Sour Grapes

I used to be very careless about labelling pots when I took cuttings or planted up seedlings.  It may be obvious what the plant is at the point of potting up, but in early spring when most things have died back I was left with no real idea of whether the thing was dead or not yet in growth.  Last year I labelled my pots, but not as well as I had thought.  So while I knew that certain pots were penstemon cuttings, I hadn't recorded which penstemon they were cuttings of - and I have two, the dark red 'Garnet' and the lavender-blue 'Sour Grapes'.  Seeing one about to flower, I planted it up in one of the big pots with some heuchera 'Palace Purple', dark purple osteospermums, a dark-leaved phormium (I think it's a phormium - it was a village plant sale bargain, unlabelled (!)) and - big mistake - a couple of orange dahlias.  It might have worked if it had been 'Garnet' as I thought it was, but it was 'Sour Grapes' - and it hasn't been a happy colour combination.  Actually it was the dahlias that were the mistake; they're certainly cheerful, and with the weather as it has been we need all the cheer we can get, but they don't sit particularly well with other flowers visible as part of the same picture.

They might have done better in the other big pot that I planted up, which is down at the bottom of the garden and where they could have made a big colour splash.  The colours down there have worked better, but the flowers are too small and don't make enough impact at that distance.  Memo for next year: go for big and bold down there. There's another 'Sour Grapes', a blue-leaved succulent (another plant sale bargain), a couple of blue and white bacopas and some sweet pea 'Tutankhamun'.  It's the first time I've grown the latter, and it's a striking colour - Himalayan poppy-blue - but it's not-quite-a-match for the penstemon, so they're not plants I would put together again.  The penstemon matches the bacopa very well, though; that's worth remembering for the future.

The plant picture is changing quite slowly at the moment.  The roses are mostly finishing, except for gallica officinalis which always seems to go on for longer, as are the foxgloves (and I've pulled up most of the purple ones, leaving the whites to seed).  The Big Yellow Thing (the seed it was grown from was labelled bupthalmum, which may or may not be what it's called these days), a monster with huge leaves and tall stems of untidy yellow daisies, is out, and the day lilies are about to flower too.  The senecio (is it still called that?) and cotton lavender are in flower, though really I prefer their grey foliage to the yellow flowers, which isn't a colour combination I care for much.  The real lavender is also out, and the pink poppies are everywhere; I'm weeding out the singles in the hope of keeping them double.  The peony has done nothing at all (some buds formed but never opened).  The crocosmia 'Lucifer' is showing buds, as is lilium henryii, but I'm not expecting either of them to flower immediately.  And the philadelphus may suspect that I'm planning to dig it out; it has produced one big, white, scented flower on a branch arching down to where I can see and smell it, just as if it's trying to show what it can do.  I won't be swayed.  It's going.

I don't think this is going to be a good fruit year; apples and plums are shaping up to be a small crop.

We're being told that the weather is about to change for the better.  It certainly can't get much worse.  There has continued to be little sun, much chill, some wind and a great deal of rain.  On Friday evening there was a tremendous downpour (we were driving home in it) which created some flooding on the roads; we used the least hilly of the routes into the village to avoid the riskiest areas but the water was still sluicing around like a river.  The common was flooded; the next day the long grass was still lying flat where the stream had burst its banks and flowed over it.  The roads are still full of patches of gravel and small (and not so small) stones washed out of the roadsides and driveways.

One of the male blackbirds was still taking food away at the weekend, and there are still some young sparrows being fed (and some adults still mating).  Other birds haven't been much in evidence, although at least one of the wrens is still around (heard rather than seen).  The partridges come from time to time, and the two male pheasants.  There was a dark-coloured butterfly around at the weekend (I couldn't get a good enough view to identify it); I've seen very few butterflies this year.  I hope some appear when the buddleia comes out, although they've declined in numbers here over the years and I suspect that this is going to be a particularly bad year for them.  On the positive side, however, we've had at least a couple of visits from a hedgehog, seen crossing the patio and disappearing into the very overgrown border in search of his supper.  I expect he has been enjoying the rain.

Bowsaw Massacre (conceptual stage)

As the plants are in full leaf and start flopping around with the weight of flowers and fruit (and get blown around by the wind), it brings home to me that the garden really needs thinning out.  I rather overplanted it with shrubs, which are now quite mature and in several cases rather larger than I anticipated.  Something has to go.  The viburnum carlcephalum, which as I've already mentioned is losing a large branch every year and is obviously diseased at the base, is an obvious candidate.  My initial idea was to take cuttings; but they couldn't be planted in the same place, and anyway, let's be realistic, it doesn't pull its weight as a plant.  It has a nice spreading shape, and the flowers (waxy white and scented) are lovely, but the blooms don't last long, either on the plant or as cut flowers, and the plant doesn't have much else to commend it for the rest of the year.  Right - it can go.  The mahonia 'Charity' next to it is looking dead, too; that makes a nice big space to do something else with.

The philadelphus has been a problem for a while.  Again, the flowers are lovely (I like scented flowers) but it hardly ever produces any, it's crowding out the winter honeysuckle and there's too much else competing for space in that bed.  If I can get at its base, it can go too.

Last weekend I decided, a little reluctantly, that 'Mary Queen of Scots' can also have her head chopped off (and the base too, again if I can get at it).  It's my earliest rose, hardy and a good do-er, but it has got much bigger than I envisaged, to the extent that it's taking over the side of the patio, and it's also suckering under the flagstones, which is not good.  I've also spotted a large ash seedling that is growing through it and I absolutely must get that out.  The birds will miss the rose; they use it as a perch while they check whether there's any food put out for them, or while waiting their turn for the birdbath, but removing it will make space for the choisya ternata behind, which should do them just as well.

Just need to find time to do all of that ....

The raspberries and gooseberries have been discovered by a couple of young blackbirds.  I don't begrudge them too many, but need to get in there and do some picking, weather permitting.  Most of the time, the weather does not permit.  It hasn't got any better, and there's no sign of improvement.  The lawn hasn't been cut for 3 weeks because it has been too wet; it's full of clover and daisies.  And a couple of trays of pansies which I haven't got round to planting out are starting to grow toadstools!

The blackbirds and sparrows are still feeding youngsters.  We've seen a few tits, but not too many; no sign of young ones.  And house martins and swifts, while still around, aren't in their usual numbers - it may be too wet for them.  Unusually, there was a skylark singing above the garden last weekend; they don't usually come so close to the village.  An encouraging sign the other day was three thrushes (there was a bit of a fight); they haven't been much in evidence since the magpies raided their nest.

Depressingly, the robins have started their autumnal 'tick-tick'ing.  We haven't had summer yet.

Leaning Towers

It's official, apparently - it has been the wettest April-June period since records began.  We've been spared the really heavy rain that has caused floods elsewhere in the past few days, but the weather here continues very mixed at best, with blustery spells and only occasional sunshine.  The sun, when it does appear, is mostly quite warm, but apart from a couple of days early this week the temperatures are low for the time of year.

The wind has knocked the taller plants around.  The sweet rocket and verbascums are almost horizontal, as are the remaining aquilegias, and the foxgloves at the bottom of the garden are leaning at all sorts of angles.  (Interestingly, the wild foxgloves at the gate, which are actually more exposed, are ok - possibly because they're slightly smaller and have fewer flowers?)  The big foxgloves were grown from seed a couple of years ago, in the vegetable garden, and never got planted out; some of those remaining are originals, but I think a number of them are seedlings because there are a lot of ordinary purple ones instead of the white-pink-purple mix of the original batch.  They're a good garden variety - tall, and mostly flowering all round the spike instead of just at one side, so they have much more presence than the wild ones.  I still have some seed; must grow more of them.

Leaning towers

Some of them were moved to the new bed under the ash tree, where they're doing quite well (but too many purples - I need to put some whites there so that they show up better).  The verbascums are down there too, but it's not a good place for them; they have dark purple flowers which aren't visible enough, and they're not beefy enough to make a statement.  They look quite insignificant alongside the phlomis, for example.

The old roses are in full bloom, as are the English roses, with Gertrude Jekyll the star performer as usual.  The buddleia alternifolia is also out, making a good partnership with rose 'Mme Hardy'.  The lavender is about to flower, and in the pond, the first waterlily bloom is out too.


Gertrude Jekyll

It's also prime time for the weeds, so I've been ripping up the worst ones before they can seed.  I'm determined to get the willowherb out this year, and as much of the grass seedheads as I can.

On the edibles front, the first raspberries were ready today, and the gooseberries are also there or thereabouts.  Need to get at them before the birds do!

At least one of the blackbirds is still feeding young, and a couple of independent juveniles have been around.  One of them was sunbathing on the patio one day in the company of a juvenile dunnock - the two of them sitting there enjoying the sunshine together.  The wren family is still around; I disturbed a couple of them when weeding by the hedge, causing a bit of a panic.  A young robin has been down, and a harassed sparrow pursued by his three demanding fledgelings.  The starlings in the gable end are also feeding youngsters (and it was good to see a couple of dozen starlings on the wires at the end of the village, so they're breeding quite well this year).  A couple of male pheasants have been in, but not my old friend; I hope he comes back, even though he is a stroppy old thing.  The squirrel returns every so often to check that the peanuts are still out of bounds, but hasn't been hanging around.

We haven't seen the red kite again; a neighbour tells me that there's actually a pair of them.

Not quite red, white and blue

I'm afraid the garden wasn't really red, white and blue for the Diamond Jubilee.  It was more pink, purple and yellow.  There was some white, the cow parsley and white camassias, and some blue, from the last of the brunnera and forget-me-nots (and the perennial cornflower and first of the veronica flowers).  Red, however, was only represented by a single sodden and battered poppy flower, barely visible among the leaves; and, less desirably, by the first of the year's lily beetles on the lily nearby (they were duly squashed).  The poppies are now flowering (when the weather will let them), while the brunneras have been cut back to prevent self-seeding and the cow parsley and forget-me-nots pulled up.  I've lived with cow parsley in the past as it really is quite pretty, but now that we've cleared the view down into the field beyond the bottom of the garden (which is full of the stuff) I don't feel the need to host it in my own space in the same way.

The weather for the Jubilee weekend was miserable.  The Monday was dry (though chilly), which was good for the village celebrations, but the Tuesday was very wet and windy, and cold - we put the central heating back on (and it has been on all the way through to this week, when we finally had a couple of sunny and warmish days).  The sun has been pleasant when it has shone, but otherwise it has been rather unpleasant, with some high winds which produced a whole bagful of kindling brought down from the ash trees, and knocked some of the flower stems around.  At least I haven't needed to refill the pond with all the rain.

The aquilegias - the old-fashioned ones - are mostly past now, but my two posh ones (a purchase from the village plant sale a couple of years ago) are still going strong, though they've had to be propped up against the wind.  The foxgloves are doing well, as is the sweet rocket, and the old roses are just starting to come into flower.  More rain and wind is forecast, so they are all going to take a battering, sadly.

On the wildlife front, we have been trying to outwit the squirrel.  He hadn't been much in evidence, so I decided to risk removing the squirrel-guard from the peanut container.  Although most of the birds have worked out how to use it, they seemed to consider it too much trouble to get inside the guard, and were ignoring it.  All went well for a week or so, with the tits, finches and woodpeckers (adults and at least two youngsters) coming to feed, until our furry friend returned.  The guard went back on (and interestingly the birds continue to come to it, even the woodpeckers, who can get their heads inside).  The squirrel made several determined, but fruitless, attempts to get inside the guard; his lack of success obviously put him in a very bad mood, and he tried to chase any bird that came near (including an attempt to pounce on a pheasant that was passing underneath) before transferring his attention to the seed feeder.  After a few tries, we've hit on hanging the seeds from a wire which is too long for him to stretch down, and he has gone away again.

One thing we wish would go away is magpies.  We haven't had them for years, but now that the local farm is in new hands they don't seem to control them so effectively.  A pair have raided at least one nest - a thrush's, we think, as we saw a magpie with a brown fledgeling of thrush size, and certainly the thrushes haven't been around nearly so much.  The blackbirds are continuing to breed, however, with at least two youngsters around, and we've seen a baby robin and baby goldfinch as well as the usual young sparrows.  A pair of linnets have been in the garden, and a bullfinch (which is fine as long as he leaves the plums alone!).  There's also a family of wrens down at the bottom of the garden, which is lovely.

D's sightings while out running in the lanes include a record of 6 hares in one day, and a near-collision with a deer which was coming out of a field entrance.  Fortunately that's one animal we don't get in the garden!

Our Chelsea Lawn

Away for a week on holiday in the Lake District - and at last summer weather arrived, very warm and sunny.  Back home to a rather dry garden, and a very overgrown lawn full of daisies, buttercups and speedwell.  It looked very pretty, at least until we got the mower out ...

Apparently wild flowers have been to the fore in the show gardens at Chelsea this year, so our lawn was bang on trend for once!  A bit too wild to be practicable though (and the birds much prefer it cut).  As I was pulling up weeds ahead of the mower (the things I really didn't want to seed around in the grass pile), I suddenly realised that the one I'd just picked was not in fact the weed I thought it was.  Closer inspection (very close inspection - it was a very small flower spike) showed that the bottom flower had already opened.  It was tiny and plain green, but unmistakably an orchid flower.  I found a couple more, all of them in the shade of the plum tree - two roundish leaves, not unlike those of a plantain, and a small spike of tiny green flowers.  Both promptly had a domestic preservation order slapped on them and they were carefully mowed around!  Fortuntately - given that I had inadvertently picked one - it turns out that they're not rare.  My flower book suggests it's Common Twayblade (Twayblade because it has two leaves, Common because it is, apparently; I suppose it's so inconspicuous that it's easy to miss).  I wonder how long it has been in the lawn?


I've also found a plant of yellow rattle in a weedy spot in front of the house.  A useful plant to have around if we want to encourage wild flowers in the lawn! (It's a semi-parasite on grasses and reduces their vigour.)


The wisteria is in full scented bloom, in spite of my rather harsh treatment of it in the winter.  I hope it fills out a bit to cover up the gaps where I removed old branches (and to cover up the old tights I used to tie it to the wires - effective but not very sightly!).  The aquilegias are also in flower, as are the Welsh poppies, poached egg plant and cistus; the white camassias are coming out (why are they so much later than the blue ones?), with the allium cristophii (which has self-seeded very satisfactorily in various places) not far behind.  The cow parsley is also at its peak; although a lot of it has been removed there are still quite a few remaining.  Fortunately there's little left in the new border at the bottom of the garden, although I expect more seeds will germinate with the increase in light levels now that the undergrowth has been removed. That border is looking rather bare (I've left it lightly planted so that I can get remaining weeds out easily), but the purple verbascum is looking good and the foxgloves are starting to flower; the clumps of deschampsia are filling out as is the new phlomis I planted to accompany them.  Surprisingly the wallflowers also still have some flowers.  Elsewhere the roses are also coming into flower (Gertrude Jekyll and Old Blush China), and the reliable combo of "Mary Queen of Scots" and the choisia is going full speed ahead.

The blackbirds are feeding another brood, and the thrushes and robins are also busy.  Goldfinches are around too, and the two partridges continue to trundle about the place from time to time.  A baby wren has also been about, which is lovely; it's very small but quite independent. 


Sadly the warm weather has not lasted; the past week has been very mixed and this weekend, being a public holiday, is pretty miserable!  Yesterday was back to November, though the afternoon wasn't too bad.

A brief record of holiday sightings: a lovely view of a dipper feeding its fledgling near Rosthwaite; a pair of raptors (probably peregrines) on Haystacks, catching their lunch (we heard the squeal); a heron and some goosanders on Buttermere; a pair of ravens doing flying rolls over Catbells.  Lots of cuckoos (heard but not seen) and wheatears.  Their flowers were slightly ahead of ours, despite being further north (but lower level): aquilegias and Welsh poppies well out when we arrived, and lots of lovely rhodos and azeleas.  (I have just discovered the Digital Macro setting on my camera which should improve my flower close-ups a bit!)

First rose of summer

And this year's winner is: "Mary Queen of Scots", whose first flowers opened last weekend.  She's usually the first rose to get going.  Other late spring flowers are coming along: the lily of the valley is  mostly past now, the wisteria just starting, the aquilegias on the point of coming out.  The first Welsh poppy flowered yesterday.  The path alongside the hedge is looking bright, with the last of the doronicums, the honesty and the pulmonaria all in flower, with the smilacina (I think that's what it is) just coming out too.  (I've been looking for a replacement for the pulmonaria, a rather wishy-washy and far too rampant thing which I tolerate because it's good ground cover; a nice blue one has self-seeded alongside the garage and I've managed to pot it up.  Now to rip out some of the boring one to make room for it!)

The little orange species tulips at the bottom of the garden - I can never remember their proper name - are up and quite prolific this year.  Must plant more tulips for next year.  The ones in pots haven't done too well this year; "Tres Chic" was indeed chic but only three blooms came out (the rest killed by the cold?).  I did like "Sherwood Gardens", a sturdy but graceful tulip with a nice oval shape and a colour just the lilac side of pink.

Some of the best colour combinations are the accidental ones.  The pale orange geum with the dark-leaved bugle is a good, if unplanned, pairing; it would look good with "Queen of Night" tulips, I think.  On the other hand, I'm wondering if the new peach-coloured chaenomeles is going to look good with the honeysuckle (which has bounced back amazingly after I butchered it earlier this year).  The good news down there is that the clematis (a white viticella) is now sprouting; I hope there's something for it to climb on as I don't want to have to disentangle it from the honeysuckle!

Everything seems to be growing well in spite of the miserable weather.  It has continued cold, with temperatures rarely getting far into double figures and all too often in single figures.  Last weekend was warmer - a quick lunch outside, though you wouldn't want to linger too long out of the sun - but windy, and today has finished misty and damp - more November than May.  The forecast is for this to last the rest of the month.  It's bad for butterflies, apparently, and certainly I haven't seen many: an orange-tip last week, and a peacock and a little blue butterfly last weekend, though it's still early up here in the hills for them.

The swallows are here, and the house martins too; no swifts seen yet, though a group of them went screaming overhead in Cirencester last weekend.  The baby blackbirds have scattered, although at least one of them succumbed (a window strike, we think).  The littlest one hung around until the middle of this week, when it disappeared; I hope it just decided to move on, though it was still quite immature and I'm not hopeful.  The sparrows and starlings are taking food into their nests in the various parts of the roof, but no fledgelings have appeared yet.  The thrushes and greenfinches are still about, also dunnocks; and we think we've seen blue tits going to and from the nestbox at the bottom of the garden.  The two partridges are still around a lot and getting fairly trusting, but the pheasant has been about very little; I assume he's now off doing whatever it is he does in summer.

The most interesting bird sightings have been little and large.  A very small, acrobatic bird with a sharp pointed beak was hanging around the ash tree on the drive last weekend; I could only see a silhouette, but it looked very much like a goldcrest.  And the weekend before last we had a visit from the red kite (the same one we saw in February?) over the field behind us - quite an impressive sighting!

Meanwhile, down in the cellar, the mouse has been dealt with.  Not by the humane trap - which failed completely (though it is a very small trap and quite a large mouse so maybe it simply couldn't get in).  In the end we just opened the outside door through which it originally came in - and it went out.  Simple really.

April showers

Well, we certainly got the rain.  It's supposed to have been the wettest April on record, although it didn't feel quite that bad here.  Early April saw showers and chilly sunshine; last week it turned distinctly wet and it has been much like that since.  Still rather cold; the T-shirts have stayed firmly in the drawer and are only allowed out in the company of a cardi.  We had a few frosts overnight earlier in the month; fingers crossed for the plum tree, although the blossom seemed to last well enough.  More night frosts are forecast for the coming weekend.  Last weekend was also very windy and there are still ash twigs all over the garden.

The daffodils are now past (must get round to deadheading them), and the last of the tulips in flower.  The blue camassias are also out.  The new chaenomeles is blooming well; I was a bit doubtful about the colour (peach) but it's quite pretty.  The clematis I planted with it as a companion doesn't seem to be doing anything, though. That may not be a bad thing as the chaenomeles is still very small!  The deciduous viburnum (carlcephalum) is coming out, or at least the back part of it is; I had to cut off a branch last year as it was diseased, and another branch is going the same way this year.  The disease, whatever it is, seems to be based right at the bottom, so the whole thing is probably not long for this world.  Must take cuttings once it has flowered.  On the plus side, the apple cordons are flowering well; the freestanding trees, having been rather hard-pruned rather late, are still thinking about it.

Coming along nicely are the wisteria, which will be in flower soon, and the aquilegias.  Still waiting for the lily of the valley to flower - can't be long now.

The veg plot is well behind schedule - it has been either too dry or too cold and wet to do much.  Last year's broccoli plants have been mostly eaten by the birds; I thought it was the pheasant until I spotted a pair of wood pigeons balanced precariously on top of two of the remaining plants.  Obviously strong stems aren't necessarily a good thing!

The wildlife interest lately has been the antics of the baby blackbirds (3) and thrushes (2).  One baby thrush was spotted chasing a male blackbird in the hope of being fed, until its parents took it in hand. There are still a few of last year's apples in the garage and the damaged ones have been much appreciated by the harrassed parents as a quick snack to keep the youngsters quiet, and the rain has helped them a lot too - much easier to find worms and snails. 

The pheasant has been less in evidence in the past week or so; he has been gradually becoming less agressive as his ladies have peeled off to nest or whatever they do, although he still tries to show off to me from time to time.  The two partridges are still around; no sign of her going off to nest yet.

Who's a pretty boy then? - The pheasant trying to impress me

Otherwise it's the usual birds, though the goldfinches have been more in evidence this month.  The first sightings of a couple of swallows at the end of the month; they must be finding it a bit chilly.

The other wildlife event is indoors; a mouse has got into the cellar, probably while the cellar door was open for ventilation.  A humane trap has been put down, although it isn't having any effect yet!