12th to 15th May

More walks and some gardening.

Thursday 12th May to Sunday 15th May

After morning tea on Thursday we drove down to Ballaglass Glen to see the bluebells.  We took the scenic route through Maughold Village and Ballajora.  It was another warm, sunny day but the air was rather hazy, not ideal for distant views.

While I was waiting for Tim to put on his boots, I managed to photograph two butterflies near the car park.  They were both whites and both males.  The light was too glary to get really good photos of white subjects in the sun but the photos are good enough for identification.

A green veined white.

An orange tip.

We saw quite a few other whites on the walk but they were all too far away and too active to identify.  The only other butterfly that we saw close-up was a speckled wood.

We decided to walk through the glen to the bottom gate near the Mill House, take the rough  track through the Barony down to Cornaa, and then return by the same route with a detour around the best bluebell patches in the glen on the way back to the car.   

It was yet another case of best laid schemes ganging agley.  When we reached the short section of footpath through the Mill House garden, and the smaller branch of the river, we discovered that  the bridge was no longer there.  It must have been a victim of the winter floods. The river is shallow but we didn’t want to risk wet boots at the beginning of the walk so we walked back upstream and did our bluebell tour before setting off down the road.  Dorothy hadn’t exaggerated.  The flowers were absolutely lovely.

As we walked down the road past the Mill House, I stopped to take some photos of the missing bridge and we realised that something even more important than the bridge was missing from the scene. The huge rhododendron tree, said to be the largest in the British Isles, was no longer standing in the front garden.   I cannot believe that it would have been deliberately removed so I assume it was also a victim of the winter gales and raging flood waters.

11th April 2012 - my last photo of the famous old tree.

On our way down to Cornaa we came across some workmen using a small earth-moving machine to repair the surface of the track.  They stopped to let us pass.  We decided to change our plans and walk back via the road over the Cashtal yn Ard hill so that we wouldn’t hold up their work a second time.

There was no escaping bluebells during the walk, there were patches all the way along our route.  These were growing amongst the ferns behind an old moss covered stone wall not far from the ruins of the  belllite factory.

Down at Cornaa we saw the last of the marsh marigolds.

And as we started up the hill on the last leg of our triangular walk, we found a big patch of pink purslane growing on a steep bank above the road.  This is a magnified image of the tiny flowers.

As we approached the top of the hill these stunted oaks were a warning of how hard life is up in the windswept hills for even the toughest of trees.

The gorse seems to cope with the wind though, and patches of bluebells and white stitchwort thrive on the sheltered side of the bank.

We thought we deserved a rest on Friday after the longer than usual walk the day before and I took advantage of the break in exercising to mow the grass.  The only interesting event was the sighting of the first butterfly in the garden.  Yet another unidentified white.

Saturday was the day of the big mountain bike race in our plantation.  It started at Milntown at 10 a.m.  I decided to take some photos and found a good place at the top of a bank just inside the gate into the plantation.  While I was waiting I took some photos of the bluebells on the slope above the track.  They are improving every year and should soon rival their celebrity cousins in Ballaglass.

There were more entries to the race than I expected and it took about two and a half minutes for all the bikers to pass me.

When I walked back down the road I was shocked to see how quickly parts of our beech hedge had shot out.  Some of the new shoots were nearly a foot long.  I usually give the hedge a spring haircut during TT race week when the roads are closed  but that is not until June so I will have to start earlier this year. When I got home I  took this photo of my favourite shrub in the garden - the azalea mollis.

In the afternoon we went for a walk in Skyhill Plantation (as far as the top of the Ballagarrow paddocks) - safe in the knowledge that all danger of speeding bikes had passed.  I wanted to see the bluebells in the field near the farm boundary but they were disappointing this year.  The grass had grown too long, possibly because of the warm, wet winter.

On Sunday we had to sandwich a short walk in between the motor racing and the tennis on TV so we chose the top of the glen road walk.  Before we left I spent about an hour making a start on the beech hedge and then tackled the long shoots on the clematis that were threatening to block the front steps.

There wasn’t much to see on the walk but I rather liked the sun shining through the new red leaves of this acer in Fern Glen.   It made a change from all the greenery.

Later, while I was pulling out a few weeds near the gate I noticed a little wild garlic flower under the Lawson’s cypress.

I had been thinking about planting a few bulbs near our stream but was dithering because it can be quite invasive.  Then I remembered seeing some leaves that looked suspiciously like garlic under the forsythia by the crab apple last year - and went to check.  Sure enough there were a few flowers there too.  If I remember I may dig them out and plant them in a better place near the stream.  I didn’t know that birds ate the garlic seed but some of them must.  There is no other way it could have travelled into the garden.

While I was searching for garlic, I noticed that there was blossom on the crab apple . . .

. . . and the  Solomon’s seal had suddenly shot up and had buds.  It often gets attacked by slugs and sawfly larvae so I took a quick photo while it was still looking good.

Before I went inside I saw that the first oriental poppy had opened down by the turning circle.  We waited for so long for spring and weren't expecting to see the first sign of summer so soon.