May in all its glory

The rain continues to pour here and we have yet more storms forecast for the next 10 days. The wet weather all year has produced incredibly lush growth and the irises in particular have been the best they have ever been. I have rushed out whenever the sun has shone during the month in order to capture the flowers on camera before they were ruined.

Here is a selection of the photos I took.

We should have opened the garden last weekend!! However we were helping 3 other people in the Open Garden scheme who opened theirs. The weekend was a great success despite the tremendous storm which raged all Sunday morning.

After the storm

Look what appeared the morning after a heavy storm.

The petunias had only been planted the day before!

Our neighbour Nadine was going shopping, so we were able to get an urgent delivery of Slug Pellets.

Drumming up Support

As you may know we are more involved with the Open Gardens organisation this year.  Last Sunday we went to a big local plant fair to publicise the organisation and the gardens which are opening in our area.

We had a good spot and were very busy, with a lot of 'gardeners' who were showing interest.
We await to see how many turn up!

The Rain in Spain ...

,,, fell in Girona!

We went to the annual Flower Festival in Girona, Catalunya again and, as you can see it rained some of the time ... and it was cold!!!  However, that didn't put off all the pensioners in North Spain or Southern France, there were lots of coach trippers on Sunday and lots of school parties on the Monday.
To begin with we were disappointed with the displays.  The main one on the steps of the cathedral was very poor.

It was mainly apricot roses which just did not show up.

Over the next couple of days we explored more, and even found parts of Girona which we hadn't seen on our previous visit and found some really spectacular displays.

There were also a number of wacky ones!

To complete our Spanish excursion we managed to fit in a shopping visit to 'our' wine emporium to stock up on one of our favorite wines, and we also checked out the birds at the Nature Reserve at St Pere Pescadore.

There were still a few Storks nesting.

Movin Movin Movin

My husband is gettng very fed up with putting something in one place and then being told I want it moved. Remember the gravel in the courtyard!

This time it was the pot with the Phoenix tree in it. In the winter I was happy to put it at the end of the serpentine bed in the front garden....that was just for the winter. We both felt that it would look better in the grass between the prairie beds in the back garden. So John set about moving it, but it was so heavy it was impossible. I had a minor tantrum, as is my wont, because I had bought a new large pot and the plants to put in it to stand in the spot vacated by the tree. However I reflected over night and decided it wasn't the end of the world if the tree stayed where it was. Meantime John had decided that the pot with and tree would be moved come what may.

The next thing I saw he had a saw in his hand and was cutting into the trees root ball, emptying the soil from the pot and it was on route for the back field.

 Its journey on the sack barrow was a little precarious, but pot and tree arrived safely and were reunited. Pot and tree are both doing well.

The Beast

We don't know if it comes from the east but it has been arriving in the dead of night for the past fortnight. Initially we noticed large holes, about 25cm deep, appearing in the flower beds. We didn't think too much about it and just filled them in. However when we regularly saw each morning that a "JCB on caterpillar tracks" had been marauding through the front garden each night we became a bit more concerned. It even had the audacity two nights ago to plough through the bank in front of Jean-Jacque and Nadines house. It appeared to favour areas covered with wood chippings and the light soil on the bulb bank.

We suspected a badger was the culprit. However yesterday the dastardly creature left a clue, he deposited some droppings in one of the holes.

 Further investigation on the internet seemed to confirm our suspicions. We assume he is looking for worms which have risen nearer the surface with the rain we have had in the last few months. Despite his devastation we are very proud of the garden at present as it is tidy and floriferous.......but it wont last, more rain on the way.

I am particularly pleased with the ranunculus (persian buttercups) which I have never grown before and have been a great success.

The badger is not the only unwanted creature in the garden. Our box hedge was killed by an infestation of box caterpillars last year, it will have to be cut down next winter, and we found some yesterday on the variegated box plant in the white bed, despite taking precautionary measures.