Exotic Orange Emperor

... and Tulip 'Orange Emperor' (supposedly)!

Tulip 'Exotic Emperor' ....

The first tulips are out, and straight away we have this year's mislabelled variety.  I was surprised to see that I had two pots of the white 'Exotic Emperor', as I was sure I had only planted one - and there was no sign of any 'Orange Emperor'.  Then three slightly later stems in one of the pots opened - pure orange.  Sure enough, that pot has a label saying 'Orange Emperor', so most of the bulbs in that pack were the wrong variety.  (It's the second year running that I've had 'wrong variety' bulbs from Sarah Raven's bulb supplier.)  It's not a big problem as I like both varieties, and at least there's no colour clash; in fact the pairing would make a good counterpoint to a daffodil such as 'Geranium' which has very similar colours and flowers at the same time.  (I planted more of those, too, in one of the pots but they haven't done anything, and neither have 'Avalanche' or 'Silver Chimes', all from Crocus; planted too late? winter too cold? or just poor-quality bulbs?  Perhaps a pot isn't the best place for the bigger narcissus.  The 'Tete-a-tete' and 'Elka' have done fine in pots, though 'Baby Moon', from another supplier, didn't show.)  A few of previous years' tulips, planted out elsewhere in the garden, have flowered - a few 'Couleur Cardinal' and 'Prinses Irene', which have been useful for cutting - but those left in one or two of the pots are either blind or have been frosted in the cold weather, coming up with very damaged leaves and little else.  At least I will have no compunction about digging them out and re-using those pots for summer bedding.

Bad Gardening Practice

The pot currently occupied by Scilla siberica 'Spring Beauty' (and the stunted leaves of  'Avalanche') had, until last autumn, contained one of the anthemis and a few too-old bulbs, and too many weeds.  The anthemis was in need of renovation, and I have its sister plant elsewhere in the garden anyway, so I unceremoniously heaved the whole lot out in one big rootball and dumped it - and never got round to moving it (this is Bad Gardening Practice).  Despite them being exposed to the worst that the Beast from the East threw at them, with not even a pot for protection, the anthemis is still ok and a couple of the tulips are in bud!  I now feel bad about having mistreated them; maybe I should mount a salvage operation.

On the subject of plant labelling, I've found a few good strong young plants growing under the ash tree by the drive (without labels).  They look like something I would have put there last year, and probably as small plants rather than seeds.  I can't think what they are; the leaves looked initially rather like very young hellebore leaves but I wouldn't have put hellebores there.  I will leave them and find out in due course!  (More Bad Gardening Practice.)

After the Novemberish weather of a couple of weeks ago, we moved swiftly into July - decidedly warm sunshine for a few days.  That ended with a terrific thunderstorm on Saturday evening; we were having supper in the summerhouse (making the most of the good weather) and sat it out, with a good bottle of wine, enjoying the lightshow and congratulating ourselves on having mowed the lawn earlier.  The weather has now reverted to normal - a chilly wind yesterday and rain today (and for much of this week according to the forecast).  The greenhouse bubblewrap has been taken down; it's nice to have the view back!

 

 

 

 

Crossbred primula

Anemone blanda

The combination of heat and rain has really spurred on growth.  The blackthorn is in flower in the hedgerows, and in the garden the plum is in bloom and other plants are springing into life.  The epimediums, brunnera, bergenia and comfrey are blossoming, there are the first Anemone blanda in the bottom bed, and the aquilegias are throwing up flower stems.  The cowslip (and other cross-bred primulas) patch in the lawn is in full bloom; and the two primroses outside the gate have produced a third plant with slightly pinkish flowers (it looks a bit as though it has gone through the washing machine too many times).  (The leaves in the photo belong to the shining cranesbill, a local wildflower that I've been encouraging.)

In the veg patch, the shallots have taken well, thanks in part to the fleece covering (now removed) that kept the birds off; the broad beans are germinating and the potatoes have gone in, a little belatedly.  There's an excellent crop of rhubarb.

The wildlife is also responding well to the better weather.  A male brimstone butterfly has been about again, and a small brownish butterfly passed through (too far away to identify) one day.  The birds are busy building nests and defending territories; song thrushes have been singing in the evenings, and the usual birds have been joined by a pair of chaffinches and one of coal tits, several goldfinches and a greenfinch.  A pair of dunnocks seem to be in the bottom hedge whenever I go down there, and the blue tits are still using the nestbox; and a group of house martins and a swallow have been feeding overhead, so summer can't be too far away!

Not gardening weather

It has not been gardening weather, not very much anyway.  We didn't get the threatened snow, and the cold snap was actually quite short, but the temperatures haven't risen much and it has been rather wet, and this week has, frankly, been more like November than April - cloud down to ground level, chill and no sun.  Apart from a little seed-sowing, indoors and out, some work digging out and re-siting crocosmia corms (that is some tough plant - still a lot of it left) and a little weeding, garden activities have been limited to opening and closing the cold frame and hardening off some of the plants in the greenhouse.  It's about time that they had a sense of the hard world outside.  There's actually nothing in the cold frame that needs shelter now; much of what is in there only wanted protection from slugs and other nasties, and even the sweet peas can put up with the current temperatures (although they will benefit from something a little warmer).  We are promised rising temperatures next week, and about time too.

Despite that, there continue to be signs that spring is on its way.  The pyramidal orchids are showing leaves in the lawn and, like the early spotteds mentioned last time, have been marked off to protect them from mowing (not that we've started that yet - too damp).  Most of the big daffodils are out, even the ones I planted surreptitiously in the verge across the road, and there are buds on some of the early tulips.  The cold weather last month has affected some of the pot plantings, with quite a lot of scorched leaves.  The fern in the pot with Carex 'Evergold' is looking particularly brown; I expect it will regrow, but at the moment it is not a happy bunny.  The tub with the little species tulips (which I had dug up from the bottom of the garden where I'm clearing the weeds) has been raided by the mouse, judging by the size of the holes in the compost and the chewed remains of bulbs alongside, and lots of netting has been placed on top; fortunately I see that I failed to dig all of them out from their original position, so all is not lost.  The new puschkinia bulbs, planted last autumn in small pots on the patio, are doing nicely; a very pretty pale blue that goes well with little daffodil 'Elka'.  Scilla siberica 'Spring Beauty', a very dark blue, is also nice but not all the bulbs seem to have come up (perhaps, despite its Siberian origins, the cold weather was too much for it?).

Scilla siberica 'Spring Beauty'

Puschkinia libanotica

Narcissus 'Elka'

A pair of blue tits have been flying in and out of the nestbox, presumably fitting it out to their taste.  There should be plenty of food for their youngsters by the time they hatch, as there has already been a noticeable increase in insect life in the garden, particularly on the few sunny days that we've had.  I'm glad the tits don't seem to have been put off by the protective wire netting loosely positioned around the nestbox (with tit-sized holes left open) to keep the woodpecker off.  Woodie has made a couple of visits to the fatballs, but never for long.  The long-tailed tits continue to come regularly, usually as a pair, a few times with some of their relatives, and one day during the cold weather they brought all their friends - there were 10 of them.  There are also quite a lot of hedgehoggy-looking droppings on the lawn - spring is slowly coming to the garden!