy to spread and "volunteer" rape can be spotted all along the motorway verges of the Midlands and South of England. 

This is a snapshot of my top find, a volunteer rape plant in the fork of a tree, on my cycle route home from work.  I'm feeling pretty confident that I'll finish the season undefeated. 

Roguing

Gardening activities at the moment are limited to grabbing handfuls of cleaver and other sneaky weeds from throughout the path beds and borders as I go back and forth.  The cleaver in particular is threatening to dominate my wild (for which read wilderness) garden and I suspect that Fernando has been playing secret agent, as last Summer he kept appearing from mysterious corners covered in the sticky seed pods of these brutes, which now seem to have dropped and sprouted everywere.

For all its dominance, weeding cleaver isn't such a chore.  It's quick to poke its head above the canopy of more welcome flowers, and with a light tug, huge long strands come free.  Like a magic eye picture it takes a second to get your eye in and suddenly cleaver is everywhere.  A few minutes yields a huge and satisfying handful.

The strands that have managed to hide away from me are threatening to flower soon, and the neighbours aren't as limber as I am at reaching deep into the beds, so there is always the threat of incursion from next door's garden.  So you'll be finding me, early mornings and in pyjamas, astride the borders pulling up cleaver for a while yet. 

I'm not the only one with a keen eye on the garden nowadays...

These windows were only cleaned the other week, but the view to the garden isn't as clear as it used to be.  Perhaps Fernando is as keen on checking the progress of this Spring garden as I am?

How much longer...

... can these peonies keep me waiting.  The larger buds are literally fit to bursting and yet still, every morning, no unfurled flowerhead. 


In the meantime, I had noticed that grey ants (including one pictured) love crawling over the flower buds.  They didn't appear to be causing any damage to the plants, but spotting one on this photo made me google for a definitive answer, and this is what I found.

Lodging

The rains have come and stayed and stayed and all the beautiful bluebell foliage in the garden has lodged, with only the flower stalks bravely battling on.  There's nothing to do but stare at it all from the window.  But when th ground dries the piles of fallen cherry blossom look like pretty confetti, blown into the corners of the garden. 

Plants for cake

A colleague who is a keen gardener and fortunate enough to have a greenhouse as well as green fingers, offered me some excess plants grown from seed.  As I haven't anywhere other than an open porch to store such gifts we agreed to wait for the frosts to finish, it felt like an age but finally today is delivery day!

I was told to expect some spare Cosmos, but actually I've been generously bestowed with dianthus, a fern, some dwarf sunflowers, a tomato plant, a pot geranium, and a fiery burgundy-leafed plant which I was told was "Firecracker" but doesn't look like any of the the Google images I've found.

I'm over the moon especially now that, as the bluebells that are covering the garden right now can only last a few more weeks, I'm panicking that the garden will look sparse over Summer.  I just have to work out where to put it all for maximum impact.  I offered cake in return, and was told that Ginger is a favourite, so here's my payment  - a Nigel Slater Double Ginger Cake.

Carex pendula

Over the past week the many clumps of weeping sedge in the garden have developed these amazing heads which produce tiny gusts of seed when you brush past (or deliberately flick them with your fingers) ... now I understand why I am always pulling up baby sedge plants from the beds.

The batch of plants I uprooted last year went in a flash when I took them into the office as giveaways, so any colleagues who missed out last time shouldn't have to wait too much longer for their turn.

Veg update!

The salad mix, mid-way through thinning (rocket has been planted separately so it doesn't get too bullyish with these gentle tasties)

Peas nice and sturdy, and sending out their climbing tendrils, all covered up with protective net to keep the birds out  Does this count as success yet?

Late April garden

Lilac is coming... apple blossom in full swing, but already starting to fall... bluebells amongst the crocosmia (getting going from last Autumn's renovation)...  Kerria japonica pompoms, I remember these as hedging when I lived in London... Blubells!... the pathway border doing its Spring thing

Cleaning windows

 

A lovely sunny weekend day but no time to do anything of significance in the garden, instead I cleaned the windows which had got grubby from the Winter weather beating on them.  I did them the way my Grandma taught me, vinegar in the water to rinse, newspaper to buff.  Now I have clean windows and a better view of everything that needs doing in the garden.

Crystallised primroses

An abundance of primrose in the garden right now and a while-a-go birthday gift from A's mum =  a chance to have a go at making crystalled flowers.

Gather your ingredients: the flowers, caster sugar, a paint brush for cleaning and application, water for washing, and lots of kitchen roll (off-camera).  Flowers are usually crystallised with egg white and can last for 2-3 days, but as I had no plans to use mine for a couple of weeks I used longer lasting gum arabic, which I ordered online.

I picked my primroses on a dry day, after the dew had lifted, but as it had been raining heavily on and off over the past few days and the flowers were splashed with soil I decided to wash them with a quick dip in water.  I wouldn't actually recommend doing this though, as the petals could get waterlogged and folded over onto themselves and soil still clung on even after a vigourous plunge; next time I'll use a soft brush to remove any soil.

 

The gum arabic comes in powdered form and needs to be dissolved in a clear liquid; I used gin!  I painted the reverse side of the flower first, and then held by the stem to paint the right side of the petals, then sprinkled caster sugar all over.  Leave them to dry out overnight on a sheet of greaseproof paper, then store in a Tupperware in the fridge until needed.

Here are the results, a little bit of Spring crystallised and preserved for a while longer yet.  I plan to use them on my Mum's birthday cake, in early May.  And finally here is my helper, who took a liking to the sugary water that I was washing my sticky fingers in (no primroses were washed in this water after this incident).

Growing from seed

The year is skipping along and this weekend I managed to get another New Year's resolution underway, by planting up some salad mix, rocket and peas.

There is a bed in the back garden where sage and rosemary grow strongly alongside some rambling and shrub roses and when we moved in last year I had grand plans to convert this bed into a little potager, but the sage is so vigorous that nothing seemed to take.  Between the dry rooty soil and Fernando's digging, a small lavender bush that I transplanted, chives and rocket all dwindled. 

Hannah, my friend at work, came to the rescue and suggested growing veg in black sack bags from Wilkos which are cheap as chips and but fill out with compost to make really deep containers. 

We've chosen some rocket and a salad mix, crops that command a high price in the supermarket, and peas - another once common garden crop which now cost a fortune to buy fresh.  The added advantage of growing peas is that they grow upwards, and we have plenty of upwards space.

Shopping from the garden, coming soon!

The back garden - March

Forsythia borrowed from next door, growing through the fence... a surprise blue flower that I haven't been able to identify... new shoots from the pruned roses promising a good show later in the year... Primula by the pond... ground cover spaghetti junction