Interlopers

Tulips in the big pot

The mid-season tulips are coming out nicely; but I admit to being a bit confused about the contents of the big pot.  According to my blog post at the time, it ought to be 'Ronaldo', 'La Belle Epoque', 'Brown Sugar' and 'Bruine Wimpel'.  Certainly the first two of those are there; 'Ronaldo' a very deep, dark pink, and 'La Belle Epoque' the sort of pinky-coffee colour that would look washed out on its own, but teamed with stronger colours looks really great.  There's also a strong pink with orangey, slightly frilled tips, and it doesn't match the description of either of the other two that I planted.  It might become clearer once the fourth flowers; it's going to come into bloom later than the others and so far looks orange-ish on the outside, so it could be either 'Brown Sugar' or 'Bruine Wimpel' at this stage.  Fortunately, the overall effect is quite striking and I'm pleased with it, whatever the actual tulips turn out to be!  There was also an interloper in that pot; one single bloom that was too early, too tall and too orange for the others.  I cut it for a vase indoors, and I'm pretty sure it's 'Cairo': a handsome orange with a strong central rib on the petals and a khaki-green base inside.  As it happens, I have a group of 'Cairo' from last year so I've been able to compare the two.  I've marked the interloper in the hope of being able to single it out for next year!

Definitely 'Cairo' ....

... and possibly 'Cairo'

Eggplant?

Today there was another surprise appearance in the pot with the remains of Tulip 'Silver Parrot' (last year's bulbs; this year only one flowered, and poorly, so I'll discard them).  Something has laid an egg in there.  From the size, I'd guess it's one of the hen pheasants who have been wandering about over the last few days.  It's hardly a suitable place for a nest, so presumably it's just been abandoned.  At least she chose a pot where the planting is already fading, rather than squashing a lot of flowering bulbs.

Sadly, the bluetits may have abandoned their attempt to nest in the nestbox; possibly too much activity down there for them.  I haven't seen them going in for a while.  I hope they've found somewhere else.  However the house martins and swallows have started to arrive; a flock of martins were feeding over the field behind us one day, and singletons have been seen overhead.  The blackbirds, thrushes and robins have been having a wonderful week with all the landscaping work going on around the house.  The digging has yielded lots of worms and other buglife, and our soft-hearted builders have been putting the worms aside for the birds, who are becoming quite tame, especially as they're feeding youngsters now.  There's a fledgeling blackbird being fed alongside the drive, and I was scolded one day by the thrush when I went into the Dump corner, not realising that a young thrush was hiding in there.  One of our male blackbirds has, after much practice, managed to master the art of hanging onto the fatball feeder; it's not a very elegant performance, but he's able to stay on there for several seconds now and peck some beakfuls out.

The building work has limited the scope for much other gardening this past week; I've been clearing and cutting back to make space for the new paths.  The builders kindly lifted some of my favourite hellebores from the path, which have been bedded in temporarily to recover until I can find somewhere permanent for them.  I'm still planning the new bed behind the house; today (nice and sunny, but cool) that area wasn't shaded by the house until about 3pm, and the definition of 'full sun' is 6 hours of sunshine, so it should be suitable for quite a range of plants.

The veg plot has been a bit neglected over the past couple of weeks.  There are various brassica seedlings in the cold frame and greenhouse but they need pricking out and hardening off; the weather continues mostly dry, sometimes bright but with more cold winds and chilly nights than I'd like at this time of year.  The leek seedlings are starting to appear, but the spring-sown broad beans are patchy at best; I wonder if some of them have been eaten by mice.  There's just time to sow some replacements if I'm quick about it.

Problem, challenge, opportunity (II)

A lot of work ...

Well, so much for my plans to concentrate on weeding and sorting out the veg plot beds.  For some time we've been planning to widen the path along the back of the house, on an area which is, or more correctly has been, a flower bed; we're finally about to go ahead with that, and the builder is coming much sooner than anticipated.  So the focus is now on clearing / weeding that area before he starts, a lot of work against a deadline!  The builders will dig out the area, but there are things in there - couch grass and vetch among others - that need careful root removal if they're not to reappear in future years between the flagstones, and I'd rather do that myself to be sure.  The bed has been left pretty much to its own devices in recent years, in anticipation of the building work, and there isn't much in there that needs preserving.  There's a lot of brunnera, seedlings of the Brunnera 'Jack Frost' which might just lie outside the paved area, though I've taken divisions from it and planted them elsewhere in the garden, so the parent plant can be removed (if I can get it out!), a couple of aquilegias and the big patch of red wallflowers (I'll take cuttings and dig them out, as late as possible as the bees are enjoying them).  Sadly we will have to remove all the hellebores that have self-seeded between the existing flagstones, including my favourite H. argutifolius, although there's a seedling from that now located in the front garden.  I will also have to bite the bullet and remove the very old, blackspot-ridden climbing rose on the back wall - probably not before time either.  The ground slopes away very slightly from the house, and I originally built a low drystone retaining wall in this bed; I've started to dismantle it, exposing a large population of slugs and snails, some of which I threw out onto the lawn where the song thrush gratefully disposed of a few.  I also found a little toad hiding in there, and re-homed him under a large patch of ivy where I hope he'll be safe.

There is an opportunity associated with the work, however: a new bed alongside the new path will be further away from the house and its shadow, and - although east-facing - will get sun for much of the afternoon, much more than the old bed did.  An opportunity for some sun-loving plants!

Fortunately the weather is continuing dry; it has been a very dry April and I've had to do some watering of pots and veg seedlings, but it means that I can work comfortably outside and the soil is easy to work.  Temperatures have fluctuated between a pleasantly warm weekend (meals outside in the summerhouse) and, today, a chill that had me revert to full winter working clothes including jacket and warm gloves.

Tulip 'Orange Emperor'

Tulip 'Exotic Emperor'

The tulips are continuing to come out.  I'm very pleased with 'Exotic Emperor', a lovely creamy white with a few green markings on the outside, and 'Orange Emperor', a vivid, luminescent clear orange with the same green markings; both are sturdy plants with full, bold flowers.  The other pots are still in bud but coming on nicely, and there are a few odds and sods (from last year's pots) in odd corners, including some 'Havran', 'Couleur Cardinal' and 'Angelique'.  There are still a good few daffodils in reasonable shape, and the path along the hedge is lined on one side by honesty (Lunaria annua) and on the other by doronicum - a fine colourful effect.  And the orchids are starting to push their leaves up through the lawn.

Honesty and doronicums

The pulmonaria underneath the winter honeysuckle seems to be a favourite of the local sparrows, who were happily pulling the flowers off one day.  I don't mind as the plant is barely visible anyway.  We've had a very active lot of birds, some (blackbirds, song thrush, robins) taking food away for youngsters.  A pair of pied wagtails appeared one day (normally we only see them in the garden in the direst winter weather), as did a pair of mistle thrushes, attracted by the old apples put out for the blackbirds; long-tailed tits still come from time to time and all of our usual birds are very much in evidence.  The bluetits are indeed nesting in the nestbox, apparently undeterred by our being in the summerhouse.  There may also be a wren's nest down in the bottom hedge area as we've seen one there quite a lot.  With the weather being so dry, the water is a big attraction for the birds, and there has been much bathing in the pond - although the level is dropping so that may not continue for long!

Lx4 squared

When I was planning the garden, more years ago than I care to think about, I spent quite a lot of time deciding on a design for the veg plot.  Ornamental potagers were very fashionable at the time and, although I had no ambitions for anything as decorative as the one at Barnsley House, I wanted raised beds to help with the shallow soil and so there had to be a geometric design of sorts.  The plot is three times as long as it is wide, so I divided it into three roughly square areas.  I toyed in my imagination with various complicated layouts, settling in the end for something relatively simple: the outer squares contain four rectangular beds around a small central one, and the middle square has four L-shaped beds around a slightly larger central bed.  The outer areas work fairly well, but the L-shaped beds were always a little too small and awkward, and moving about the plot has always involved a lot of zigzagging or jumping over the corners of beds.  It didn't help that I made the paths between the beds much too narrow (trying to cram in as much as possible).  The whole central area hasn't been much in use for a few years now as various weeds, especially couch grass, have taken hold, with the couch establishing itself under the paths (originally, gravel - now much worn away - over black plastic).  I've decided to simplify things, do away with the central bed in this middle area and turn the four Ls into four squares.  This is proving easier said than done, and not just because of all the weeding involved; actually digging up the gravel and plastic is slow work.  My aim for this year is to get two of the beds squared off - but it is, if I may say so, proving L-ish hard.

Tulip 'Chato'

The tulips are starting to flower, with the first of the new (to me) varieties starting to come out.  'Exotic Emperor', a white, is beginning to open, and 'Chato', now in its second year, has survived well, with a good number of flower heads; it is paired with Muscari 'Valerie Finnis', which last year flowered very early but this year is coming out at the same time as the tulip.  Some of the tulips lifted from previous years' pots have been planted out in a couple of corners and some of them are going to flower, but are a little way off yet.  I keep forgetting to mention the rather ungainly and woody clump of wallflowers ('Sunset Red') which I've kept for a couple of years to provide cuttings; they're hardly attractive plants but the flowers are making a very vivid statement by the back door.  It's a pity they don't do very well in a vase (the leaves go yellow quickly and, even if you strip those off, the stems tend to become slimy in water).

Wallflower 'Sunset Red'

Spring is edging slowly forward, with some pleasant sunshine but a chilly wind and a few colder nights (the greenhouse heater is back on at night, especially now that there are some tender seedlings in there; I'm keeping the chilli, tomato and aubergine seedlings indoors for the moment).  There's much bird activity, and the sparrows have been enthusiastically pulling moss out of the lawn for their nests.  The nestbox has been put up on the new summerhouse wall, with some protective chicken netting around it to keep the woodpecker from getting its head in; it's probably too late for the nuthatches to take advantage of it this year, but a pair of bluetits have been staking it out, so we might get a brood in there after all!