Leaning Towers

It's official, apparently - it has been the wettest April-June period since records began.  We've been spared the really heavy rain that has caused floods elsewhere in the past few days, but the weather here continues very mixed at best, with blustery spells and only occasional sunshine.  The sun, when it does appear, is mostly quite warm, but apart from a couple of days early this week the temperatures are low for the time of year.

The wind has knocked the taller plants around.  The sweet rocket and verbascums are almost horizontal, as are the remaining aquilegias, and the foxgloves at the bottom of the garden are leaning at all sorts of angles.  (Interestingly, the wild foxgloves at the gate, which are actually more exposed, are ok - possibly because they're slightly smaller and have fewer flowers?)  The big foxgloves were grown from seed a couple of years ago, in the vegetable garden, and never got planted out; some of those remaining are originals, but I think a number of them are seedlings because there are a lot of ordinary purple ones instead of the white-pink-purple mix of the original batch.  They're a good garden variety - tall, and mostly flowering all round the spike instead of just at one side, so they have much more presence than the wild ones.  I still have some seed; must grow more of them.

Leaning towers

Some of them were moved to the new bed under the ash tree, where they're doing quite well (but too many purples - I need to put some whites there so that they show up better).  The verbascums are down there too, but it's not a good place for them; they have dark purple flowers which aren't visible enough, and they're not beefy enough to make a statement.  They look quite insignificant alongside the phlomis, for example.

The old roses are in full bloom, as are the English roses, with Gertrude Jekyll the star performer as usual.  The buddleia alternifolia is also out, making a good partnership with rose 'Mme Hardy'.  The lavender is about to flower, and in the pond, the first waterlily bloom is out too.


Gertrude Jekyll

It's also prime time for the weeds, so I've been ripping up the worst ones before they can seed.  I'm determined to get the willowherb out this year, and as much of the grass seedheads as I can.

On the edibles front, the first raspberries were ready today, and the gooseberries are also there or thereabouts.  Need to get at them before the birds do!

At least one of the blackbirds is still feeding young, and a couple of independent juveniles have been around.  One of them was sunbathing on the patio one day in the company of a juvenile dunnock - the two of them sitting there enjoying the sunshine together.  The wren family is still around; I disturbed a couple of them when weeding by the hedge, causing a bit of a panic.  A young robin has been down, and a harassed sparrow pursued by his three demanding fledgelings.  The starlings in the gable end are also feeding youngsters (and it was good to see a couple of dozen starlings on the wires at the end of the village, so they're breeding quite well this year).  A couple of male pheasants have been in, but not my old friend; I hope he comes back, even though he is a stroppy old thing.  The squirrel returns every so often to check that the peanuts are still out of bounds, but hasn't been hanging around.

We haven't seen the red kite again; a neighbour tells me that there's actually a pair of them.