The dry weather has given way to sunshine and showers; in the past few days we've had a little hail and some thunder and lightning as well. Cool, but no night frosts at least; the cold frame has been propped open during the day, and when one of the bubblewrap panels in the greenhouse fell off I didn't bother to put it back. I suppose I ought to remove the rest of it, as (I hope) we shouldn't get any prolonged cold now.
One of the partridges - we still have a pair of them around daily, and occasionally a singleton as well - was inspecting the cold frame with great interest yesterday; I think it was considering whether it dared to go inside (but fortunately it didn't). Luckily the greenhouse door was closed at the time as it seemed tempted to wander in there instead.
The greenhouse is filling up well, with seeds (tomatoes, aubergines, sweet william, larkspur, asters, scabious) pricked out and potted on, and the first round of freesia bulbs potted up. The dahlias are throwing up shoots, and the courgettes and sunflowers are sprouting; there's a whole lot of brassicas and lettuces also in need of potting on. The upside of the showery weather is that the greenhouse is a good place to be! I have a nice crop of ipomoea, which have germinated well (and, dare I say it quietly so that they can't hear, there's no sign of damping off yet ...). Unfortunately I had planned to pair it with the portulaca, which is resolutely refusing to germinate, even in the propagator.
The sweet peas - all of them, including the Tutankhamuns - have been planted against the front wall in the hope that they'll clothe their beanpoles (buddleia prunings actually) well enough to distract the eye from the electricity substation across the road. It means that they're growing in deep shade, but I'm hoping that they will be all the more inclined to climb towards the light. The Old-fashioned Mixed ones, which I've grown for years, have done poorly again; this is about the third year that they've been disappointing. I think I'll give up on them and maybe go for 'Cupani' instead next time.
Also in the front garden, the older camellia ('Donation') has flowered really well - about a dozen good blooms. The other isn't going to flower, by the looks of it, though it seems happy enough.
The large red tulips will soon be out; the small ones have been doing well, and as usual make a good picture with the yellow doronicums and the honesty. The erythroniums are also out, as is the anthemis in the patio pot (but not yet the one at the bottom of the garden), and the centaurea is showing its first flower. The plum blossom is going over, but the pears are in flower and the apple cordons aren't far behind.
Down in the new(ish) bed at the bottom of the garden, plants are filling out nicely, although there are still big gaps. There are some poppy seedlings coming up, and I'm hoping that some of them are the progeny of the nice purplish-red ones from last year. There are also a lot of ferny seedlings that are almost certainly some sort of umbellifer - some of them are from the sweet cicely (which is good), but are the rest ammi or cow parsley? I suspect the latter, but I'll let them fill out a bit before I decide whether to pull them up or not!
A buzzard was hunting over the field opposite us the other day; and we've seen a glimpse of a big raptor that might have been the red kite (but it was too quickly gone for us to be sure). At the other end of the scale, this week's butterfly sighting was an orange-tip.
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