We had a bright but chilly day recently, so I took the opportunity to photograph a few interesting things I saw on a stroll round our garden.
Wild Cherry (Prunus avium)
We have two wild cherry trees and I noticed the buds beginning to swell on this one.
Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis)
There is a rough patch of land beyond our compost heaps, in-between us and one of our neighbours which has patches of snowdrops.
Hazel catkins (Corylus avellana)
The catkins were blowing about in the strong breeze and I gave up trying to focus on them. The female flowers were just beginning to show as well but again, my camera wouldn’t take a clear picture of them.
I liked the look of the Ivy (Hedera helix) growing up this Horse Chestnut (Aesculus Hippocastenaceae ) tree trunk
I like the colours on the ivy leaves and the pattern of the veins.
As you might be able to see, there are any number of lichens growing on this tree trunk. I couldn’t get a clear shot of any of them so I copied the photograph above and then cropped it. The result wasn’t too bad though not good enough to identify the lichens. This was only a very small area of the original photo.
Lichens and green algae on a tree trunk
Jelly Ear fungus ( Auricularia auricula-judae)
A few dead trees have been blown down in recent storms and I found this fungus growing on one of them.
More fungus.
This moss was shining in the bright sunlight
One of our neighbours has started keeping bees.
Just after Christmas we had a landscape gardener come and cut back this willow which had grown lots of suckers and had spread too much.
The little island in the pond was given a haircut too.
This is the island where the Greylags have always nested. Last year the nest was abandoned after it was attacked by something. We had hoped that by clearing the island the geese would have better visibility and would have earlier warning of danger from otter or mink. They have usually visited by mid February but there has been no sign of them yet this year. After a very wet winter the pond has re-filled and the reeds that were threatening to take over have been swamped. They will survive under water so we will have to dig them out eventually if we wish to retain the pond as it is.
Discs of ice
The pond had been frozen but the sun had melted most of the ice. Just these tiny discs of ice remained. Out of focus again, I’m afraid.
Ice disc
These papery seedheads belong to the Bee Orchids (Ophrys apifera) that grow in our garden.
I was pleased to see the green rosettes of new leaves at the base of the old flower stalks.
Another view of the pond. Richard has been working hard clearing most of the brambles and other scrub plants from around the pond during the last week. The dead grass and brambles in the foreground of this photo are no longer there!
Our corner pond still has plenty of ice on it.
Not many days before this photo was taken I had seen newts swimming in this pond. The water is cleaner here than in the other larger pond as there is no chemical run-off from the agricultural fields.
The Witch-hazel I have growing in a tub near the front door is blooming.
As are the crocus…..
Yellow crocus
Yellow crocus
The pink Viburnum flowers look good against a blue sky. They smell wonderful too!
Cornelian Cherry ( Cornus mas)
This tree is awaiting the right time to plant it out into the garden – it is in a large pot. Meanwhile, it has decided to flower in a small way!
We have been told to expect some more cold weather during the next week or two so many of these flowers will suffer, no doubt.
I leave you with a favourite song from Enzo Enzo – ‘Juste Quelqu’un De Bien’.
We had a few days of cold and snow in mid-December but the year ended with much milder temperatures, wind and lots of rain. All our local rivers have burst their banks and everywhere is wet and muddy.
‘Evereste’ crabapple tree in the snow
Crabapples
Once the apples had been frosted it took no time at all for the blackbirds to eat all the fruit on the tree! The deer helped themselves to the apples on the lower branches.
Female Muntjac deer
2nd Sunday in Advent
We had a Sunday service at our church at Rumburgh on 10th December. The day started with heavy rain but as we got the church ready for the service the rain turned first to sleet and then to snow. The Archdeacon arrived to take our service, his cloak covered in snow. He preached and played the organ too but sadly, not many of our mainly elderly congregation turned up.
A snowy churchyard
Our damp, but festive church porch
Snow covers a multitude of sins and our garden looked almost picturesque!
The view from our front door
Our larger pond. This was before the rain added a number of inches to its depth
We have also had all the willow saplings and brambles on the little island cut down since this photograph was taken. The greylags should find it easier to make their nest there in the spring.
Here is a female greylag with her goslings in our garden a couple of years ago
The path round the pond
Looking across the field from our garden
After the sun had risen I took this picture from an upstairs window
We haven’t had much snow in the last couple of years and we don’t know if we will get any more this winter either. This might be all we get!
We held a carol service at our church on 20th December.
I took this photo a while before the service began.
Our Christmas tree at church
The service was taken by Maurice our hard-working Elder who has taken on most of the admin duties for the benefice since we have been vicarless. We heard the Christmas story in some readings from the Bible and we also listened to a few seasonal poems. We sang lots of carols and then ate sausage rolls, cheese straws, cake and mince pies and drank sherry or fruit juice.
Kneeler at church
Kneeler at church
Richard, Elinor and I went to Midnight Mass at South Elmham St Peter’s church on Christmas Eve and we spent a peaceful Christmas at home, my mother visiting us for lunch and for the afternoon on Christmas Day and for an evening buffet meal on Boxing Day.
Christmas tree decorations
Alice stayed in Sheffield for Christmas but came to visit us for a couple of days, arriving on the 28th December. It was lovely to have her with us!
I took this photo with my phone on Boxing Day during our walk in the late afternoon
We don’t party on New Year’s Eve but stay at home quietly. I had taken my mother to her church in the morning while Richard went to Ilketshall St John’s church in our benefice. The roads were all awash but the rain held off for most of the day. Richard, Elinor and I went to Southwold in the afternoon to walk by the sea. We parked by the pier and walked along the front to the far end of the town where we bought some chips. We walked back to the car as it got dark and came home again. A pleasing end to the year. No photos from Southwold as I left my camera at home.
We weren’t very adventurous this spring, staying close to home and taking things easy, so there wasn’t too much to blog about.
A visit to St Michael’s church on the first mild spring day in March
We admired the ‘Narnia’ lamp post by the gate.
We were unable to tell the time as the sun failed to shine.
The peaceful churchyard.
Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris ) The flowers are in the centre of the bloom and have no petals. The 5 – 8 petal-like sepals are bright shiny yellow.
Peacock butterfly (Inachis io) It was very sluggish and was still in the grass outside the church when we came out again.
A pair of Greylags (Anser anser) took up residence in our garden as they usually do each spring
We enjoy their company.
They constructed a nest on the island in the middle of the big pond but after ten days it was abandoned. Feathers were spread everywhere. We don’t know what happened but we suspect an otter or an American mink was to blame.
The abandoned nest.
After we lost our summerhouse in the storm earlier this year we spent some time clearing the area behind it and discovered this tree with the deformed trunk. What could have caused this?
We enjoy seeing all the birds that visit our garden including the Pied Wagtails (Motacilla alba). Not a good shot as the bird hurried into the dappled shade just as I took its picture.
A sunset seen from the back of the house.
On a visit to our church at Rumburgh we saw this Mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) resting in the shade of a gravestone.
Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the churchyard
I love the informality of our country churchyards and I like to see the wild flowers there. The wild flowers are just as much God’s work as any garden flower or exotic bloom. They have a haven in our churchyards and should be safe from herbicides.
Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis)
Richard on his way to church
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Meanwhile, back in my garden…..
My Pieris with its new leaves of red and its little white bell flowers
I have been growing these hyacinth bulblets on in shallow tubs and they are now ready for planting out in the garden to flower next spring.
Scented narcissi and pink aubretia
Elinor gave me some more aubretia, a mauve variety, as a gift on Mothering Sunday
Lathyrus and scilla
Pasque flowers. These began flowering just a couple of days after Easter Sunday.
I had a large patch of these red saxifrage but the deer scraped most of them up. I’m hoping they will spread again.
I managed to find a number of flowers to photograph in my garden this March.
We have areas in our garden that are left wild. This is one of the many violets that bloomed in March. I think this is an Early Dog Violet (Viola reichenbachiana )
Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna ). Not only are the flowers so shiny and buttercup-yellow but the leaves are interesting too. They are patterned and blotchy with different shades of green and then there is the strange black line down the centre of the leaf looking like it was drawn carelessly with a felt pen.
This is all that was left of some of my favourite tulips after a Muntjac deer came visiting. I wasn’t too happy about this. I can see a grape hyacinth bulb that was dug up as well.
I am very fond of Scillas and this was a patch of them as they were beginning to flower.
This is a pea – Lathyrus ‘Spring Beauty’ just as it too, began to flower.
Our Cherry Plum (Prunus cerasifera ) always looks good against a blue sky. Cherry Plum are the first of the flowering trees to have blossom in the spring.
Cherry Plum blossom
Pots of ‘Tete a Tete’ miniature daffodils and just a few pale blue crocus.
Sweet Violets (Viola odorata ) growing under the Crabapple tree.
The first of the garden daffodils to flower. It isn’t easy to see in this photo but the trumpets are a darker orange colour. I think they might be ‘Jetfire’ daffodils.
A large clump of Primroses ( Primula vulgaris) growing in the verge at the front of the house.
Primrose flower. This is a pin-eye flower, with the pinhead-like stigma in the centre of the flower and the stamens hidden below.
We had stormy weather like this all through last summer!
Many beautiful cloudscapes
Cloudy sunsets….
…and a lot of misty evenings!
ooOOoo
Richard grew Gazanias in pots last summer. They did very well especially towards the end of summer when the weather improved.
I discovered this rather chewed iris on the bank of the big pond in our garden. We don’t have any other irises like this. I wonder where it came from?
Red-eyed Damselfly (Erythromma najas)
I saw this damselfly on a lilypad on the big pond. I zoomed my camera as far as it would go and then cropped the shot which explains the poor quality of the photo. I needed to ID this damselfly which is a new one for our garden.
In 2014 I discovered a Bee Orchid in our garden and was very excited. I looked for it again in 2015 but it didn’t re-appear. Last summer I looked again at the place where I had found the orchid and was again disappointed. However, a few days later I found four bee orchid plants about 2 metres away from the original plant. I have already seen a few leaf rosettes this winter so I know that the orchids have survived.
Bee Orchid
Bee Orchid
This may be a Southern Cuckoo Bumblebee (Bombus vestalis) on white Allium
A Wasp Beetle (Clytus arietis)
Common Spotted-orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii)
When we moved into our house we discovered one of these orchids growing close to the house. I moved it to a safer place and since then it has done well and the plant has spread all over the garden. I often find seedlings in a tub or flower pot where they seem very happy and grow enormous like the one in the photo.
Hoverfly Syrphus ribesii on Escallonia ‘Apple Blossom’
Five-spot Burnet moth (Zygaena trifolii) on White Clover (Trifolium repens)
Five-spot Burnet on White Clover
House-leek in flower
Large Skipper butterfly (Ochlodes sylvanus) on Lavender – Lavandula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’.
Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica)
Black Medick (Medicago lupulina)
Hoverfly Volucella pellucens
The same hoverfly next to a tiny micro-moth
Branched Bur-reed (Sparganium erectum)
I have now caught up with all the photos taken in and near my garden last year. I have photographs from a few outings we did that I would like to share with you and then I can concentrate on this year!
Here is my music selection – Chris Rea’s ‘Heaven’ – one of my most favourite songs!
This is another collection of things I’ve seen in my garden or near my home during the past month. The weather until a few days ago has been wonderful! Warm, sometimes very hot, mainly dry and sunny; it has been a lovely late summer.
Flower on Richard’s Fish-hook Cactus (Ferocactus wislizeni)
This cactus nearly flowered for the first time two years ago but the warm, sunny weather didn’t last long enough and the buds shrivelled. Last year was too dull and cool so no buds formed at all. This year however, one of the three buds opened and stayed open for three days.
Sweet pepper ‘Sweet Banana’
Richard is growing sweet peppers this year and this is a photo of them when they were just starting to turn red. Unfortunately, the camera focused on the leaf not the pepper.
Zinnia flower
Zinnia flower-bud
Richard bought a tray of Zinnia flowers from the garden centre. They took their time to get established but eventually they got going and have been so bright and cheerful for the past month.
Common Fleabane (Pulicaria dysenteria) has been everywhere I’ve looked this summer but this poor shot is the only photo of it I’ve taken.
For centuries, the leaves of Fleabane were hung in bunches from ceilings or dried and burnt as a fumigant to repel fleas. Richard Mabey in his ‘Flora Britannica’ says the plant is a relative of the species which supplies the insecticide ‘pyrethrum’.
Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) seed-heads
Speckled Wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria)
This is a woodland butterfly and its markings make it difficult to spot in dappled shade.
A Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album) on Water Mint (Mentha aquatica)
Creeping Thistle (Cirsium arvense) with a Hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus) on the lowest flowerhead
The crabapples on our species crabapple tree look like cherries. Woodpigeons are very fond of them.
We don’t have many apples this year. This one looks very good – a cooking apple.
We have what looks like a good crop of pears but sadly many of the fruits are rotting on the tree.
Common Hawthorn berries, known as Haws. (Crataegus monogyna)
The Hawthorns are full of fruit; some people say this means we are to have a hard winter. I think it means we had good pollination in the spring.
A female Brown Hawker dragonfly (Aeshna grandis)
I took this photo in a hurry as Brown Hawkers are such restless dragonflies and only perch for a few seconds. I love their amber wings!
Another poor photo, this time of a Hornet (Vespa crabro)
We have had a Hornets’ nest under the tiles of the garage roof this summer. They are busy insects and carry on flying until well after sunset, unlike wasps who retire early. We have also got a wasps’ nest under the house roof tiles near our bedroom window. I could hear them chewing and munching away through the night when they were first constructing the nest in the early summer.
This is a mole hill that appeared in the rather dry border next to the conservatory. The hill got bigger the following day and many spring bulbs were uprooted.
We haven’t had much rain during the past month and the moles are searching for worms. The worms congregate where there is moisture i.e. in flower-beds (if they are watered) or next to paths or buildings where water runs off into the soil.
Sunset
Sunset
Sunset
Sunset with mist
And shortly afterwards on the same evening…..
Moonrise
Moonrise
We were pleased to welcome a new visitor to our garden; a Leveret, a young Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus)
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We first noticed it when it was very close to our kitchen window so you see part of the window frame in my photos! It then moved a little further away and was easier to photograph.
The best time of day to see hares is early morning or at dusk, as during the day they rest in grass, scrubland or in a ploughed furrow. They crouch low against the ground with their ears laid flat and are well camouflaged. If they are disturbed they are capable of running very fast – 35 mph/56kph – and run with their black-topped tail held downwards. They have large staring eyes, large black-tipped ears and powerful hind legs; they are shy and alert creatures. They typically live in open country, preferring not to live in direct contact with grazing animals and they are unlikely to be found in hayfields. They eat a wide selection of grasses and plants of open country as well as crops of cereal, clover, alfalfa, beets and potatoes. In winter a hare will dig for green plants under the snow and will eat buds and bark from bushes and trees, including fruit trees. They have suffered in areas of intensive farming and where herbicides are regularly used. Pesticides contaminate their food and may kill leverets.
In March and April hares can be seen leaping and chasing about which gives rise to the saying ‘mad, March Hares’. They often stand up on their hind legs and box each other; this may be two males vying for social dominance or, as is now thought more likely, a female (Jill) rebuffing a male (Jack). Leverets are born in the open with a full coat of fur and with their eyes open. They are born in litters of about three and the mother moves them immediately to another safe place which makes it more difficult for predators to find them. Each leveret is placed in a ‘form’ – a depression made in long grass – on its own where it lies low waiting for visits from its mother. This behaviour is very like that of deer.
While watering my green beans the other day I noticed some tiny white eggshells lying on the ground and wondered where they could have come from. Richard looked into the branches of the Laburnum tree above us and saw a tiny nest that I hadn’t been able to see – (I am quite a lot shorter than he is). It was a windy day and the pieces of shell must have been dislodged by the breeze. A week later I found the nest on the ground and here is my photograph of it.
I do not know what bird built this nest.
As you can see from the photo it is only 11 cm long and about 6 cm wide. It is made of tiny twigs, grasses, leaves and moss all woven together and is lined with sheep’s wool and white feathers.
And finally, here is my music selection for this post.
This post is made up of photos of flowers, insects and other things of interest that I saw in my garden during the last couple of weeks of July and the first fortnight in August. We spent that time catching up with jobs around the house and doing a lot of gardening as the weather was quite good.
It has not been a good year for insects here; an extremely bad one for butterflies in fact, possibly due to the cool, wet spring and early summer we had. The flowers and plants had a slow start but once the warm weather arrived in mid July they soon caught up.
A male Ruddy Darter (Sympetrum sanguineum)
We still had plenty of these small dragonflies in our garden until recently but in July they had just started flying. They don’t just fly near water but find perches all over the garden from which they ‘dart’ to catch passing prey. In this photo the dragonfly is on the top of a cane in my flower-border and was happy to let me get very close to him. Ruddy Darters are the only red dragonflies with totally black legs – they also have a small patch of yellow at the base of the wings. There are black lines on the upper side of the second- and third-to last segments of the abdomen. The upper half of the eyes are red-brown and the lower half are green. The frons (the front of the ‘face’) is red.
Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis)
I bought this herb late last summer; it survived the winter very well and has flowered beautifully this year. It is very popular with the bees and smells good too.
Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’ (Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla var. flavescens)
I grew Swiss Chard from seed this year for the first time, mainly because my mother likes it and hasn’t been able to get it for a few of years. I gave her a few plants and then put some plants into a couple of gaps in my flower-border. They look beautiful, especially with the sun shining through the colourful stems. I can’t say the vegetable when eaten has been very popular. The leaves are like spinach, quickly reducing in size and becoming soft; the stems which I put into the hot water a minute or so before the leaves, have a lovely texture and a very mild taste. They can be steamed successfully too. I think it is the mildness that doesn’t appeal – or perhaps the spinach-like leaves. We love greens in this family and get through large amounts of cabbage, spring-greens, brussels sprouts and broccoli, all of which have fairly powerful flavours. Perhaps Swiss Chard is too refined for us?
A poor photo of an Essex Skipper butterfly (Thymelicus lineola) sitting on a buttercup flower.
I include this just to prove to myself that we did get a number of skippers in the garden in the summer. The Essex Skipper is very similar to the Small Skipper but the antennal tip instead of being golden is black underneath, which can just be seen in my photo.
A Greengage (Prunus domestica ssp. italica var. Claudiana)
We bought a young Greengage tree nearly three years ago and this year we got two fruits on it. We didn’t manage to eat either of them because one or other of our animal, bird or insect visitors got there first.
A Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album)
The name ‘Comma’ refers to a white comma mark on the underside of the wings.
This has got everywhere in the garden this year! I have found it growing in amongst the herbs, up through the Pyracantha and it has taken over the two Cotoneasters that grow next to our gas-tank. (We are not on mains gas here so have a large butane gas tank near the house). Bittersweet berries are beautiful and are at their most attractive at this stage when some are still green and they are plump and shiny.
Another poor photograph showing what I believe to be a female Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)
Another photo that is proof to me that we had these damselflies flying round the pond this summer.
Female Gatekeeper butterfly (Pyronia tithonus)
Male Gatekeepers are territorial and patrol an area of hedgerow often in corners of fields or near gates trying to deter other insects from entering their domains. The males are smaller and a brighter orange than the females and have a dark patch of scent glands on the fore-wing.
Ripe Wheat (Triticum spp.)
I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the wheat in the field behind our house just before it was harvested this year.
Peacock butterfly (Inachis io)
This slightly battered Peacock was sunning itself on the path. They are very hairy-bodied insects and the colours and markings on the wings are beautiful. I noticed for the first time the lovely tiger-stripe yellow and black ‘shoulders’ on the fore-wing.
Perennial Sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis) This one I discovered growing next to our compost bin.
Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)
The flowers this year are only lightly marked with pink. They are usually much brighter.
We are lucky (?) to have both Field Bindweed, as in the former photo, and Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium) as here, in our garden. This one was being visited by a bumble bee.
Our young Rowan or Mountain Ash tree (Sorbus aucuparia) had many flowers in the early summer and produced some berries this year. The berries in the photo are not quite ripe yet. They were eaten by something very quickly once they were red and ripe.
Pheasant Berry (Leycesteria formosa)
I have a pale-leaved Pheasant Berry bush and it has done very well this year, having had enough rain-water at the beginning of the season. The birds usually enjoy the berries but I’m not sure if the wasps will have left them any!
Lilium longiflorum
The white Longiflorum lilies did a little better this year. I still had some trouble with non-native Red Lily Beetles but the cool wet June meant the flowers were taller and stronger and the beetles didn’t appear until later in the season when the weather improved. I was as vigilant as I could be, going out checking for beetles at least twice a day and squashing them when I found them. Unfortunately, nothing could be done while I was away from home so when I returned I soon discovered the horrible grubs eating the plants. I removed as many as I could and discovered that spraying them regularly with soap was very effective.
Runner Beans (Phaseolus coccineus) ‘Celebration’
I grew runner beans this year and gave my mother six plants and planted the rest in a gap in my flower border. They grew up through a laburnum tree and did quite well. I started them fairly late so they didn’t begin flowering til after mid-summer but the beans develop very quickly and these ones are so sweet and hardly have any ‘strings’. I love the orange flowers.
The beans with a Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) flower-spike and a bumble bee flying towards the Jacob’s Ladder.
The Astrantia, also known as Masterwort, has done well this year.
A male Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)
This photo of my lilies (Lilium ‘Stargazer’) was taken well after sunset and without a flash.
I wanted to see if there was enough ambient light to take a successful photo of these luminous lilies.
I then took this photo of a Gladiolus next to the greenhouse
On a church cleaning visit to our church at Rumburgh I noticed this Black Spleenwort (Asplenium adiantum-nigra) growing on the wall.
This plant is mainly found in the west of the country so I was surprised to see it here, almost as far east as one can get. It loves alkaline soil and here it is growing in the mortar. A month later and it had gone – removed I presume, in case it caused yet more damage to our poor crumbling church building.
Just below the spleenwort was this patch of Black Bryony (Tamus communis)
A sunset seen from the back of the house.
My music selection today is ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ by Handel.
I have taken a number of photographs over the last few weeks but haven’t had the time to write any posts. Here are a few of the better pictures from April and earlier.
Red Deer (Cervus elaphus)
Back in January I was driving home from shopping when I saw this small group of five Red Deer making their way across a field towards the road. I had to slow down and then stop because I could see that they were not only made nervous by my car but their usual path was blocked by a fire someone had lit to get rid of brushwood. They eventually managed to cross the lane a little further along and then carried on their way. I took a photo of them through the car window and this is the result – heavily cropped. I had thought that I had missed them and it was only when I eventually looked carefully at the shot on my computer a few weeks ago I realised that they were there!
The Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) family wandering through the garden at the beginning of April.
This is such an untidy photo with the recycling bin out by the roadside and my former car in the way too. This is another photo taken through glass (the kitchen window this time – you can see a reflection in the bottom left corner of the picture). We haven’t seen the pheasants for a while now so I presume the females are busy on their nests.
We had a storm with heavy rain and then the sun came out. It all looked so bright and fresh, so I stood at the front door and took three photos, to the left, straight ahead and to the right.
A few days later I stood at the end of the drive and took this photo of the ditch that runs along the edge of the garden. We have daffodils growing all along its length. The lane runs parallel with the front of our property. You can also see my new car in this picture.
Pussy Willow / Goat Willow (Salix caprea)
Goat Willow in flower
Cowslips (Primula veris)
A stormy sky. A photo of our house (and the house next door) taken standing next to our big pond and looking across the corner of the field.
The summerhouse
A Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) looking for ants in the lawn
I was quite pleased with this photo as it showed all the different colours of its feathers, even the black and white spotted feathers under the wings. This is a female adult as the moustachial feathers are all black. The male has a crimson centre to the stripe.
A male Blackbird (Turdus merula) was also on the lawn looking for food.
White Dead-nettle (Lamium album)
Wild Cherry blossom (Prunus avium)
The first Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) flower in our garden this spring
There is nothing quite like the scent of Bluebells. They are wild hyacinths but don’t have the cloying scent of the garden variety. There is a sweet freshness that lifts the spirits and is irrevocably linked, to my mind, with birdsong, sunshine after rain and hope.
Greengage blossom (Prunus domestica ssp. italica). I hope we have some fruit this year.
Some of the Cowslips in our garden are orange and red.
Pendunculate / English Oak (Quercus robur). New leaves and flowers (catkins) appear at the same time.
Marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris). I found it impossible to photograph this bright yellow flower well.
More Marsh-marigold
New Horse-chestnut leaves and flower buds (Aesculus hippocastanum)
Beautiful new English Elm leaves (Ulmus procera). We have a number of small Elm trees in our garden. Sadly they will only live for a few years before they succumb to Dutch Elm disease.
Lords and Ladies / Jack-in-the-pulpit / Cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum). This plant has many names. Its arrowhead-shaped leaves are often dark spotted.
Snowy Mespil (Amelanchier canadensis) blossom
Blackthorn blossom (Prunus spinosa). This poor photo is the only image of this year’s blossom I managed to get.
A rainbow behind the trees
All these photos were taken in April and in my garden, except the first one.
I find I haven’t made a music selection for a while so this post’s choice is ‘Let’s Work Together’ by Canned Heat. Excellent lyrics, great tune and the best tempo ever!
I managed to do some work in the garden on Sunday; the first time in many weeks that I have spent more than a couple of minutes outside.
Some weeks ago I moved three tubs of spring bulbs – snowdrops with Tete-a-tete daffodils in two tubs and little blue crocuses in the third – from their winter-quarters behind the greenhouse to the front of the house under the kitchen window. They were ready to bloom and they have brightened up the area near the front door. On Sunday I moved the rest of the pots and tubs away from the back of the greenhouse either to the front of the house or to the rear near the conservatory.
The area round the greenhouse has become very wet and waterlogged and the pots were sitting in puddles. Richard and I had a talk about how to solve this problem and I suggested a French drain ( a trench filled with gravel) immediately round the greenhouse and then we discussed again our idea of putting flagstones round the greenhouse to make it nicer to walk on than muddy grass. We have a plastic compost bin near to the greenhouse and a lidded water-butt behind the greenhouse – the water-butt will then go on the flags and so will the compost bin. The water-butt keeps sinking into the ground despite the bricks and flints it is standing on (there must be quite a collection under the water-butt by now). Also, we often get rats, mice and/or voles getting into the compost bin and having the bin on hard-standing would stop that little game! They dig tunnels that come up under the bin and then make themselves at home amongst the potato peelings and weeds.
One of the daffodils that have started blooming round the big pond
We also discussed where we would put the new potting shed. We have a very old tumbledown shed in the middle of the garden. It is rotting and disintegrating very quickly and we need to replace it and we don’t want to use the same site for the new shed. We have a very nice tool shed near the greenhouse so the new potting shed with a large window and bench will go next to the tool shed. This will keep all the out-buildings together in one place and will save us a lot of time walking from one side of the garden to the other.
Witch-hazel by our front door
Witch-hazel
Witch-hazel
I am considering drawing a plan of our garden as it is now and scanning it so that I can include it in this blog. When we make changes to the garden I can then update the plan.
This is our new summer house
I mentioned in a former post that our old summerhouse was demolished and the base was extended in readiness for a replacement. The new building arrived and was put up during a gale on 8th February and is just what Richard wanted. He has been enjoying his room with a view and often sits inside it looking out over the big pond.
Hazel catkins on one of our Hazel trees
A poor photo of a female hazel flower. You can just see the little red tuft at the top of the bud-like object in the centre of the photo
Behind the summerhouse (you can’t see it from the angle the photo was taken from) is our large open compost heap where we put our bulkier garden clippings and waste. Next door’s chickens are often here turning it over for us and kicking it about and in the summer Richard often finds Grass Snakes sleeping in its warmth. Richard doesn’t like snakes.
Not all of the Hawthorn berries have been eaten yet. These two had fallen from an overhanging Hawthorn branch above and caught on this Elm twig
I have also mentioned in former posts that the garden is large and is mainly laid to grass. There are a couple of vegetable beds near the summerhouse and another mixed vegetable and flower bed half way up the garden. I had started to use this mixed bed when we moved in to this house but I haven’t had the time to do much to it since my father died and Elinor started suffering so badly with anxiety. Most of my plants there have died and couch grass and ox-eye daisies have taken over. Richard is using part of the bed for his dahlias and chrysanthemums and there is a rhubarb plant and some blackberry canes there too.
The big pond
The arable field to the rear of our house
There is an old rose arbour next to the mixed bed and on this side of the arbour Richard has made a flowerbed for his favourite flowers. He has also started to make a shrubbery fairly near to our septic tank. We have a large gas tank close to the house and I have made a small flowerbed on the northern side of it and filled it mainly with spring flowers. I haven’t weeded it recently and this will be a project for the next time I get outside.
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There are narrow flowerbeds most of the way round the house which I look after and I have also started to landscape the area to the south of the house. I had made a flowerbed near the hedge at the rear of the house but again, I had to abandon this when Dad died and Elinor started to need more support and I had much less free time. Many of my plants are in pots and tubs waiting to find a proper home. I hope to make a gravel garden at the front of the house with paths through it from the front door to the drive way. I bought the gravel for this project eight years ago!
Cherry-plum blossom in our hedge
Cherry-plum blossom
Cherry-plum or Myrobalan Plum (Prunus cerasifera) is not a native tree but has become naturalised here and is often found in hedges. It is often confused with Blackthorn or Sloe (Prunus spinosa) but the Blackthorn flowers open before the leaves come out and the Cherry-plum’s flowers and leaves open at the same time. The cherry-plum isn’t so spiny as Blackthorn.
The corner pond at the front of the house.
My music choice today is a song written by B A Robertson and Mike Rutherford shortly after the death of their respective fathers. It is sung by a favourite singer of mine, Paul Carrack, whose father died when Paul was eleven years old. It is a song about the regret we have when we lose a relative and realise all the things we should have said to them when they were alive. I am so glad I was able to tell my father how much I loved him and appreciated the love he had for me.
This post is made up of photos of things I’ve seen in my garden during the last month. The first few shots were taken during the last two days in June (I did say ‘mainly’!), when the weather suddenly got much warmer and the sun appeared. Summer arrived and we all felt much better!
Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) on a scabious flower
Dog Rose flowers (Rosa canina) next to the big pond
Male Common Blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)
Small Tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae) on big pond
Female Emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator) laying eggs on the big pond
We have Ground Elder in our garden. I wish we didn’t but there is little chance of us ever getting rid of it here so we will have to try to weaken it and stop it from spreading further. It is in the ditch between us and the school house next door and also in the ditches at the front of the house and under the hedge. It is trying to spread into the lawn at the front but we strim and mow as much as possible and try to stop it from flowering. We often fail in this.
Ground Elder flower! As you see it is a pretty umbellifer with slightly pink buds.
I eradicated it from a former garden by digging it out over a period of a few years. It was in a flower bed so therefore easier to deal with.
Common Backswimmers (Notonecta glauca) in the front pond. This pond completely dried up while we were away on holiday but is starting to fill again because of the torrents of rain we’ve had during the past week or two.
Insects on Lavender ‘Hidcote’. There haven’t been as many insects this year as last, but the lavender attracted quite few while it flowered. It is a fabulous insect magnet!
Lavender growing at the front of our house
My herb garden
Bronze Fennel flower bud. When we returned form our week away all the leaves on the fennel had died and the flowers were drooping. I watered the herbs and then the rains and cool weather returned; the fennel is still alive (it has an enormous tap root) but no leaves at all for now. The flowers are fine and are being enjoyed by wasps and hoverflies. A neighbour came in to water the plants in the greenhouse while we were away (tomatoes mainly) but we couldn’t expect him to water all our plants – that would be asking much too much!
A pretty Tumbelina Petunia in the window box. It has a lovely gentle scent.
A very bright pink Verbena in the window box with the petunia. The hoverflies love it very much. I wish it was scented.
Hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus (I think!) on verbena
A hoverfly on the Fuschia that is also in the window box. This photo was taken after we had begun to have rain at last after a long dry spell.
A beautiful, tiny green spider on the fuschia. I think this is a Green Orb-weaver (Araniella curcurbitina).
A Six-spot Burnet moth (Zygaena filipendulae) on lavender
One of my unscented Asian lilies.
Sisyrinchium striatum. These put on a good show this year. Many years ago I had these growing in my garden and loved them as they seemed to go with all the flowers in the border. We moved to Somerset for 18 months and then moved here in 2006. Three years ago I found a seedling sisyrinchium in the garden which appeared from nowhere. I potted it up and grew it on; it flowered the following year and I let it go to seed. I sprinkled the seed on my border and last year I found lots of plants growing which flowered beautifully this year. Free flowers!
A pretty Viola. These seed themselves all over the garden.
I have two Rosa Mundi bushes ( a gift from Richard) and they both flowered well this year. It is sad that they have such a short flowering period but it is worth having them for their pretty, painted petals.
Perennial Sweet Pea
Scabious flower
A pretty rose from Richard’s border
In a former post I posted a photo of a mullein flower infested with Mullein moth caterpillars. Here is another photo taken a week or so later when the grubs were much bigger.
Mullein Moth caterpillar (Shargacucullia verbasci) on what was left of a Mullein flower spike
A Meadow Brown butterfly (Maniola jurtina). Wonderful camouflage!
A fly on the Amelanchier tree. I cannot identify this one properly though it looks a little like Empis digramma, a fly which hunts other flies in long grass and other lush vegetation and spears them with its proboscis.
I took this photo of the Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) and its 2 fledglings this evening. The adult was trying to teach its young how to find ant’s eggs.
This last photo wasn’t taken in my garden but in the grounds of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital where I had to go for a check-up on the day before we went on holiday. I didn’t know what else to do with it!
Moments from a Norfolk Country Cottage. The furred & feathered & the worn and weathered. A Druid Herbalist with a Passion for Cats, Vintage, Dogs, Interiors, Nature, Hens, Organic Veggie Food, Plants & Trees & a Kinship with The Earth.
