Away for a week on holiday in the Lake District - and at last summer weather arrived, very warm and sunny. Back home to a rather dry garden, and a very overgrown lawn full of daisies, buttercups and speedwell. It looked very pretty, at least until we got the mower out ...
Apparently wild flowers have been to the fore in the show gardens at Chelsea this year, so our lawn was bang on trend for once! A bit too wild to be practicable though (and the birds much prefer it cut). As I was pulling up weeds ahead of the mower (the things I really didn't want to seed around in the grass pile), I suddenly realised that the one I'd just picked was not in fact the weed I thought it was. Closer inspection (very close inspection - it was a very small flower spike) showed that the bottom flower had already opened. It was tiny and plain green, but unmistakably an orchid flower. I found a couple more, all of them in the shade of the plum tree - two roundish leaves, not unlike those of a plantain, and a small spike of tiny green flowers. Both promptly had a domestic preservation order slapped on them and they were carefully mowed around! Fortuntately - given that I had inadvertently picked one - it turns out that they're not rare. My flower book suggests it's Common Twayblade (Twayblade because it has two leaves, Common because it is, apparently; I suppose it's so inconspicuous that it's easy to miss). I wonder how long it has been in the lawn?
I've also found a plant of yellow rattle in a weedy spot in front of the house. A useful plant to have around if we want to encourage wild flowers in the lawn! (It's a semi-parasite on grasses and reduces their vigour.)
The wisteria is in full scented bloom, in spite of my rather harsh treatment of it in the winter. I hope it fills out a bit to cover up the gaps where I removed old branches (and to cover up the old tights I used to tie it to the wires - effective but not very sightly!). The aquilegias are also in flower, as are the Welsh poppies, poached egg plant and cistus; the white camassias are coming out (why are they so much later than the blue ones?), with the allium cristophii (which has self-seeded very satisfactorily in various places) not far behind. The cow parsley is also at its peak; although a lot of it has been removed there are still quite a few remaining. Fortunately there's little left in the new border at the bottom of the garden, although I expect more seeds will germinate with the increase in light levels now that the undergrowth has been removed. That border is looking rather bare (I've left it lightly planted so that I can get remaining weeds out easily), but the purple verbascum is looking good and the foxgloves are starting to flower; the clumps of deschampsia are filling out as is the new phlomis I planted to accompany them. Surprisingly the wallflowers also still have some flowers. Elsewhere the roses are also coming into flower (Gertrude Jekyll and Old Blush China), and the reliable combo of "Mary Queen of Scots" and the choisia is going full speed ahead.
The blackbirds are feeding another brood, and the thrushes and robins are also busy. Goldfinches are around too, and the two partridges continue to trundle about the place from time to time. A baby wren has also been about, which is lovely; it's very small but quite independent.
Sadly the warm weather has not lasted; the past week has been very mixed and this weekend, being a public holiday, is pretty miserable! Yesterday was back to November, though the afternoon wasn't too bad.
A brief record of holiday sightings: a lovely view of a dipper feeding its fledgling near Rosthwaite; a pair of raptors (probably peregrines) on Haystacks, catching their lunch (we heard the squeal); a heron and some goosanders on Buttermere; a pair of ravens doing flying rolls over Catbells. Lots of cuckoos (heard but not seen) and wheatears. Their flowers were slightly ahead of ours, despite being further north (but lower level): aquilegias and Welsh poppies well out when we arrived, and lots of lovely rhodos and azeleas. (I have just discovered the Digital Macro setting on my camera which should improve my flower close-ups a bit!)
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