Dry days

So far, spring has been pretty dry, thanks to a chilly east wind that's keeping rainy North Atlantic weather at bay.  Some light rain is forecast for Sunday (bound to happen, it’s a Bank Holiday weekend) but it remains to be seen whether it makes much difference.  There’s no rain in the forecast after that.

The plants in the ground are managing, but all my little pots, mostly cuttings taken a couple of years ago, are looking rather dry.  There are some that are only fit for the compost heap, while others are getting by with the occasional spell sitting in a basin of water.  The cuttings were taken to keep my garden stocks going – some, such as Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’, are short-lived and need regular replacing – with the surplus destined for the village plant sale; but the pandemic has meant that there has been no plant sale in the past two years, leaving me with too many plants.  I don’t feel too bad about throwing the runts away, although a few can be rescued, re-potted and grown on, and given to this year’s sale in late May.

Among the cuttings are two from the cistus that formerly grew near the gas tank.  That area has become overrun with weeds, mostly ground elder; the cistus itself grew too large and lanky (and cistus don’t take kindly to pruning), and finally the cold winter a couple of years back scorched it into a miserable thing.  I took cuttings (learning the hard way that you need to wait until after it has flowered to do this successfully) and pulled the remains of the parent plant up.  The ground elder is still there, in ground that is too stony and hard for digging so can only be weeded by hand, waiting for me to have a lot of spare time (ha!) to tackle it.  My two little cuttings, meanwhile, are in good shape but I’m unwilling to pot them on; I need to keep the rootballs small so that they can go into this poor soil (not possible to excavate too large a planting hole).  Hmmm.

Cowslip patch in bloom

There’s a fair bit of colour in the garden at the moment, with the cowslip patch in full bloom and rocket flowering along the long hedge path.  Down at the bottom of the garden, the alliums are about to flower.

Alliums about to open

Indoors, the tomatoes and courgettes are germinating.  I sowed seeds of five tomato varieties, cherry tomatoes ‘Apero’ and ‘Cherrola’, beefsteak ‘Costoluto Fiorentino’, and old stalwarts ‘Gardener’s Delight’ and ‘Harzfeuer’; the latter two are very old seeds, and I sowed a whole row of ‘Gardener’s Delight’ thinking that hardly any would germinate, but some have indeed come up, as has one ‘Harzfeuer’.  Too many plants, but I can gain some brownie points around the village by giving away the surplus.

Tomato seedlings - 'Gardener's Delight' just showing!

The dry soil is also making things difficult for the blackbirds, who are feeding little ones but aren’t able to find many worms.  We still have the last few of last year’s apples, now at least partly rotten, which we’re putting out gradually to give them some easy food to tide them over until the gooseberries come along.  The apples are being left out for them in one of the large flowerpots on the patio, now empty of plants but with a good depth of compost, to keep them accessible to birds but inaccessible to four-legged garden visitors (principally the rat that was visiting a few weeks back; it may or may not be the one found dead in the garden the other week, but we’re not taking chances).  Mum blackbird seems to be back on the nest, but Dad is feeding the two fledgelings from the first brood and making great use of the apples.  The robins are also not averse to stealing a beakful or two when the blackbirds aren’t around (and sometimes when they are around!).

Dad blackbird feeding apple to his youngsters

A very unusual sighting this past week, when a lovely male siskin, all bright green and yellow, briefly stopped by the bird bath for a drink.