Flying visits

Red admiral and peacock

It's peak butterfly time in the garden.  The buddleja is the big attraction, although Big Yellow Thing (now fading) has also been a draw, and the smaller butterflies also like the oregano.  There seem to have been more butterflies than last year, but nowhere near as many as we used to get; but there's a hard core of a few red admirals, some peacocks, a few brimstones (two males and a female, at least), a painted lady, a couple of small tortoiseshells (at last), lots of large whites, and occasional small heath and gatekeepers.  There was also, briefly, one large fritillary; I've never seen one before so can't be sure of exact identification, but it was definitely a fritillary.  I've also logged a holly blue (and now know the difference between that and a common blue, at least if I can see the underside).  And one day we had a hummingbird hawkmoth on the buddleja; haven't seen one for a few years.  Butterflies are a real summer pleasure, and I'm always sorry to see them disappear at the back end of the season.

Rose sawfly caterpillars

Less of a pleasure was finding a couple of rose sawfly caterpillars trying to defoliate my Rosa alba 'Koenigin von Daenemark'.  Fortunately they hadn't done too much damage; it's a rose with very healthy leaves, which was how I spotted the little nuisances in the first place.  Identification from the butterfly book was easy (the real ones are on the left of the photo).  I'm afraid I fed them to the birds.



Our feathered flying visitors are still numerous, although I sense a slight decrease in interest in the food put out for them.  The blackbird and sparrows are still feeding young, but the robins are starting to sort out winter territory (much competitive tick-ticking); the youngest robin is still my great friend, appearing whenever I weed, clear up or do other garden jobs.  He had a bonanza yesterday, when we moved most of the patio pots to allow our builders working space to replace our guttering this week.  I was able to sweep up many months-worth of debris that had collected in the corners, and to cap it all an ants' nest under the step broke up that afternoon and there were flying ants all over the place; the robin clearly thought it was all his birthdays rolled into one.  There are plenty of insects flying around, and the local house martins and swallows are often feeding overhead, though I haven't seen the swifts since late July; theirs is a real flying visit, barely ten weeks long by my reckoning.

My little robin friend ...

... and helping with clearing up

A week or so ago we had a flying visit from a sparrowhawk which landed briefly on the big hook holding up the fatball feeder; fortunately the sparrows saw him at the last minute and bolted.  Barely had he landed, however, than a woodpigeon flew at him and saw him off; he and his mate seem to have a nest in the holly tree and he wasn't taking any chances.  I think it was our lame pigeon Lefty.  I see from my old blog posts that he has been around since at least 2013; he used to rule the roost in the garden but for the last couple of years seems to have been based out in the fields, coming in here only occasionally for water and a little food.  He's a feisty bird - I suppose he has to be, with his bad left leg - but in the past doesn't seem to have had any success in mating.  This year, however, I've seen him with a mate, and a couple of times earnestly carrying bits of twig around as if he's helping build a nest.  Good on you, Lefty.

The building work at roof level involved replacing a bit of broken roof fascia behind which some sparrows had nested this year.  Now that the nesting season is over, we had no compunction about removing the nest: a tangle of dead grass and (mostly pigeon) feathers.  We've also taken down the nestbox for cleaning; the bluetits had a neat mat of grass and moss, with a perfectly round hollow in the middle for the eggs, quite a construction for a pair of little birds.  There's a good number of tits, including great and long-tailed tits, around in the garden; they seem to have had a reasonable breeding season.

Sparrow nest contents

Bluetits' nest

Rosemary in need of attention!

Moving the patio pots was a job that really needed doing.  Several of the plants are badly in need of attention.  The big rosemary, in particular, was partly blocking the patio doors and had rooted down through the pot and into the soil under the flagstones; it really really needs a lot of cutting back or possibly discarding (there are other rosemary plants elsewhere in the garden).  The move also allowed me to spot a plant label under the lilies whose identity was puzzling me the other week, but I'm not sure I'm much the wiser; the label said 'Pink Perfection' but that doesn't match either of the lilies that are in there!

The runner bean plants have succumbed to the slugs (despite the toad, who was found hiding under some nicely damp and rotting wood nearby), and one of the courgette plants is also looking chewed.  The most successful courgette plant (ie the only one actually showing anything edible) is the one planted in a shallow tub on the patio; I need to do that more often, I think.  The tomatoes are now cropping, slowly, and all the aubergines have one little fruit on though I doubt that they will come to much now that summer is coming to a close.  I've started shutting the greenhouse up at nights, as the temperatures are too low; it has been chilly for the last couple of weeks except when the sun is out (which hasn't been too often), and even with the door closed the temperature in there has gone down to 12.4C on at least one occasion.  Apparently one in three UK households have turned the central heating on in the last week! - we are resisting, although we did use an electric heater one evening.  It's supposed to be summer, for goodness' sake.

Whether it's a sign of the weather or not, I don't know; but D saw a redwing in a hedgerow outside the village.  Had it spent the summer here, or is it an early winter migrant?

Digging up bulbs

There are some garden jobs for which there never seems to be a good time to get stuck in.  Cleaning the pond is one, but another is clearing weeds out of borders with bulbs in; the best time, as far as the bulbs are concerned, is when they are dormant, but that's high summer when surrounding plants are in full flow.  I've decided that this is probably the best time to do something about the seriously weedy patch down near the summerhouse; a lot of what's in there can be dug up and discarded.  I'm working around the plants I want to keep - Crocosmia 'Lucifer' (now fading), Lilium henryi (in flower) and the yellow chrysanthemum (still to come) - and I'll sort them out in the autumn or early winter.  The doronicums will also stay, but they're easy to dig up, weed underneath and replant.  So I've been removing the bugle (Ajuga reptans atropurpurea - attractive but seriously rampant), an overenthusiastic self-seeding euphorbia and the big red poppy Papaver 'Allegro'; the latter will probably reappear in due course, but that's fine by me.  That allows me to get to grips with the couch grass, vetch and other nasties in there.  I've been digging up bulbs as I go.  The little red and orange species tulips (um ... T. linifolia and urumiensis???) will go back in, along the sunniest edge, as they are delightful, as will the very few bulbs of the big red tulip (no idea of the variety, they were in the garden when we arrived) if I can find them.  The daffodils I'm not so sure about.  They are large trumpet varieties, also inherited with the garden, and I'm in two minds about them.  On one hand, they are good for cutting, and they certainly brighten up the garden, especially after a dismal winter; but they have no scent, aren't particularly elegant and seem a bit out of place in a country garden.  Increasingly I'm preferring smaller-flowered varieties.  I may replant some of them, but in any case they had become very congested, and I will have lots of spares (I have ideas about what to do with them, more in a future post!).  There are also lots of little white bulbs in there, which I've been picking out to throw away.  I can't think what they are; I don't recall other bulb flowers in there.  Much of that patch is really too shady for most bulbs, so I wouldn't have planted them there.  My best guess is that they are Allium triquetrum (although they don't seem to have the distinctive onion smell), which I established a few yards away (before I realised how thuggish they are!) and am now trying to remove.  Whatever they are, I can do without them, so they can be binned!

On the bright side ....

No weeding today; it's raining.  The weather over the past two or three weeks has been very unsettled and rather disappointing for summer - below-average temperatures, quite a lot of wind and showers.  The rain is at least partly welcome after the dry spring and early summer, but a little more warmth would be nice.

... a lovely rainbow

The shallots and garlic have been lifted and are drying in the greenhouse.  The dry weather wasn't good for them; the shallots, frankly, aren't much bigger than when they went in! and the garlic is on the small side, but prolific and should keep me going for the next few months.  Various seeds, for late autumn/winter crops, have gone into their place.  My very late-planted courgettes are trying hard but struggling with the temperatures, and the bean plants are attracting far too many slugs (where is that toad when I need him? I haven't seen him since his day in the greenhouse).  The tomatoes are just starting to ripen, and the aubergine plants have two little fruits on.  I am always frustrated by the garden writers who urge you not to allow your aubergine plants to produce more than six fruits - if only!  The plums have ripened this week; far fewer than usual, though at least I don't have the normal business of dealing with the glut.  Wasps have attacked some, and the blackbirds have also found them, but several punnets have made their way into the kitchen.

Butterflies continue to appear in the garden, weather notwithstanding.  The count so far is up to four red admirals, two peacocks, and one each of painted lady, gatekeeper, small heath and meadow brown (and lots of whites).  No tortoiseshells to date - I wonder why.

Toad in the hole

Watering the tomatoes in the greenhouse this morning, I noticed that some of the growbag compost had been disturbed and piled up at one side of the planting hole.  My first thought was that the blackbird had been rooting around in there again, but when I bent down to sweep the compost back I realised that there were two eyes looking at me ....

Biological control for slugs

Well, there won't be many slugs causing damage in the greenhouse with that little fellow hiding in there!  It's a nice safe place for a toad, well hidden and pleasantly damp (indeed I had watered him without noticing).  He has been there all day so he's obviously quite comfortable, and doesn't even seem to have minded my photographing him.

There's no shortage of birdlife in the garden either.  There are at least two juvenile robins, one getting its red breast more quickly than the other (presumably younger) one, and the little one has taken to appearing whenever I'm outside for any length of time.  He's very trusting and comes right up to me; I thought he was looking for food, but he doesn't always take me up on food opportunities and just seems to like my company.  There is a good number of young blackbirds, who are very fond of our berries.  I managed to salvage a few red gooseberries and some blackcurrants, and quite a lot of raspberries although the birds have taken a good number.  I must protect more of the bushes next year.  At least one pair of blackbirds are still feeding young (probably very small young, from the size of the food they're gathering), and there's also a family of young wrens who came to the pond for a drink the other day.  Less desirably, the sparrowhawk has been through the garden a few times, once sitting in the shrubs being screamed at by a sparrow; fortunately it flew off with empty talons, so no harm (apparently) done.

The summer butterfly boom is underway, and this year there seem to be rather more than we've had for a few years.  I've seen at least two red admirals and one each of comma, ringlet, brimstone, large heath and (probably) small heath, as well as something very small that wouldn't stay still long enough for me to see, and of course lots of whites (large and small).  If the latter are looking for cabbages to lay their eggs on, they're out of luck because that is one thing that I have netted this year (and they're doing very well).  There has also been a bright blue damselfly at the pond, and a large dragonfly (emperor?) laying its eggs on the pond plants one day.

I'm continuing to try to clear as many weeds (and unwanted plants) as possible.  Removing a lot of the invasive pink geranium has made it clear that there is actually very little (wanted) colour in the garden at the moment; far too many big shrubs and not enough flowering perennials.  The yellow achillea at the bottom of the garden is doing quite well, as is the francoa and the Crocosmia 'Lucifer', and the Big Yellow Thing (Buphthalmum) is cheery as always.  The pinks are doing their bit too, but now that the roses are going over there isn't a lot of brightness about.  The roses provided some lovely cut flowers for the house, though, and there are now a few sweet peas and dahlias to replace them.

On the subject of roses, R. dupontii, which still has the fallen holly branch on it (I need to find somewhere to dispose of that!), is gamely sending up strong new shoots. 

Iris foetidissima

One of the plants that I am not actually weeding out, but am trying to confine to particular difficult corners of the garden, is Iris foetidissima.  I value it for its orange seedheads in winter (and its willingness to grow in unlikely places), but the flowers are not exactly striking; however, viewed up close, they are prettier than I had given them credit for.

I always forget that some of the larger patio pots have lily bulbs in them.  It doesn't help that I haven't made a note of the varieties and can't remember what they are!  One potful has suffered from the attentions of lily beetle; I didn't see the beetles themselves, but their larvae are there and they are quite as disgusting as all the gardening books say.  I've stripped off the affected leaves, and one of the flowerheads, and hope that the rest will survive.  Fortunately the beetles seem to have ignored the other lilies.  However, one pot seems to have a mixture of varieties in it and I'm sure I would only have planted one variety in there.  One bulb looks like L. regale but the other is a lovely dark purple.  I'm not complaining, and they look very good together, but I wish I knew what the other one is!

Mixed lilies

A bit wild

Another long holiday away - and the inevitable catching up afterwards.  May always brings on a burst of growth, and the garden was a bit wild by the time we got back, with tall weed grasses in full flower; I've got a lot of the stems picked and put in the green recycling bin before they can set seed, but there's still more to do, not to mention all the other things that have got a bit out of hand (like that pink geranium that is still trying to take over). 

The weather had been a bit wild too; warm and sunny weather at the end of May, followed by a very windy and chilly spell with some rain.  Coming back from Crete at this stage was something of a shock, and we did turn the heating back on for an evening or two, although the Cretan weather had also been unseasonably wet and windy at times (even a brief hail shower!).  Since then we've had some very hot and sunny weather, which ended abruptly last week - literally, one day I was drinking tea to cool down, the next day I was drinking tea to warm up while working outside.  Although it felt so much cooler, temperatures were actually nearer normal.  Today we have finally had rain, much needed after the heat; the garden has been very dry and plants in pots have been flagging.

The holly branch

The wind in early June knocked things about a bit.  The broad beans - despite my best intentions, not properly staked - are all over the place, and a very large branch fell out of the holly tree on top of the rose R. dupontii; I had been considering removing the rose anyway as it's in a very shady spot and not doing well, but this might force my hand!  The holly branch is still awaiting removal; I'm gradually cutting it up (the photo was taken after a lot of the top growth had been removed).  There are other dead or weak branches in the tree that need dealing with, but they will have to wait.

The big ash tree - a bit thin

Next door's ash tree, photographed on the same day

Some things did better than expected in our absence.  The little fig plant with its damaged roots has tentatively put out a few leaves, so seems to be settling into its new home, and the plum tree, which had been looking reluctant to leaf up, has come round (although the crop will be tiny this year, probably because of the spring frost).  A number of cabbage, kale, broccoli and Brussels sprout seedlings that I planted out before we left and carefully covered with netting or fleece are doing fine, and the four dahlias don't seem to have suffered from being planted out rather earlier than they really should have been.  I've taken cuttings from them, and they too are doing well.  The peony 'Sarah Bernhardt' has put on quite a good show and doesn't seem to have been too badly knocked around by the wind, and the Nigella damascena (Love-in-a-mist) by the drive flowered well (now superseded by some candytuft).  There have been failures, such as the row of peas sown before we went away (complete no-show). The biggest worry, however, is that the foliage of the big ash tree at the bottom of the garden - actually in the field behind us, immediately beyond the boundary fence - is looking very thin; it's an old tree and has had dead wood in it for some years now, but I think the new growth from the bottom of the trunk is taking over and draining the nutrients from the main trunk.  It's the main focal point of the whole garden and would pose a bit of a problem if it died - especially as it's not ours so we couldn't do anything about it.

Nigella damascena

Some sort of order has returned to the greenhouse now that the tomatoes have been put in grow-bags and the aubergines potted on; as the weather hadn't warmed up properly before we left for our holiday I delayed sowing the courgettes and beans, and they are now germinating nicely in there, along with some zinnia seeds.  Next year I must remember not to sow zinnias and the like too early; they grow fast and do better if sown after the warm weather starts.

The birds are busy with nests and youngsters.  The blackbirds are very tolerant of my presence; yesterday I was picking one side of the big gooseberry bush while the female was picking the other side, and I think one of them has been in the greenhouse investigating the grow-bags as some of the compost had been pulled out.  The sparrows and starlings are proliferating well.  The nestbox on the summerhouse wall was askew when we came back (had a cat been at it?) but there are young bluetits around so I'm hoping that they escaped unharmed.  A pair of house martins have attempted to nest under our roof on the east gable, but the nest looks incomplete and isn't in use, and I'm wondering whether the sparrows, who are nesting close by, chased them off.  Something of that sort seems to have happened round on the north gable, where a pair of swifts were showing interest in the airbrick hole where one of the sparrow nests is; Mr Sparrow put up a spirited (and noisy) defence of his patch and the swifts left well alone.  They swoop past occasionally, almost as if they're trying to wind the sparrows up, but aren't nesting, which is a pity (for me, if not for the sparrows).  Other wildlife seen around the garden includes a frog displaced by my weeding activities, a huge toad found marching purposefully past the front door one very hot day, apparently in search of some shade, and a baby rabbit who ventured in from the field behind us, and eventually hopped back through the fence and disappeared into the long grass.  It's all go in the wild garden!

Stone

The new path

It has been a hard landscaping week.  The builders have now finished the area behind the house: a good wide path, actually intended to provide hardstanding for tower scaffolding to facilitate maintenance of the gable woodwork, but doubling convincingly as a sitting-out area, especially now that the bench and tables have been put there (and, temporarily, the rather unsightly stone sink waiting to be planted up); also re-flagging of the area for the rotary drier, and a hard-sand area over by the long hedge.  There are still some piles of soil, weeds and old builders' sand from the original path piled up on the edge of the lawn, which are in need of removing and/or digging in but at the moment provide endless interest for the garden's birdlife who check it over for seeds and bugs, and, in the case of the sparrows, use it as a luxury dustbath.

The wall, repaired

I've also completed some amateur hard landscaping of my own.  The stretch of drystone wall behind the fruit patch for some reason didn't have any upright capping stones, only big stones laid flat; some of these, and some of the stones lower down the wall, were crumbling and dropping off on to the soil below.  This didn't matter too much as long as there was nothing planted below, but I want to make use of that area and big stones raining down on any planting wouldn't be a good idea.  It's the place where the neighbours' cat, which regards the wall as a thoroughfare, likes to jump down into her garden, and I think she was kicking up some of the looser stones as she did so.  I've been rebuilding the top part of the wall on our side, putting in upright capping as far as I can (further along, on the left of the photo, some concrete has been spread on the top of the wall so the stones won't come out).  There are still some rotten stones in there - I couldn't completely rebuild it - but the badly crumbling ones have been taken out and re-used as infill, and the result doesn't look too bad.  The capping should withstand the cat's jumping and, I hope, will help protect the stones lower down from weathering.

Part 2 of this process didn't go so well, however.  My plan was to plant our little fig tree - a cutting donated by a kind gardening neighbour - below the wall; it's a little shaded, but south-facing and sheltered.  The soil is shockingly bad, full of stones and some other debris (bits of old pipe, crockery, rusty hinges etc), but figs like it stony and dry so that shouldn't be a problem.  The fig has been doing quite well in its pot and managed to overwinter three tiny fruits, though I ought to have noticed that it was being slow in putting out leaves.  When I turned it out of its pot I found that most of the roots had gone; classic vine weevil damage.  Fortunately there are still a few roots, so I've planted it, given it some Rootgrow and a good watering and have some hopes that it will survive.  The vine weevil grubs were picked out and donated to the blackbirds, who fed them to one of their hungry youngsters.

Lily of the valley

The weather has been very up and down, but still predominantly dry and I've been up and down the garden with the watering can.  We had several days of cold weather (sleet, snow, hail), a couple of warm spring days, and now a chill east wind; I wish it would make up its mind, and for once I keep hoping for a good downpour to soak the ground.  Some plants seem happy; the lily of the valley, which spreads further every year, has been in flower for a week (quite a bit earlier than usual) and providing scented posies for the house.  The veg patch is a bit slow, however.  I've sown a few peas and some replacement broad beans, but there's still a lot needing planting out. 

There's still much bird activity, with the young blackbirds and thrushes being fed and various finches getting ready to nest; a pair of linnets have been around, which is nice as we haven't seen any for a few years.  They always used to come to drink at the pond, and may have continued to do so but the planting round there has got bigger and obscured our view of what's happening at the water's edge.  (The water's edge is also a lot lower than normal because of the dry weather.)  The pheasant and his three ladies have also been regulars, although I wish he wouldn't dust-bath in the potato patch!  There have been a few butterflies, too, although the only one I saw closely enough for identification was a fine male orange-tip; there was a small blue butterfly (probably a common blue, although we have others in this area), a white and something with lovely intricate markings that I only caught a glimpse of - I'd love to know what it was.

Interlopers

Tulips in the big pot

The mid-season tulips are coming out nicely; but I admit to being a bit confused about the contents of the big pot.  According to my blog post at the time, it ought to be 'Ronaldo', 'La Belle Epoque', 'Brown Sugar' and 'Bruine Wimpel'.  Certainly the first two of those are there; 'Ronaldo' a very deep, dark pink, and 'La Belle Epoque' the sort of pinky-coffee colour that would look washed out on its own, but teamed with stronger colours looks really great.  There's also a strong pink with orangey, slightly frilled tips, and it doesn't match the description of either of the other two that I planted.  It might become clearer once the fourth flowers; it's going to come into bloom later than the others and so far looks orange-ish on the outside, so it could be either 'Brown Sugar' or 'Bruine Wimpel' at this stage.  Fortunately, the overall effect is quite striking and I'm pleased with it, whatever the actual tulips turn out to be!  There was also an interloper in that pot; one single bloom that was too early, too tall and too orange for the others.  I cut it for a vase indoors, and I'm pretty sure it's 'Cairo': a handsome orange with a strong central rib on the petals and a khaki-green base inside.  As it happens, I have a group of 'Cairo' from last year so I've been able to compare the two.  I've marked the interloper in the hope of being able to single it out for next year!

Definitely 'Cairo' ....

... and possibly 'Cairo'

Eggplant?

Today there was another surprise appearance in the pot with the remains of Tulip 'Silver Parrot' (last year's bulbs; this year only one flowered, and poorly, so I'll discard them).  Something has laid an egg in there.  From the size, I'd guess it's one of the hen pheasants who have been wandering about over the last few days.  It's hardly a suitable place for a nest, so presumably it's just been abandoned.  At least she chose a pot where the planting is already fading, rather than squashing a lot of flowering bulbs.

Sadly, the bluetits may have abandoned their attempt to nest in the nestbox; possibly too much activity down there for them.  I haven't seen them going in for a while.  I hope they've found somewhere else.  However the house martins and swallows have started to arrive; a flock of martins were feeding over the field behind us one day, and singletons have been seen overhead.  The blackbirds, thrushes and robins have been having a wonderful week with all the landscaping work going on around the house.  The digging has yielded lots of worms and other buglife, and our soft-hearted builders have been putting the worms aside for the birds, who are becoming quite tame, especially as they're feeding youngsters now.  There's a fledgeling blackbird being fed alongside the drive, and I was scolded one day by the thrush when I went into the Dump corner, not realising that a young thrush was hiding in there.  One of our male blackbirds has, after much practice, managed to master the art of hanging onto the fatball feeder; it's not a very elegant performance, but he's able to stay on there for several seconds now and peck some beakfuls out.

The building work has limited the scope for much other gardening this past week; I've been clearing and cutting back to make space for the new paths.  The builders kindly lifted some of my favourite hellebores from the path, which have been bedded in temporarily to recover until I can find somewhere permanent for them.  I'm still planning the new bed behind the house; today (nice and sunny, but cool) that area wasn't shaded by the house until about 3pm, and the definition of 'full sun' is 6 hours of sunshine, so it should be suitable for quite a range of plants.

The veg plot has been a bit neglected over the past couple of weeks.  There are various brassica seedlings in the cold frame and greenhouse but they need pricking out and hardening off; the weather continues mostly dry, sometimes bright but with more cold winds and chilly nights than I'd like at this time of year.  The leek seedlings are starting to appear, but the spring-sown broad beans are patchy at best; I wonder if some of them have been eaten by mice.  There's just time to sow some replacements if I'm quick about it.

Problem, challenge, opportunity (II)

A lot of work ...

Well, so much for my plans to concentrate on weeding and sorting out the veg plot beds.  For some time we've been planning to widen the path along the back of the house, on an area which is, or more correctly has been, a flower bed; we're finally about to go ahead with that, and the builder is coming much sooner than anticipated.  So the focus is now on clearing / weeding that area before he starts, a lot of work against a deadline!  The builders will dig out the area, but there are things in there - couch grass and vetch among others - that need careful root removal if they're not to reappear in future years between the flagstones, and I'd rather do that myself to be sure.  The bed has been left pretty much to its own devices in recent years, in anticipation of the building work, and there isn't much in there that needs preserving.  There's a lot of brunnera, seedlings of the Brunnera 'Jack Frost' which might just lie outside the paved area, though I've taken divisions from it and planted them elsewhere in the garden, so the parent plant can be removed (if I can get it out!), a couple of aquilegias and the big patch of red wallflowers (I'll take cuttings and dig them out, as late as possible as the bees are enjoying them).  Sadly we will have to remove all the hellebores that have self-seeded between the existing flagstones, including my favourite H. argutifolius, although there's a seedling from that now located in the front garden.  I will also have to bite the bullet and remove the very old, blackspot-ridden climbing rose on the back wall - probably not before time either.  The ground slopes away very slightly from the house, and I originally built a low drystone retaining wall in this bed; I've started to dismantle it, exposing a large population of slugs and snails, some of which I threw out onto the lawn where the song thrush gratefully disposed of a few.  I also found a little toad hiding in there, and re-homed him under a large patch of ivy where I hope he'll be safe.

There is an opportunity associated with the work, however: a new bed alongside the new path will be further away from the house and its shadow, and - although east-facing - will get sun for much of the afternoon, much more than the old bed did.  An opportunity for some sun-loving plants!

Fortunately the weather is continuing dry; it has been a very dry April and I've had to do some watering of pots and veg seedlings, but it means that I can work comfortably outside and the soil is easy to work.  Temperatures have fluctuated between a pleasantly warm weekend (meals outside in the summerhouse) and, today, a chill that had me revert to full winter working clothes including jacket and warm gloves.

Tulip 'Orange Emperor'

Tulip 'Exotic Emperor'

The tulips are continuing to come out.  I'm very pleased with 'Exotic Emperor', a lovely creamy white with a few green markings on the outside, and 'Orange Emperor', a vivid, luminescent clear orange with the same green markings; both are sturdy plants with full, bold flowers.  The other pots are still in bud but coming on nicely, and there are a few odds and sods (from last year's pots) in odd corners, including some 'Havran', 'Couleur Cardinal' and 'Angelique'.  There are still a good few daffodils in reasonable shape, and the path along the hedge is lined on one side by honesty (Lunaria annua) and on the other by doronicum - a fine colourful effect.  And the orchids are starting to push their leaves up through the lawn.

Honesty and doronicums

The pulmonaria underneath the winter honeysuckle seems to be a favourite of the local sparrows, who were happily pulling the flowers off one day.  I don't mind as the plant is barely visible anyway.  We've had a very active lot of birds, some (blackbirds, song thrush, robins) taking food away for youngsters.  A pair of pied wagtails appeared one day (normally we only see them in the garden in the direst winter weather), as did a pair of mistle thrushes, attracted by the old apples put out for the blackbirds; long-tailed tits still come from time to time and all of our usual birds are very much in evidence.  The bluetits are indeed nesting in the nestbox, apparently undeterred by our being in the summerhouse.  There may also be a wren's nest down in the bottom hedge area as we've seen one there quite a lot.  With the weather being so dry, the water is a big attraction for the birds, and there has been much bathing in the pond - although the level is dropping so that may not continue for long!