A lovely surprise!

On opening James’s bedroom blind this morning, he himself being off at university:

First rose of the year!

I don’t normally start to look for roses until June, but this one, which often flowers clear into December, has beaten me to it. I don’t know what variety it is; it was already here when we came nearly 22 years ago, but I suspect it’s a Paul’s Scarlet. Here’s a slightly better view; perhaps those in the know will enlighten me!

Hmm – probably time to clean the windows!

I can resist anything except roses; they’re dotted about here, there & everywhere. Most have been given, or bought for pennies, apparently dead, but three have been here since before we came, though one of them has been moved since, when we took down the wall which was supporting it.

Other highlights: the Aquilegias are coming into their own now. Again, they have been here all along; I did grow some very pretty double & multicoloured versions from seed some years back, but they promptly hybridised with the native ones so I’ve just left them to get on with it.

Columbine/Aquilegias – quite pretty enough & happy just as they are!

Some of the plants I don’t do a lot to discourage might well be classified as weeds. The ground-cover geraniums have to be managed quite firmly or they won’t allow anything else any headroom, but they do look lovely from the road, all along the bottom of the beech hedge:

Elegant thugs…

…and I allow lesser celandine free rein in early Spring; it’s such a cheery sight after all the greys and browns of winter, and doesn’t seem to impede any other plant’s growth, not even the shy little crocuses, so I’m not spending hours trying to eradicate it. Wood Avens, Wild Gladiolus, Babington’s Leek and Enchanter’s Nightshade are all very welcome here too, but sadly we now have very few dandelions; they’re far too useful for feeding the assorted livestock, or even popping into a spring salad, so we seem to have accidentally eaten them all. However, there are still plenty to go around locally, down at the riverbank.

We’re walking a friend’s dogs this week whilst she grabs a well-earned holiday, and I’ve come back every day laden with armsful of huge dandelion leaves and goosegrass (or Sticky Willy, as out Scots neighbour calls it)  to feed to her chickens & ducks as well as our backyard birds; our big girls live mostly in a straw run so don’t have free access to greenery, or they’d eat/trample/dig it all up. I’ve known for some time that not only is goosegrass perfectly edible, it’s supposed to be extremely good for you, so last night I bit the bullet and stripped the tender tips & shoots out of an armful, then cooked them alongside some leeks & broccoli. Completely inoffensive, is the conclusion! It really didn’t taste of anything much; I’d certainly eat it again, but wouldn’t go out of my way to, say, buy it. Might add a bit to the next stir-fry, though, but it’s probably a bit late in the season as the little star-shaped flowers are just beginning to pop out. There’s still plenty of eating left in our nettle patch anyway.

It’s not all “weeds” though. Last year my parents moved into a retirement flat, leaving their lovely garden to someone else’s tender care. One of my brothers, the Head Gardener & I ran riot with my stepfather’s old garden equipment, digging up volunteer raspberry canes and other goodies to stock our own gardens & allotment with; we’re eating home-grown raspberries from June through to December now. Although we are on completely different types of soil – they came from light chalk, we are on alluvial loam over gravel, and my brother is on good red Devon hillside – all have flourished. Here’s a transplant which I was surprised to discover is also edible – but not until it’s well established, thank you! – Solomon’s Seal:

Apparently it’s rather like asparagus.

But more traditional edibles are now beginning to romp away too: these two have been “liberated” half-price or less, looking half-dead, from the local supermarket, the chilli plant some months ago and the basil about a week ago. Basil rarely survives for very long here, although this one’s looking good, but as long as I get a good soup out of it with some 50p tomatoes, which I’ll go hunting for later on when the market is closing down until next Friday, I’m happy!

Potential soup…

New life…

Not much is happening flower-wise in the garden just now; things that had started to bloom last week, like the ground cover geraniums, are now going full blast, but mostly it’s full of bluebells “going over” and things that haven’t quite got there yet like the big jasmine and the earlier roses. Here’s the Beauty Bush cheering everything up:

 

But the main event this week is the arrival of next winter’s laying chickens. Three pretty little newly-hatched chicks have been popped under our last remaining broody bantam, Wiggins the Pekin X Polish; a Black Rock, a Columbian Blacktail and a Chalk Hill Blue. All are what’s known as sex-linked hybrids; i.e. you can tell male from female as soon as they hatch, by the colouring, so these should all be ladies and the breeders will exchange them if by any awful chance they’re of the opposite persuasion. So – here they are!

Wiggins and her ready-made family.

Nearly didn’t make it…

… I think I said I’d post something at least once a week? But I’ve been running really hard to stay still, this week, after a wonderful weekend at Wonderwool Wales… anyway, there’s a bit more going on in the garden than I thought. Sadly we have lost two chickens this week; Millicent, who left us after injuring her leg a while back, and poor little Alfa, who had a prolapse; there was nothing anyone could have done to save her. But our one remaining bantam, Wiggins the Polish X Pekin, is well & truly broody; I’ll see if I can find some day-old chicks next week to keep her busy & boost our little flock.

Anyway, the quinces are flowering like crazy. Unfortunately the best of the blossom is above my head, but I managed to capture this by holding the camera up & snapping blind:

Quinces going bananas…

And the strawberries are going strong now, in high-rise window box liners screwed onto the fence crossbars:

Strawberries in their high-rise beds…

The Ashmead’s Kernel, last of the apples, has now come into bloom:

The little Ashmead’s Kernel…

And surely this is an unusual place to find Herb Robert blooming, halfway up a just-about-still-living willow tree?

Pesky geraniums get everywhere…

Here’s a shot of the Chocolate Vine in daylight, clearly showing both male & female flowers:

Akebia Quinata in daylight…

 

 

 

 

And meanwhile, in a quiet corner by the garage door…

Forget-me-nots, or Green Alkanet? See the comments…

 

Today’s crop…

…of new pictures:

Look! Not Spanish at all…

Look what I found amongst the Spanish bluebells – the unmistakable purple nodding heads of the true English ones! And there are a fair few in there, so maybe they can hold their own after all.

The big Blenheim Orange is coming into full flower now…  

The apple trees are starting to come into their own. Apple blossom is my favourite flower of all time, so pretty, delicately scented, and with the promise of a good harvest yet to come. The bees are a-buzz with excitement now…

Beautiful…

 

 

 

And I can’t resist a close-up…

 

 

 

 

Apples aren’t the only fruit blossoms tempting the bees, mind you – there are the quinces at the top of the page, and the rowan is just breaking out into a froth of pure white, too.

Rowan blossom out front

And down at the base of the trees, some unofficial ground cover has popped up through the bluebells & the nettles – which as far as I’m concerned, are a crop at this time of year, stuffed with vitamins, minerals and sheer tastiness – I see we’ll have our customary battle to keep the geraniums under control again this year!

Pretty, but WAAYYY too vigorous…

 

I’m off now for a woolly weekend in glorious Wales!

Well, it seems like a good idea…

… to try record a year in our small but productive garden, close to the centre of our little town near the south coast of England. If it all looks very idyllic, it’s probably because I have a decent camera and will literally teeter one-legged on a chair to get the right angle, cutting out the clutter that infests all productive gardens. Not to mention our attentive co-gardeners, the ever-curious & “helpful” cats & chickens, some of whom will be clustered around my feet whenever I venture outside.

After what seemed like several months of solid downpours, starting in late autumn 2013 and culminating in massive flooding which continued throughout a very mild winter, Mother Nature seems to be trying to compensate with a stunning Spring display, both in the garden and in the lovely East Dorset countryside around us. The daffodils, primroses and snowdrops have just about gone over now, and the bluebells are out in force, joined by campions, speedwell, dead nettles, ragged robin, and the later fruit blossoms; plum & blackthorn have been & gone, the cherries are beginning to “snow” and the quince & apple are unfurling as I type. So here’s what’s around us today:

Looks like we’ll have a good crop of blackcurrants!

Left to itself, this area would be woodland on the edge of a wide flood plain, close to the confluence of two rivers, our little local chalk stream and the Stour which winds its way down from Wiltshire through most of North & East Dorset. Fruit grows really well here; this blackcurrant bush sits below a young “Ashmead’s Kernel” apple, just along from the big & very elderly Blenheim Orange which dominates the whole garden.

White lilac lines the south fence.

There’s always room for something as pretty & as fragrant as lilac. These bushes also provide us with some privacy once they’ve leafed-up.

Up the garden path! Spanish bluebells running riot.

Sadly our native bluebells don’t stand a chance here; there are plenty in the woods & on the roadside verges around us, but the Spanish ones were already installed when we came and have fought off every attempt to oust them. May as well go with the flow…

The Akebia arch…

Slightly bizarre plant – has two very different types of flower

Every year I allow myself to splash out on one exotic perennial plant. About 12 years ago, that was an Akebia Quinata, otherwise known as the “chocolate vine.” It’s never produced any chocolate, but I believe that under the right circumstances it will produce edible purple sausage-shaped fruits. It seems happy enough by the ponds, arching over to the garage roof, where it scrambles for space alongside the golden hop & the kiwi vine, also annual “treat” plants. At first we worried that the ivy, a natural interloper, would out-compete it, but it “won.”

The front pond, full of water lilies.

Tadpoles swarm in the back pond.

 

 

 

Although it’s not a big garden, it seemed important to us to have some open water to provide for wildlife. Frogs and toads are excellent pest-slayers! And hedgehogs need somewhere to drink, and easy to climb out of in case of disaster. Dragonflies and birds are regular visitors, too, but we’ve yet to see a newt although we know they live in other gardens close by. There are at least two types of water-snail in the ponds, as well as tadpoles, and yes, that’s watercress, originally planted from a bunch bought mainly for eating, from our local market.

What backyard poultry are all about…

Alfa the Lemon Cuckoo Pekin, outside the chicken run as usual.

 

 

Not all the garden birds are wild… we keep a handful of backyard chickens, who in turn keep us in eggs, and charge out of their run every evening to root out & destroy slugs and snails! Unfortunately they’re also rather partial to seedlings, hence most of them being confined to a straw-run for most of the time. But some of them seem to be able to find their way out without any difficulty; luckily they are the two bantams and the shy White Star, who cause very little damage compared to the big girls.

The Beauty Bush is just coming out.

Broom catches the evening sun. But who’s “wasted” an apple…?

It’s not all blossom…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I shall try to post something here at a least once a week; more often given sunshine and some spare time!