Their arrival seems a good moment to keep an account of the wild garden year. I hope this will be the first post of many. In a perfect world no doubt it would be illustrated by beautiful photos, but I seem to be having computer/photo issues just now. Let's see how we get on. Anyhow, I'm sure you can imagine grass, sparrows, newts and such like.
The other big event of this week has been the blossoming of the hawthorn tree. It is a special favourite of mine for it just turned up, unbidden and truly wild. It was a year or two before I was sure what it was. Now it is at least eight metres high and covered, just now, with glorious flowers. It seeded itself in exactly the right place, too. I have hardly to touch it, except rub out buds below about 4 feet high.
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| May blossom in bud |
Other plants in flower right now include Ranunculus acris, the Meadow Buttercup; Pentaglottis semepervirens, Green Alkanet; Veronica chamaedrys (I think), Germander Speedwell; and Mecanopsis cambrica, the Welsh Poppy. The Alkanet seeds so easily and widely, has such a tap root and looks so coarse in old age that I spend a lot of time rooting it out. But it is lovely just now. Nothing on that short list of flowers is very exciting, but all the fresh green of new leaves and grass is spotted with blue and yellow. How could I have forgotten Bellis perennis, the Daisy, most prolific of all. There is also another hedgerow tree in flower beyond the hawthorn, a rowan that is in a bad situation and very stunted, but still survives.
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| Welsh poppies |
When it comes to providing hiding places and thickets I have been so successful - the garden is over 25 years old - that I'm not at all sure what is there. Somewhere in the brambles and ivy and behind the sweet briar I am sure there are birds nesting, but I'm not sure what. I'm pretty sure of sparrows and blackbirds, and a robin I think. At the weekend I saw a pair of goldfinches not merely at the bird-feeders but collecting nesting-material from the lawn, so that's good to see. I am fairly sure that there are plenty of tadpoles still in the pond. Last year I set up a little pond - baby-bath sized - where some could mature protected from mallards and herons. They have all vanished but I found, when cleaning out, a pair of newts - palmate I think. It is tough out there.
It is tough, but fun to observe and fun to write about. We shall see what happens next.
