Jumpers in May

After the mostly mild and dry weather earlier in the spring, the past couple of weeks have been showery and quite chilly at times.  The temperatures haven’t been all that low – in the low teens (Centigrade) – and the sun is often warm when it’s out, but that persistently cold wind from the north and east has been keeping it feeling most unseasonal.  Jumpers have been taken out of the wardrobe, and one evening I relented and turned the central heating back on.

Despite the chill, the plants march on.  The forget-me-nots have proliferated this year, providing a most welcome haze of blue; together with the green of the self-seeding oregano, and the purple chive flowers, they made for an attractive picture in the old herb garden.  However I’ve learnt that they need to be pulled up before they finish flowering; they’re one of those plants that are still in flower at the top of the stems while the spent seedheads further down are already scattering their seeds.  So they’ve all been removed, from this bed and anywhere else that they’ve appeared, before too much seeding has taken place – leaving gaps that need to be filled by something else.  Interestingly, the gauzy panicum plants that were in there last year don’t seem to have seeded, which is a pity as I didn’t sow any this year.  There’s a splendid white foxglove (visible in the left foreground of the photo) by the terrace; I seem to have a good number of white ones in various parts of the garden this year.

Forget-me-nots in the old herb garden

Over in the dogwood patch, which is still in much need of weeding, things are much more colourful, with the aquilegias (mostly various pinks and purples) and sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis) in full flow.  The peony and roses are still to come.  In the veg garden, where I’ve left a couple of beds with self-sown flowers for cutting, the antirrhinums and sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) are just starting to bloom.  And the wisteria flowers are now going past; they’ve been superb again this year.

Antirrhinum bed, just starting to flower

First Sweet William flowers

Wisteria, in full flower

In the lawn, two of the twayblades are flowering.  They're very unshowy little plants, greenish-white and with a flower-spike barely 14cm / 6ins high); in fact you have to peer closely to see them properly, but any sort of orchid is welcome in the garden.  One seems to have rather misshapen leaves, possibly because it was accidentally mown earlier in the month; the other is in the unmown part of the lawn, among the pyramidal orchids (there are leaves of a pyramidal orchid just behind it in the photo) and lots of speedwell! 

Twayblade one ,,,

... and twayblade two (look closely!)

The local birdlife is still busy with nesting.  A female mallard wandered across the garden one day; probably come up from the pond at the bottom of the hill but still an unusual sight in this garden.  The following day I was chatting to neighbours over the front garden wall when presumably the same duck came scuttling round the corner, pursued by one tiny cheeping duckling, only a couple of days old; mum was apparently looking for the rest of her brood as she was quacking quietly and poking around in the long grass.  They disappeared into said grass and we left them to sort themselves out!