Sweet harmony

 

Stars of the show - the van Eycks

The heavy rain the other night – the first real downpour for a long time, though we’ve had a showery spell these past few days – finished off the early ‘Emperor’ tulips, which had been fading anyway.  The current stars of the show are the two ‘van Eyck’ varieties, ‘Mystic vE’ and ‘Lady vE’, in sweet-shop pink shades.  Their partner, ‘Paul Scherer’, is only just starting to bloom, with much smaller flowers, so will be a latecomer to the party, but in fact the two vEs are doing just fine by themselves, flowering in sweet harmony.  They’re new varieties to me; I like to try one or two unfamiliar ones every year, to find new favourites.  ‘Mystic van Eyck’ is a bit wishy-washy; I would find it uninspiring by itself, but with the much stronger pink ‘Lady van Eyck’ the two set each other off very nicely.  And usefully, the shocking combination of ‘Prinses Irene’ and ‘Doll’s Minuet’, in the neighbouring pot, are not yet doing their thing, otherwise the two pots together would be a real eye-opener!

Underplanting (or actually, overplanting, since I put them in above the bulbs last December) with forget-me-nots has worked very well indeed; the forget-me-not flowers are a lovely foil to the tulips.  The sparrows like them too; they’ve been eating the flowers with relish!

Sparrows nibbling the forget-me-nots

Those tulips planted in the ground haven’t done quite as well as I had hoped; ‘World Friendship’ has a few blooms, while ‘Pieter de Leur’ is bright but very short in stature and ‘Ballerina’ hasn’t flowered at all.  The dry winter and spring might have something to do with that, though I would have expected the pots to have the same problem.

Tulipa 'Pieter de Leur' - a bit short

My recent big job has been to weed the raspberry patch; the easy end (not many raspberry canes in there) has been done, with the crowded end still to do!  It should look fairly presentable when complete.  The blackbirds and robins have appreciated the effort, checking the area for insects and worms; the first two little blackbirds are out of the nest, following mum around in search of food.  I’ve stopped putting out breakfast for the birds, apart from the blackbirds’ apple, to deter the woodpigeons, who are coming in too large numbers; a younger pigeon has chased off Lefty, who reappears occasionally for a drink but no longer comes for food.  He may come back later in the year, as he has done some years in the past.  I’m also trying to keep the pheasants off the veg patch; our handsome male has a harem of six females with him, in a different sort of sweet harmony. 

The swallows are back; three overflew the garden the other day.

Feast or famine

Today it rained.  For only a few minutes, and very very lightly, but it rained.  It is supposed to rain a little tomorrow, and even more the next day and for at least a week after that.

Last year, that would have been unremarkable.  Last year was wet.  Very wet.  This year – not so much, in fact there has been hardly any rain for some weeks.  Cloud and fog, yes, but very little rain.  The ground is hard and dry, and I’ve been watering the pots and seedbeds to keep things going.  Not that I’m complaining; the weather has been mostly sunny, although often with a chilly wind from the north or north-east, and I’ve been able to work in the garden most days when time permits.

This is a pond.  Or not ....

As I noted in a recent post, the water level in the pond has dropped considerably.  I’ve given up trying to keep it topped up; I manage it as a wildlife pond, letting the level go up and down with the weather as happens in nature.  But watching a blackbird run across the surface one day brought home to me just how badly it needed attention.  I’ve taken advantage of the dry weather to get in there and tackle the problem, before the rains fill it up again.

The main problem is the iris; a lovely plant, but it has spread itself right across the pond, filling the whole thing with its roots and swamping the only other plant in there, a water lily.  When I got down to it, it turned out that the vegetation not only supported the weight of a passing blackbird, but in most places it supported my weight, which is not inconsiderable.  There is water, but most of the area is solid root.  The only way to get it out is to take the old bread-knife to the plant and cut it out, bit by bit; this is hampered by the roots having wrapped themselves around some of the big pebbles that are supposed to be covering the pond margins but many of which have slipped down into the water.  Chipping them out of the rootballs is a slow process, and I’ve only managed to clear about a third of the pond area, and that mostly around the edges; the difficult bit will be the deeper central area, where the roots go right down to the bottom of the pond.  There are also at least two plastic pots in there, the original containers of the iris and water lily, and the bread-knife won’t cut through those.  Still, a start has been made, and I hope to move forward as the weather allows!

A start has been made!

I took a break from pond clearance – it’s hard work on the back – to attend to the sickly euonymus nearby.  On close inspection it looks like a scale insect attack, though I can’t see any actual insects.  There’s a lot of healthy new growth at the ends of long bare, scaly, stems, so the plant doesn’t look as if it’s about to die, and there are also fresh shoots low down.  So I’ve cut it back hard (and taken cuttings as insurance), and am hoping that it will regenerate.

The euonymus, cut back

The dry weather has not been entirely to the liking of the birds; the blackbirds in particular are feeding nestlings, and finding it difficult to dig up worms for them.  They and the robins have been following my gardening progress with great interest, and clearing the pond edges has thrown up some nice damp corners for them to dig around in.  The mystery of the blackbirds’ apples disappearing from the patio has been solved; this evening, before I had gone out to cover the apple up for protection, a rat appeared and bounded away, rather awkwardly, with the remains of the apple in its mouth, taking it under the hedge.  Some of the apples are nearly as big as the rat, so it can’t be an easy takeaway!

Well, hello Molly!

Molly-the-Witch - back where she belongs

 Some years ago, a kind neighbour gave me a little of her Paeonia mlokosewitschii.  It’s a yellow peony from the Caucasus, and being a bit of a mouthful for English-speakers, it’s generally known as Molly-the-Witch.  I didn’t treat Molly well.  She was left in her very small pot for some years, while I dithered about what to do with her; last year I finally decided to plant her in the new patio bed, along with other waifs and strays looking for a home.  And, after a few weeks there, she disappeared.

Ah well, my own fault.  Not the first time that my indecision resulted in a plant dying.  Anyway, the other plants in that bed filled out and made quite a good show, without Molly.

The other day I took a break from weeding around my other peony, ‘Sarah Bernhardt’, and putting in stakes to stop her from flopping too much.  While I had my hand fork out, I paused to remove a couple of self-seeded dead-nettles in the patio bed, and took a look round.  Wait a minute – isn’t that Molly, displaying a couple of very fine leaves behind the old verbena stems?

Well, hello Molly.  It’s so nice to have you back where you belong.  Now all I have to do is to ensure that the plants round about don’t crowd her out …

Camellia williamsii 'Donation'

Molly isn’t the only plant coming on apace.  The pink Camelia williamsii ‘Donation’ in its pot in the front garden has several lovely blooms, possibly because last year was so wet that it was well watered.  The other camellia has still done nothing, though.  The late daffodils ‘Jenny’ and ‘Thalia’ are out, though ‘Elka’ is a disappointment this year; there are plenty of leaves, but only one bloom (and the Crocus angustifolia planted with it have vanished – I blame the squirrel).  The cowslips are starting, and various other primulas that probably seeded from them are well in flower.  The first tulips are also coming into flower – the white ‘Exotic Emperor’, now in their third year, have six blooms, while last year’s ‘Orange Emperor’ bulbs, left undisturbed in their pot, are blazing finely.  And the plum tree and osmanthuses are also coming into flower; with the other spring bloomers, brunnera, doronicum, bergenia and the rest, colour is coming back to the garden!

One solitary Narcissus 'Elka'

Tulipa 'Exotic Emperor'

Tulipa 'Orange Emperor'