Bank Holiday

Joy of joys, a Bank Holiday, sunshine and a clear blue sky! Suddenly everything in the garden has sprung into action. Clematis reaching up into the blue.

Iris are everywhere, but all the same colour. What happened to all the other colours that I used to grow?

We are cutting paths through the grass as we did last year and I'm trying to establish wild flowers in the uncut  areas.

I ordered a selection of plant supports online and they came at the weekend so I've been staking the delphiniums and hollyhocks. Can you spot them? Semicircular hoops in different heights and width

The flower borders are full of promise - and ground elder!

It has been a sociable weekend with friends and neighbours popping into the garden for tea and a chat. Cake and fizz with friends who were celebrating their wedding anniversary. It is wonderful to have weather like this so that we can meet up.

A posy from Sarah.

Raised beds -raised hopes!

 Last year, despairing of my overgrown strawberry patch and my rickety knees, we invested in some raised beds. It was cheaper to purchase ready-made kits than to source the wood ourselves. By the time we had added a liner and a delivery of topsoil the cost had mounted quite a bit. "How much do strawberries cost in the supermarket?" Himself wanted to know. How cross it made me - not the right attitude at all! When he can pick our own fruit without having to bend and scrabble about at ground level I'm hoping he will be more appreciative. I've been outside in the teeth of a gale and see that the strawberry plants are flowering. All we need now is some decent weather so that the fruit will set. We need plenty of sunshine for it to sweeten and ripen.

Meanwhile I'm skulking in the warmth of the kitchen. I'm dreaming of sunnier days and have made a fatless sponge filled with whipped cream and sliced strawberries. The fruit and cream were bought in Aldi but the eggs are from the farm down the road and the egg yolks make the cake a wonderful golden colour. The eggs are better than any that I can buy from a supermarket.

Come on weather, buck up!

Not going out!

 

May in Blighty - what a joke!

Sunday morning in the woods.

 We've had a good amount of rain, much needed after the dry month of April, and the landscape is transformed by fresh, green growth. 

The Saturday newspaper listed the twenty best bluebell woods to visit throughout the country. Happily the woods at either side of our village had not been included! Lockdown has seen a change in the pattern of people passing through our small community; cyclists bombing down the road as though it were a one-way street, walkers who sit on the village seat to eat their snacks and then leave their rubbish behind and cars randomly parked while dog walkers from who knows where exercise their pets.

                                                                                              

Sunday morning and the sun is shining, time to take a walk in the woods. It is damp by the lakeside and there is no sign of ducklings.

We have the woods to ourselves.

Strong winds have brought down quite a lot of dead wood.

It is wonderful to be in a bluebell wood on a day like this.

Back at home I take a wander round the garden.

The frost hasn't killed my tree peonies but it has certainly put payed to a good display of flowers for this year.

I'm grateful for the buds that have survived.

The allium leaves are dying back as their flower heads fatten.

Everything promises at this time of year!

And the tulips are still flowering.

At last!

It rained steadily through the night and has continued gently throughout the whole day. What a relief after many weeks of dry weather and cold winds. My seven water butts and four half barrels were all emptied of rainwater, quite unusual for Blighty!  Dusty roof panels are now cleaned and everything looks refreshed. It is a good year for blossom, I think that much of it has set, so today's rain is timely.

The pond level has sunk and the birds walk about in the marshy ground and pull at the moss.

Some of the veg planting is pushing through the ground but most of the plants are still inside waiting for more reliable weather. I'm playing safe and keeping my peas under the cloches. Only the toughies, like these broad beans,  are unprotected.

I can never grow enough rhubarb. (But look at all the evil ground elder - no problem growing that!)

The tulips that didn't get battered  by the wind have been really good this year.

Oranges are slowly ripening in the greenhouse

and the roof beams are dripping with the China tea rose, Maricel Niel.

Soon we shall be able to socialise once more. I've had my hair cut in anticipation, three inches or so chopped off, not cut since last summer. 

Life feels good!

Blackthorn weather..

 At this time of year the greenhouses are crammed with plants as I wait for the weather to warm up enough for me to put them outside. Some of them are getting rather leggy. Like the seedlings, I'm happy to be tucked up under glass to enjoy the sun without any accompanying chilling wind. We haven't had rain for quite a while and the fruit trees are all in blossom. We had yet another delivery of wood this week and the woodman described it as 'blackthorn weather'. I'd not heard this expression before. He told me that when the blackthorn is absolutely full of white blossom, as it is just now, it is the result of a wet winter followed by a cold spring.

There is an electric pump in the greenhouse water trough that makes a pleasant tinkling sound as I sit and soak up the warmth.

The auricles are coming into flower, while outside the glass the pots of tulips are taking a bit of a bashing!