Hay while the sun shines

I see I haven't said much about the weather for a while, not since the chilly spell in mid-May.  Things soon warmed up - a few days in the Lake District in May was one of the warmest visits we've had - and from the last week of June or so they warmed up very considerably; despite a few rainy spells, it has been mostly a dry spring and early summer.  The past couple of weeks have been warm and dry, with a stiff breeze at times to dry things up even more, and at the moment there's no end in sight to this.  The farmers have quite literally made hay while the sun shines, and parts of the garden are turning to hay too; the lawn is quite crisp in places.  Keeping the pots watered is a priority.  I have a number of plants in small pots which dry out very easily, and, quite apart from not having much suitably prepared ground in which to put them, it's difficult to dig at the moment because it's rock-hard; they're taking turns to be plunged into bowls of water. 

We have no hosepipe ban (yet), not that I use a hose much at all; but we're trying to conserve water use, and to save 'grey' water where we can.  There isn't much in the veg plot that needs watering at the moment; the broad beans (not a success this year) are almost completely past, the first lot of lettuces were bolting anyway and the potatoes, garlic and shallots will soon be ready for digging up, and it's only the 'hill' (which is bearing up well) and the runner/French beans that need occasional watering.  Washing-up water is going under the raspberry canes, which are starting to fruit.  There are still quite a lot of green gooseberries, but there are always far more than I can use and the blackbirds are very grateful for them; the red ones were protected from the birds and have been picked, likewise the blackcurrants.  For the latter, I used a couple of fabric sleeves that are designed to protect cherry branches from the birds - they even come with little plastic cherries on the end of the draw-cords that seal the ends - and they were quite successful, although some of the leaves scorched underneath (a minor problem).  Other plants in the ground are having to find their own water unless they're really looking stressed (the Lysimachia clethroides has been looking a bit limp, but it's a potential thug anyway, so that's not necessarily a totally bad thing!).

The tomato plants - 7 of them this year - are all planted on into old plastic sacks of compost, an alternative to grow-bags as I wasn't really satisfied with the ones I used last year.  So far they're looking good and fruiting satisfactorily.  The 6 aubergines are starting to flower and have also just gone into bigger pots on the staging.  They and the tomatoes (and the little chilli and pepper plants) are being watered daily.

The heat isn't conducive to much heavy work in the garden, and I've been taking the opportunity to sit in the shade and clear the winter/spring bulbs out of their pots, which should have been done some time ago so that I could get the summer plants in.  As I had thought, many of the daffodils in pots didn't survive the spring cold; 'Tete-a-tete' and 'Elka' were fine (although they were in smaller pots that were easier to protect), and 'Elka' seems to have proliferated greatly, but the bigger varieties had just rotted.  'Baby Moon', I have discovered, is a glasshouse variety anyway; fortunately they were planted in a non-frostproof pot, so I had put them under cover when the freezing weather was forecast!  We seem not to have lost the other plants in pots (the fern that had been looking sad has recovered well), with the exception of the big purple phormium, which was always going to be a bit of a risk and which is definitely finished.

Rose 'Mme Hardy' and Buddleja alternifolia

Over the past weeks we've been enjoying bowlfuls of cut roses, as well as appreciating the show they make in the garden.  I had been considering getting rid of 'Mme Hardy', which always goes horribly brown as the flowers go over, but when newly in flower it made a fine show with Buddleja alternifolia (another plant I had considered removing, but maybe I'll just curb its enthusiasm a bit instead).  There are also some sweet William in bloom, and the Allium christophii have been impressive too.

Allium christophii

The peony ('Sarah Bernhardt') has also been providing some cut flowers; and the big philadelphus ('Virginal'), which I keep threatening to dig out, managed a few sprays as well.

Philadelphus 'Virginal'

Peony 'Sarah Bernhardt'

In this heat I've been ensuring that the birds and other wildlife have plenty of water, especially as the pond level is dropping extremely low; it hasn't been full since winter, and now a lot of the liner is showing.  Is it significant that there were a lot - I counted 9 - of dragonfly larva skins on the pond plants the other day?  The quality of what little water there is must be pretty poor, and presumably they felt the need to get themselves out of there and fly off to find better water in which to lay eggs.  Almost the reverse of rats deserting the sinking ship!  And one day we had a grass snake slither across the patio; it must have been looking for some water as well.

Dragonfly larva skins

There are more butterflies around now: a small tortoiseshell, a red admiral, a couple of ringlets, plenty of small whites, a female orangetip and something that was either a meadow brown or a small heath.  Most striking have been a few scarlet tiger moths that were here over several days; one was found dead on the lawn, which made for an easy photograph! - the scarlet parts aren't always visible when the moth is at rest.

Scarlet tiger moth (deceased)

Scarlet tiger moth (alive and resting)

The birds are coming to the end of their breeding season.  A thrush had been singing daily in the big ash tree but has fallen silent in the last few days, and the blackbirds have stopped singing too.  There are still some little sparrows being fed, but other young birds appear to be independent now.  Time for the parent birds to have a rest in the sunshine.

Gonna build a mountain ....

"Gonna build a mountain, Gonna build it high, I don't know how I'm gonna do it, Only know I'm gonna try".  Actually - despite the words of the song - I had no problem about knowing how to do it because there are plenty of instructions out there on the Internet, and it wasn't difficult to do.  Instead of a mountain, in all honesty it's really just a rather small mound - and the idea, I think, is that it will get smaller over time.

This is Hugelkultur, literally 'hill cultivation', and it's a central European practice, popular among permaculturalists, for creating a bed with lots of organic matter and microorganisms in it.  The attraction for me was that it's a great way of making use of unwanted branches, of which I've generated quite a lot by cutting back overgrown shrubs recently.  Basically, you build a heap with old wood at the base which breaks down gradually over a few years and turns into lovely crumbly, rich soil with a lot of the microlife that is so important for good cultivation.  As it breaks down it ought to generate some heat to help boost whatever is growing on top.

The first problem was where to site it.  My original idea was to put it up against the wall at the end of the vegetable garden, until I realised that next-door's cat would treat it as a convenient stepladder back to her own garden.  Too close to the big ash tree at the side wouldn't be a good idea either; trees don't respond well to having soil piled up over their roots (although, because of the different levels between the neighbouring garden where the tree is growing and our plot, the tree must already be dealing with that problem).  In the end I went for one of the square middle beds in the veg plot (ok, the only one of the middle beds that is actually completely usable, the rest still being at least partly overgrown), which is roughly the right size (1m square is the ideal).  The actual construction has taken place gradually over the past few months, and is now in place and planted.

First, I dug out soil to a depth of 15-20cm.  This generated quite a lot of bags of soil (which I still haven't dealt with!) but was easier than I expected. Then I put in the biggest branches.  You're supposed to start with logs, but nearly all of what I had available was much smaller than that; the biggest piece was the big holly branch that came down in last year's gales.  There were also a few other largish branches sitting in odd corners of the garden waiting to be dealt with; some of these were already rotting nicely, so I hope they will start the pile off on the right track.  The rest came from cutting down an elder tree and the cutting back of a large viburnum.  With hindsight, I probably ought to have backfilled this layer with some of the soil as there were quite a lot of gaps between the branches and I suspect the heap will fall in a bit as it breaks down.

Next came smaller branches, twigs, old buddleja canes, prunings, dead leaves, old cut-down stems from last year's perennials and general brushwood (photo shows this layer still in progress):

The next layer is supposed to be upturned turves, but my grass has far too many perennial weeds in for me to want to risk that.  This doesn't sound like the sort of structure in which I will want to be digging out weeds.  I think the idea is that this layer stops the soil from leaching through to the bottom layer, so I used last year's rotting grass clippings, which make a good dense cover.

Then some garden compost.  The rotting wood will take nitrogen out of the heap, so there needs to be something to give sustenance to the plants growing on the top:

And finally a good layer of soil (from the stuff originally dug out of the bottom).  I worried that this would just slide off, but it stayed put better than I expected.

Then: what to plant on it?  The site isn't the sunniest spot, though it does get some sun.  There's no point planting anything that requires rich soil, at least for a year or two, because of the nitrogen problem.  Permaculturalists suggest potatoes, but I really can't imagine how you would dig into this heap without it falling apart!  In the end I've put some courgette plants on there, and they're already starting to flower, which looks promising; and, whether because of the layer of Slug Gone round the plants or because the soil is too dry for molluscs, there's no slug or snail damage so far.  Or maybe they don't like heights?  A lettuce has now been added and I think I'll put some more saladings and maybe some annual flowers on there too.

Much of the wood at the bottom of the heap was generated by having to deal with the viburnums that were snow-damaged in the winter, and by cutting down the main stems of a big elder tree that had self-seeded in the shrubs at the side of the house.  There is still work to be done here; once the choisya has finished flowering, it too is in line for the chop, and one of the osmanthuses needs the same treatment.  These have all grown too big, with lots of evergreen foliage on the end of long woody branches, which should have been pruned back into shape long ago; in the event they were pulled down and broken by the snow before Christmas.  The viburnum at the side of the house has been cut down to a much smaller, more manageable size (and will be pruned ruthlessly from now on!); I also found that one of the branches had layered itself and I've dug that up (rather roughly, but it seems to be surviving so far) and potted it on as I have plans for it.  There is now a lot more light in that border and there's going to be much more planting space for ground-level plants, though just at the moment the area looks a bit like a lumber yard as there are still piles of smaller branches and twigs around (material for another Mountain in due course??!).  There's also a big pile of soil and grit left over from some hard landscaping work here, and that needs weeding and spreading around to level things out.  In due course there will be opportunities for more varied planting, with bulbs and perennials between the shrubs, and I'm working out what might work in there.  Much of what is growing in this part of the garden is white- or light-flowered, so that it shows up in the dim light under the holly tree, and I think I'll keep that theme, but that still gives a lot of choice.  Watch this space!

Hello, old friends

I'm always taken by surprise when a plant that I had forgotten about, or forgotten how much I liked it, comes into flower.  This has happened quite a lot recently, probably because for the past two years we've been away on holiday at this time of year and missed much of what was happening in the garden.  Here are some of my old friends that have pleased me recently:

Tulip 'Menton'

Tulip 'Menton' is an old new friend; planted a couple of years ago but then not seen because of the holidays.  A few are still surviving down in the bottom border, and very attractive they are too - pleasing colour and elegant shape.  And alongside them are the alliums - A. hollandicum 'Purple Sensation' mostly - which I've missed for the same reason.  They make a really good show.  There are also some foxgloves in that patch; I had been hoping for white flowers but only one white is there.  It's a useful reminder of the good design principle of mixing shapes (globe alliums, tall foxgloves, rounded brunnera) to good effect - though I have to admit it's entirely accidental.  (Note to self: a bit too much purple and pink down there at the moment; it needs something else, preferably bright or light to be seen from the other end of the garden.)

The wisteria has flowered really well this year; at its peak the scent was wonderful.

Wisteria

The poached egg plant (Limnanthes douglasii) has seeded into a very striking patch by the drive:

Limnanthes douglasii

Two of my favourite plants, partly because they have good foliage: Geranium renardii, with sage-green corrugated leaves and white flowers with purple flecks, and Allium karataviense 'Ivory Queen', with lovely broad glaucous leaves and white pom-pom flowers:

Geranium renardii

Allium karataviense 'Ivory Queen'

The roses are also starting to come out.  Of the earlies, I always forget about R. altaica, with its lovely creamy-white flowers, because it can't be seen from the house, and the same is true of nearby Solomon's Seal, which was planted alongside a path that got overgrown long ago and now no longer exists.  I must rescue it from under there!

Rosa altaica

Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum)

Nectaroscordum siculum (I think this may be subsp. bulgaricum) is also coming into bloom:

Nectaroscordum siculum

And of course the poppies (Papaver 'Allegro') are always striking, with their flamenco flounces:

Papaver 'Allegro'

But plain green can be attractive too!  Here is Hosta 'Krossa Regal' on the patio - lovely corrugated leaves.

Hosta 'Krossa Regal'

There have been a couple of new friends too - although I think one may be very temporary.  Many years ago I planted some Tulipa saxatilis; they produced lots of leaves but no flowers, and eventually they were shaded out by nearby shrubs.  I tried moving some of them to a less shady place, with the same result.  Recently I've thought about digging them out, but their current location is low down the priority list at the moment and in fact is serving as a bit of a dump for odd bricks.  So I was surprised the other week to see one single flower, at last:

Tulipa saxatilis among the bricks

- but I'm still going to dig them out at some point.  They've had nearly 20 years to make a show!

The other new friend is again, I suspect, a plant I've missed out on by being on holiday.  It's Iris sibirica - a lovely soft blue with yellow filigree markings and white edging, doing really well down by the summerhouse.  I fight shy of irises, never being able to remember which need moisture and which like it dry, and not having many dry and sunny places for them - but this one is a winner.

Iris sibirica

Recent cut flowers from the garden have been aquilegias - I now have a good mix of plains (pinks, blues, purples, one white) and bi-colours - with sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis); and another vase of the sweet rocket with blue veronica, Astrantia 'Hadspen Blood', Cornflower 'Black Boy' and Erysimum 'Bowles' Mauve'.

Veronica and friends

Mostly aquilegias

Birds meet glass

Living in the country brings all sorts of wildlife encounters, but last week's was one of the oddest yet.  It was a warm evening, and we left the back door open while we went out to the summerhouse for ten minutes or so.  The back hallway opens straight into the dining room, and on the dining room windowsill is a clear glass bowl, about the size and shape of a small goldfish bowl.  It's purely decorative and contains nothing but a scrap of pink ribbon that was dropped in there and forgotten about.  But when we came back inside from the summerhouse it contained - a swallow.  It was alive, and apparently unhurt, but having presumably flown into the bowl it was unable to turn around and get out through the relatively narrow neck.  Being upside down in a glass bowl clearly wasn't part of its plans for the evening, so we took the bowl outside and tipped it out; it flew off, greatly relieved I imagine, but we had a brief opportunity to see its lovely colouring and markings (I never realised that they have white dots around the tail).  We suppose that it flew indoors in search of a nest site, but goodness knows why it flew into the bowl; did it think the ribbon was a tasty butterfly?

Two other birds encountered glass in the past couple of weeks.  Two woodpeckers (great-spots) had a fight and chase across the garden, and one of them slammed into one of the summerhouse windows (it probably thought it could fly straight through and out one of the other windows).  It lay in the long grass at the side and I feared the worst, but after a while it sat up and eventually took itself off, presumably with a big headache.  (What is it with woodpeckers and our summerhouse windows?  The old summerhouse once claimed two woodpecker fatalities in as many weeks.)  Less fortunate was a dunnock, found dead with a broken neck under one of the side windows.  Interestingly these were all adult birds; usually it's the youngsters that make that mistake.

There are plenty of young birds now in the garden.  A family of three young blackbirds, all independent, have been around one side of the garden while a male has been feeding two younger ones at the other side.  The male is known as 'Tailless Dad'; he seems to have had a close encounter with (probably) one of the local cats but, despite losing his tail and some other feathers (these were left under one of the gooseberry bushes, so he was probably ambushed there) and occasionally favouring one leg, he seems to be functioning fine.  Robins are feeding little ones in deep cover and there have been a couple of little sparrows down on the patio; a family of goldfinches has also been in the hawthorn tree.  The status of the bluetits in the nestbox is still uncertain; the adults have been going in and out, but, as in the past, not frequently enough to suggest a viable nest.  Has our use of the summerhouse put them off?

They're not yet producing young, but the swallows, swifts and house martins are regularly feeding overhead.  And a red kite was hunting low over the garden one day.

Damselfly

Insect life is also taking off.  The big cotoneaster at the entrance to the drive has been humming with bees recently, as have the raspberry canes; the latter are attracting quite a variety of bees (I wish I was better at identifying them).  The warm weather brought out the damselflies over the pond, both the electric blue and the red ones; these are the best photos I could manage (you have to look closely!).  We've had a pair of red admiral butterflies and both large and small whites, as well as orangetips and some smaller ones that I couldn't see closely enough; and this evening there were two hawkmoths feeding on the sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis).  They were moving too fast for me to identify them, but they were too small for hummingbird hawkmoths; perhaps elephant hawkmoths?  I did see one a few days ago and got a flash of pink as it went past, so it's possible.

So much wildlife, that the plantlife will have to wait for another post!

Full steam ahead

It's that time of year when everything in the garden suddenly starts to put on a spurt of growth (and gets out of hand as far as I'm concerned).  A couple of quite chilly days, and especially nights, was followed by a warm Bank Holiday weekend and, although it has cooled down to more normal temperatures with a stiff and chilly breeze at times, it is definitely feeling more springlike, with plants responding accordingly.  The first rose opened yesterday (Rosa pimpinellifolia 'Mary Queen of Scots' as usual), with the aquilegias well in bud, the first lily-of-the-valley flowers showing, and the other spring flowers all out.  The pink camellia has put on quite a good display, and the red one has finally produced one small flower after at least four years of doing nothing; in fairness I must say that the plant has been rather neglected and could really benefit from repotting and feeding, as the leaves are looking decidedly yellow.  I've bought it some sulphate of iron in the hope of perking it up a bit.

Narcissus 'Baby Moon'

Tulip 'World Friendship'

I was going to say that all the daffodils are over, but just yesterday I noticed that Narcissus 'Baby Moon', which I said last time had done nothing, has finally put out a couple of blooms.  It's quite pretty, though it needs more flowers to produce any impact.  All the small blue bulbs (muscari, scilla, puschkinia) are also past and deadheaded, as are the early tulips (the Emperors), but some of the later tulips are doing fine.  This year I have a pot of 'World Friendship', which I think I bought because it's reputed to do well in shade, and certainly it came into flower in a less than sunny spot, though it's now in a more prominent position; it's a nice clear soft yellow, a similar colour to 'Sweetheart' which I have in the front garden, but whereas 'Sweetheart' is a squarish flower with a broad base, 'World Friendship' is a more classic tapered tulip shape.  I would grow it again.  The pot of 'Creme Upstar' is also doing well, though I'm in two minds about this tulip.  I grew it a couple of years ago and wasn't completely convinced, but I was seduced again by the photo in the catalogue and gave it another chance.  It's a smallish, bowl-shaped tulip with a slightly loose structure; it opens cream and pale yellow, morphs into a pale-ish 'rhubarb and custard' colour pairing and finally turns pink and white, so it's not the easiest flower to integrate into a colour scheme.  Although at times I think it's pretty, I don't much care for the rhubarb and custard stage, and the final colouring is not unlike 'Angelique' which I prefer, so I think I'll drop it from my list of 'likes' (at least until the next time I'm seduced by the photo).

Creme Upstar - just opening

Creme Upstar - pale rhubarb and custard

Creme Upstar - definitely pink!

Pink epimedium

It's all too easy to overlook some of the plants that are out of sight most of the time, so I've taken the opportunity to remind myself of the 'other' epimedium (afraid I can't remember the name - it has dark pink flowers) and the smilacina nearby, which has lovely foliage (here with the flower buds just showing).

Smilacina

The first young birds in the garden are usually either sparrows or blackbirds, but this year it's two young mistle thrushes and one little bluetit - both still with their parents but quite confidently feeding themselves.  I wonder what has happened to the other bluetits?  They usually have quite a large brood.  The ones in the nestbox don't seem to have been around much; I hope our using the summerhouse over the warm weekend hasn't put them off.  There has been at least one male orange-tip butterfly about, and a very small blue butterfly that I couldn't get close enough to to identify; it was very active around the holly tree one day, so I'm thinking it was probably a holly blue, which is common round here.  Sounds logical, doesn't it?!

Exotic Orange Emperor

... and Tulip 'Orange Emperor' (supposedly)!

Tulip 'Exotic Emperor' ....

The first tulips are out, and straight away we have this year's mislabelled variety.  I was surprised to see that I had two pots of the white 'Exotic Emperor', as I was sure I had only planted one - and there was no sign of any 'Orange Emperor'.  Then three slightly later stems in one of the pots opened - pure orange.  Sure enough, that pot has a label saying 'Orange Emperor', so most of the bulbs in that pack were the wrong variety.  (It's the second year running that I've had 'wrong variety' bulbs from Sarah Raven's bulb supplier.)  It's not a big problem as I like both varieties, and at least there's no colour clash; in fact the pairing would make a good counterpoint to a daffodil such as 'Geranium' which has very similar colours and flowers at the same time.  (I planted more of those, too, in one of the pots but they haven't done anything, and neither have 'Avalanche' or 'Silver Chimes', all from Crocus; planted too late? winter too cold? or just poor-quality bulbs?  Perhaps a pot isn't the best place for the bigger narcissus.  The 'Tete-a-tete' and 'Elka' have done fine in pots, though 'Baby Moon', from another supplier, didn't show.)  A few of previous years' tulips, planted out elsewhere in the garden, have flowered - a few 'Couleur Cardinal' and 'Prinses Irene', which have been useful for cutting - but those left in one or two of the pots are either blind or have been frosted in the cold weather, coming up with very damaged leaves and little else.  At least I will have no compunction about digging them out and re-using those pots for summer bedding.

Bad Gardening Practice

The pot currently occupied by Scilla siberica 'Spring Beauty' (and the stunted leaves of  'Avalanche') had, until last autumn, contained one of the anthemis and a few too-old bulbs, and too many weeds.  The anthemis was in need of renovation, and I have its sister plant elsewhere in the garden anyway, so I unceremoniously heaved the whole lot out in one big rootball and dumped it - and never got round to moving it (this is Bad Gardening Practice).  Despite them being exposed to the worst that the Beast from the East threw at them, with not even a pot for protection, the anthemis is still ok and a couple of the tulips are in bud!  I now feel bad about having mistreated them; maybe I should mount a salvage operation.

On the subject of plant labelling, I've found a few good strong young plants growing under the ash tree by the drive (without labels).  They look like something I would have put there last year, and probably as small plants rather than seeds.  I can't think what they are; the leaves looked initially rather like very young hellebore leaves but I wouldn't have put hellebores there.  I will leave them and find out in due course!  (More Bad Gardening Practice.)

After the Novemberish weather of a couple of weeks ago, we moved swiftly into July - decidedly warm sunshine for a few days.  That ended with a terrific thunderstorm on Saturday evening; we were having supper in the summerhouse (making the most of the good weather) and sat it out, with a good bottle of wine, enjoying the lightshow and congratulating ourselves on having mowed the lawn earlier.  The weather has now reverted to normal - a chilly wind yesterday and rain today (and for much of this week according to the forecast).  The greenhouse bubblewrap has been taken down; it's nice to have the view back!

 

 

 

 

Crossbred primula

Anemone blanda

The combination of heat and rain has really spurred on growth.  The blackthorn is in flower in the hedgerows, and in the garden the plum is in bloom and other plants are springing into life.  The epimediums, brunnera, bergenia and comfrey are blossoming, there are the first Anemone blanda in the bottom bed, and the aquilegias are throwing up flower stems.  The cowslip (and other cross-bred primulas) patch in the lawn is in full bloom; and the two primroses outside the gate have produced a third plant with slightly pinkish flowers (it looks a bit as though it has gone through the washing machine too many times).  (The leaves in the photo belong to the shining cranesbill, a local wildflower that I've been encouraging.)

In the veg patch, the shallots have taken well, thanks in part to the fleece covering (now removed) that kept the birds off; the broad beans are germinating and the potatoes have gone in, a little belatedly.  There's an excellent crop of rhubarb.

The wildlife is also responding well to the better weather.  A male brimstone butterfly has been about again, and a small brownish butterfly passed through (too far away to identify) one day.  The birds are busy building nests and defending territories; song thrushes have been singing in the evenings, and the usual birds have been joined by a pair of chaffinches and one of coal tits, several goldfinches and a greenfinch.  A pair of dunnocks seem to be in the bottom hedge whenever I go down there, and the blue tits are still using the nestbox; and a group of house martins and a swallow have been feeding overhead, so summer can't be too far away!

Not gardening weather

It has not been gardening weather, not very much anyway.  We didn't get the threatened snow, and the cold snap was actually quite short, but the temperatures haven't risen much and it has been rather wet, and this week has, frankly, been more like November than April - cloud down to ground level, chill and no sun.  Apart from a little seed-sowing, indoors and out, some work digging out and re-siting crocosmia corms (that is some tough plant - still a lot of it left) and a little weeding, garden activities have been limited to opening and closing the cold frame and hardening off some of the plants in the greenhouse.  It's about time that they had a sense of the hard world outside.  There's actually nothing in the cold frame that needs shelter now; much of what is in there only wanted protection from slugs and other nasties, and even the sweet peas can put up with the current temperatures (although they will benefit from something a little warmer).  We are promised rising temperatures next week, and about time too.

Despite that, there continue to be signs that spring is on its way.  The pyramidal orchids are showing leaves in the lawn and, like the early spotteds mentioned last time, have been marked off to protect them from mowing (not that we've started that yet - too damp).  Most of the big daffodils are out, even the ones I planted surreptitiously in the verge across the road, and there are buds on some of the early tulips.  The cold weather last month has affected some of the pot plantings, with quite a lot of scorched leaves.  The fern in the pot with Carex 'Evergold' is looking particularly brown; I expect it will regrow, but at the moment it is not a happy bunny.  The tub with the little species tulips (which I had dug up from the bottom of the garden where I'm clearing the weeds) has been raided by the mouse, judging by the size of the holes in the compost and the chewed remains of bulbs alongside, and lots of netting has been placed on top; fortunately I see that I failed to dig all of them out from their original position, so all is not lost.  The new puschkinia bulbs, planted last autumn in small pots on the patio, are doing nicely; a very pretty pale blue that goes well with little daffodil 'Elka'.  Scilla siberica 'Spring Beauty', a very dark blue, is also nice but not all the bulbs seem to have come up (perhaps, despite its Siberian origins, the cold weather was too much for it?).

Scilla siberica 'Spring Beauty'

Puschkinia libanotica

Narcissus 'Elka'

A pair of blue tits have been flying in and out of the nestbox, presumably fitting it out to their taste.  There should be plenty of food for their youngsters by the time they hatch, as there has already been a noticeable increase in insect life in the garden, particularly on the few sunny days that we've had.  I'm glad the tits don't seem to have been put off by the protective wire netting loosely positioned around the nestbox (with tit-sized holes left open) to keep the woodpecker off.  Woodie has made a couple of visits to the fatballs, but never for long.  The long-tailed tits continue to come regularly, usually as a pair, a few times with some of their relatives, and one day during the cold weather they brought all their friends - there were 10 of them.  There are also quite a lot of hedgehoggy-looking droppings on the lawn - spring is slowly coming to the garden!