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.