Nature Watch

June is usually a good month here for hunting for glow worms http://www.galaxypix.com/glowworms and we expect to find 10 - 12 in our garden all twinkling away hoping to attract a mate but so far we have only seen two. I know there are more than this in the garden as I quite often come across them whilst working in the flower beds. Perhaps it hasn't been warm enough for them?

Another creature we haven't seen so many of this year so far is 'our' colony of grass snakes. So far I have only had three sightings and this afternoon I saw one little olive green beauty, it was only around 2 feet long and I hadn't expected to see one in this particular area so wasn't treading carefully but suddenly heard a rustle and looked down in time to see the flash of yellow behind it's head before it disappeared in the undergrowth. What was noteworthy was that a toad also sat there looking slightly bemused and wet, or should I say the top half of the toad was wet - surely the snake was not about to make a meal of the toad?? Thought toad's exuded a substance that made them unpalatable? Or perhaps I am putting 2 plus 2 together here and making 5!!!

Some plants here are being very slow to make any headway and we are attributing this to the cool winds we have had of late and the even cooler nights. The tomatoes, melons and cucumbers in the polytunnel are being very slow to make growth; indeed only one of the tomato plants has flowers on it and that is pretty pathetic for this time of the year. Usually the tomato plants are almost as tall as I am by now and, also usually, the border that the melons and cucumbers grow in can't be seen for vegetation. Fingers firmly crossed for some warm, balmy weather soon.

Happy gardening!

No more rain please!

Do we really need any more rain? The water tables are now so high that only a short shower is enough to make the ground sodden again. I have a poor hydrangea that I 'sprang' from the pot it was fast becoming root bound in laguishing in the wheelbarrow and there it has lain for the last two days. I wheeled the barrow next to the flowerbed where the hydrangea's new home is to be and rain and hail stopped further play. The following day it poured down and now, at last, the sun is shining so I must move and plant the poor hydrangea before it has to spend yet another day in the wheelbarrow.
This dreadful weather has been an advantage to some things; the ducks love it! The primula family have also flowered floriferously thanks to the cooler, damp days. On the hillside above us and, indeed, in our garden the primroses have put on a magnificent show; the cowslips have sprung up everywhere. It has been many a long year since we have seen so many cowslips and not just on the the hillside; the railway bank down in our hamlet has some beautiful large clumps of cowslips with very long flower stems and deep yellow flowers. There are many roadside verges with a multitude of cowslips making for a cheerful journey.
Just along a short pathway we have made over the years along the field there is an abundance of wildflowers; not only primroses and cowslips but also ladies smock (Cardamine Pratensis), ground ivy with it's beautiful dark blue flowers and forget- me-nots mixed in with dog mercury and a peep over the wall that bounds the nearby wood shows a lovely blue haze of bluebells with the odd one or two white ones mixed in. All welcome sights when walking the dog!
On a recent walk I decided to be a little more strenuous and head uphill to see if I could spot any orchid leaves, at first there was nothing to see but once I had got my eye in and noticed one I suddenly realised there were many more and I had to carefully pick my way around them. This is the early spotted or common orchid and what a glorious sight they are to see when in full flower.
Alas! the frogspawn has not developed, such a shame. We wondered if the late hard frosts we suffered in March did for the poor tadpoles. The good news is that there are some newts in the pond though so hopefully their offspring will have a better chance of coming through.
Our seed sowing programme has been late this year but once sown the seeds have not hung about in their germination rates. The morning glory have germinated well and hope they have a better chance than last year. The plants put into our own garden didn't do at all well last year but the ones I planted in a friend's garden were magnificent.


The early potatoes have at last been planted, admittedly later than normal but if we had risked putting them in earlier we may have lost them to rot. Rod's favourite vegetable is also coming along well - broad beans (yuk!)These are being grown in the greenhouse in divided trays and a mouse helped itself to a few of the seeds when they were first sown.That is a big disadvantage of this wet weather- all the mice and voles have driven indoors but mouse bait and a few judiciously placed traps soon put paid to their antics.
The dreadful yellow hued oil seed rape is now rearing its flowerheads to the sun and the bees will soon be in full flow bringing back masses of nectar to make honey. Last year's first batch came out an awful colour and we were afraid to sell it; in the jar it looked like a solid lump of lard and was most off putting but this didn't affect its flavour!
Right now to go and plant that poor hydrangea.

Happy gardening!

What happened????

Well it appears that I made a few changes to our web site and most of my blog posts disappeared too! Don't know where they went and can't find them.
Here we are in the third month of the new year already having survived hard frosts, gales and lots of rain. We have also had some sunshine, always very welcome, and that has enabled us to get to grips with some gardening.


The new pink plants that were planted out into south facing border early last summer (see left) have come through the floods of last July and subsequent wet spells in fine fettle. The lovely blue/green foliage looked good and healthy and we removed the leaves from neighbouring trees that had accumulated around the plants as we didn't want slugs and snails to have hidey places so that they could sneak out and have a feast!

A week or two ago we gently teased the soil around the plants to aid good air circulation, removed any weeds and sprinkled a few slug pellets around the plants.

The cuttings taken last autumn are now being potted up and it is hoped that there will be plants for sale at the end of next month or May (see photograph below).



I love this time of year as there is such a promise of new growth and little treasures to discover as the first primroses open, the peek of a violet amongst the leaves and the yellow catkins on the willow trees. The honey bees are having a field day amongst these same catkins and they are also visiting the nearby hazel catkins too. Quite a few bumble bees have been heard amongst the winter flowering honeysuckle, this shrub has masses of white flowers with a very striking perfume that pervades the air for some distance on a sunny day. Gorgeous!

Walking from our cottage across the hillside to visit the large pond with our little grand daughter is a mini adventure as we point out to her the pretty, cheerful primrose flowers, watching a bee on the dead nettle flowers and then hunting for frog and toad spawn at the margins of the pond. We even saw a couple of newts on the bottom of the pond; these little creatures with their orange tummies can often be found in our garden later in the summer and are the common newts, although that is a bit of a misnomer nowadays.
Rod recalls that when he was a lad he and his friends used to go to various farm ponds and "fish" for newts using a rod made from a length of wood with a small worm attached to it. He described the newts as being greedy! I hasten to add that no harm was done to the newts during this activity; the boys simply lifted the newts from the water and then let them go back in again!!

Happy gardening!

Beautiful Pinks or drowned rats!!

Welcome to our new blog. We couldn't move our original blog so here we are all shiny new!
Well whatever happened to summer? How are your pinks faring in all this wet weather? Fortunately Pinks, indeed the whole Dianthus family, are fairly robust and, except for some spotting to flower petals, the flowers are still looking good all things considered. They have certainly come through this dreadful weather better than my poor roses or lilies.

One or two flowers that have been beaten down by the exceptionally heavy rain are looking more bedraggled where they have been beaten down into the mud.
The Dianthus Rainbow Loveliness flowers look so fragile but they have put on a brave show and their perfume is so beautiful. The first flowers have now finished and there is plenty of seed to collect ready for next year's plants so the flower stems are being cut back for a second display.

Slugs and snails have thoroughly enjoyed the damp weather and it has been a full time job keeping these pesky critturs under control however we have made a good attempt and thank heavens for those small blue pellets!

In one way the weather has been blessing as the Pinks have put on good, hydrated, growth and so the cuttings programme is under way earlier than usual.

Happy gardening!