Saturday 11th July, 2015
On Sunday we did some shower dodging in the morning and took the accumulated garden refuse out to the amenity centre at Balladoole. There was a full load because I have made a start on the weeding, dead-heading, edge of lawn trimming, hedge cutting, etc. There is still a long way to go and much to be done before the annual fern cutting starts in August. Yesterday afternoon I also cut back the hydrangeas that were overhanging the path past the crab apple tree. It seemed a shame to remove branches with buds but they were blocking the path and we seldom see the flowers on that side of the row of lace caps.
I sent off a message to a local nursery garden asking whether they have blue flag irises and hardy white arum lilies in stock. I must be mad - I don’t know how I will fit them into this crowded garden but I have admired some which are flowering in nearby gardens and I would love to have them in our garden. I took a photo of the irises in a cottage garden that we passed on our way home from Brookdale late in June. I wanted to identify them them when I got home and a photo is more accurate than my memory.
It's Monday and we had an early walk in our plantation which was just as well because we arrived home just as the drizzle started. I wonder whether anyone has done any research on the topic of whether more than average rainfall falls on weekends and bank holidays. I expect people who work indoors just complain more because they are more aware of rain when they are not working. Anyway, it is raining and today is a bank holiday on the Island, Tynwald Day. The Manx national day is on the 5th of July but the annual ceremony at Tynwald in St John’s is held on the Monday if the 5th falls on a Sunday. I don’t like crowds of people and ceremonial events don’t interest me and Tim is watching the tennis on TV so we are having a quiet day at home.
Later: It turned out to be a good soaking rain and plenty of it - approximately one and three quarters of an inch. We have had more rain during the first week of July than fell during the whole of June. The bracken up on Skyhill is really enjoying the rain. One of the things that I love about the Island is that the views change so much with the seasons. I took this photo from our view site at the top of the plantation to compare with a similar one that I took late in May when the bluebells were flowering. It is taken from a similar angle - just slightly further down the slope because I was trying to get the Scots pine on the horizon into the picture but couldn't because the bracken was too high.
6 July
Birds
As well as all the usual suspects, the lesser redpoll is still visiting the feeder every day. It is the only bird which visits our garden that is on the “red list”. (Red is the highest conservation priority, with species needing urgent action.)
There is no shortage of blue tits. Tim saw five juvenile blue tits sharing the peanut feeders one afternoon. The tits are less aggressive than the finches which are all prepared to fight their corner when the feeders are crowded.
Butterflies
There wasn’t much to report for the first few days of the week, just meadow browns and unidentified whites. I chased the whites round the garden for a while trying to identify them but eventually got bored because they nearly always turned out to be green veined whites. On Friday I rushed out with my camera when a small tortoiseshell landed on the centranthus outside the kitchen window. It was very bright and must have emerged from its chrysalis very recently. It was rather high and I couldn’t get a good angle on it from the path and then I got too close and it flew up and got blown away in the wind. I kept looking out of the window to see whether it would return but had no luck.
When we walked past the display of plants outside the supermarket on Tuesday, they had some rather good hydrangeas. A white one caught my eye but I wasn’t tempted, partly because I have too many hydrangeas and partly because they cost £15-99. Tim said he couldn’t understand why people bought expensive hydrangeas when they grow so easily from cuttings. They could get free plants just by asking for a few bits from friends or neighbours who were pruning their plants.
The conversation reminded me of the cuttings that I planted at the end of August from some discarded stems that we liberated from the “green waste” bin at the tip. Five of my cuttings have grown and a couple have small buds. The bits we brought home had intensely blue flowers but I have a feeling that the flowers on the cuttings will be bright pink because I grew them in commercial compost which probably has a higher ph rating than our garden soil. Judging by the colour of our hydrangeas, most of our soil is acid apart from an area where an alkali leached out into the soil after the new garage was built and and a wide strip of concrete was laid at the top of the drive.
The wildflower bank is dominated by meadowsweet at this time of year. It has a very pretty flower.
This is the view looking down the bank from the top step outside the summerhouse. The larger flower in the lower left foreground is hogweed. It isn’t one of my favourites so I cut it down to ground level after taking the photo. Hogweed has a thick root and is difficult to dig out. I try to dig out the smaller plants and cut back the others before they set seed hoping to discourage them.
I usually buy a miniature rose plant in a pot to put in the spare room when we have one of our sisters or a daughter visiting. I am not fond of cut flowers because I find the decision about when to throw them out difficult and end up with depressing wilting flowers in a vase. I used to plant the little roses in the garden after they finished flowering but they never did well. So last year I planted some in a big pot and this is the result. It is larger than the original flowers and is magnified even more in the photo.
The pink spiraea are flowering now. I have three varieties. I think one is Little Princess (left) and I am not sure about the one on the right. It is one of the varieties that has pretty golden new foliage which turns a yellowy green as the leaves age. The flowers are similar to Little Princess, which I prefer because I like the darker green leaves which look better and seem less prone to mildew.
The third variety is probably spiraea x billardii. It is pretty but is rather vigorous, sends up suckers, and needs to be controlled more severely to stop it invading the rest of the garden.
A better behaved shrub is the Deutzia. I love the delicate flowers, almost white but with a sprinkling of pink on the outer petals.
While I was wading through ragged robin and various other plants down on the bottom level of the garden trying to get to the Deutzia, I stopped to photo this penstemon, sheltered below the wall but still a bit battered by the wind . . .
. . . and some lady’s mantle, growing under overhanging shrubs, with a sparkle of overnight raindrops still on the leaves.
And when I was returning to the house, I noticed these oxeye daisies at the corner of the garage, back-lit by the afternoon sun.
No comments:
Post a Comment