Hole in the wall, hole in the ground

Longthwaite,May 2012 and (below) 2013

Back after nearly two weeks in the Lake District.  Spring is even later up there than here, with many of the trees still bare; you can see the difference in the same photo shot taken a year apart!  Last year's weather was warm and sunny; this year was mostly damp and chilly.  The weather pattern continues to be that the sun is warm when it's out, but the wind is cold.  We had a couple of hailstorms, and there was light snow lying on the highest central fells one day, which you don't normally see in late May ....

Down here, the weather picture was the same but possibly with even heavier rain.  Some seed trays that I left out had the compost washed out of them.  This past weekend again had some lovely sunshine but with that rather fresh breeze; today has been miserably wet.  The forecast is for more of the same.

Custom-built hole in the wall

Before we went away, the tumbledown wall at the back of the vegetable garden was (very expertly) mended.  Since next door's ash tree has taken to leaning on it, rebuilding it as it was wasn't an option; so the tree now has its own custom-built hole-in-the-wall (with a little trellising inserted by the neighbours to keep their dog in!) so that it can lean without causing more damage (we hope).  The apple cordons are flowering on regardless; one job outstanding is to tie them up properly as they're lying rather flat at the moment (the stakes having been removed to allow access to the wall).  They've suffered remarkably little damage from having so much stone fall on them!

Another sort of hole appeared just before our departure: something small and probably furry had dug a hole at the bottom of the big ash tree at the end of the garden (fortunately without disturbing any of my new planting).  By the time we got back the hole had disappeared, but another has materialised alongside the brick edging of the 'hot' bed.  I wonder what's down there?  During our holiday we were entertained by the antics of two red squirrels on the peanut feeder, but whatever has dug these holes is a lot smaller and, I suspect, a lot less cute.

The tulips in the big pot

In my absence there hasn't been too much change in the garden.  The grass, both in the lawn and in the flowerbeds, has grown well (all that rain!), but the dandelion problem wasn't as great as I had feared; none seemed to have seeded and I was able to deadhead them before the damage was done.  The main flower change is that the tulips have come out nicely.  Down at the bottom of the garden, the grouping of 'Angelique', 'Uncle Tom' and 'Black Hero' in the big pot has lived up to expectations: the colours work well together and can be seen well from the house.  The perennials put into that pot to provide winter interest are recovering from their exposure to the east wind; the Heuchera and the Euphorbia myrsinites (the latter just peeping out in the picture) had been looking unhappy but are coming along quite well now.

The plants put into the bottom-of-the-garden bed seem to have settled in.  I'm thinking that they will need some more spring colour in there next year; the crocuses and Anemone blanda are too small to make a decent splash.  Some more tulips in there next year would be good - perhaps move the ones in the pot and see if they will come again next year?

Good value hellebores

The blue camassias have also flowered, and are nearly over.  Also on the way out at last are the hellebores; I dead-headed most of them before we went away but left the big one because it looks so good.  It has been flowering since well before Christmas; now that's what I call good value.

The birds, especially the blackbirds and the robin, seem glad to have us back; they're still feeding youngsters and come straight down when food is put out.  A thrush also visited today.  There are signs that the sparrowhawk has been about again: pigeon feathers, bits of another female pheasant and some brown feathers that suggest that the hawk has been in someone's chicken coop and brought a take-away in here to eat.  The magpies are also still here (bringing back unpleasant memories of seeing a crow raid a Lake District mistle thrush's nest). Just before we went away we spotted five swifts flying overhead; but there have been no signs of them here since, so they were probably en route for somewhere else.

The rain has topped up the water levels in the pond nicely.  After my last look in there I had feared that the wildlife had gone, but I see that there are water snails active in there, and a newt was sculling around on the bottom, so all is not lost after all.