Storm Damage

 We've been going through an episode of storms and had another one last night.  Lots of lightning circling round the hills and heavy rain.  Normally these storms bring down old dead branches from the trees in our alley, but we were disappointed this morning to see the top of one of our Crabtrees broken off.

Obviously the 'head' with all of its leaves acted as a sail and the trunk was too well staked!

At least we still have some branches and leaves on the tree!

June 21 Garden Tour

 It's that time of year again when the garden is at it's best i.e. show off time!!

The prairie is even better now that the "ladies bed straw" is blooming throughout it.

Flaming June

 We are in the middle of a heatwave so I thought I would share some photos of the colour in the front garden before the heat destroys the poppies.

A Lot Going On in the Garden

 ........and it's not all plants. Mammalian update:-

The baby hare continues to hide in the garden. Unfortunately too well at times as I hit him on the head yesterday afternoon with a red hot poker stem and then in the evening I managed to water him. Occasionally we still see his "Mum and Dad" charging round the back field but the hare family don't cause any problems.

The same can not be said for the Rabbits. Touch wood they do not seem to be eating our plants but they do continue to dig prospective burrows. However when the bunnies come up to the back door each morning to say hello we can't be cross with them. Apparently rabbits have not been in our area for over 50 years. As you know rabbits breed prodigiously and a friend (who lives half an hour away) and who has had a problem with them for many years told us that 11 men  caught 180 in one day in their garden which is about the size of our front garden. So we are concerned.

 

We've not seen any deer lately. We have bought a wildlife trail camera particularly to track night time visitors.....but there are teething troubles. If/when we get any descent footage we will share it with you.

The kestrels who were nesting in the back wall of our house have not brought off a brood this year. The early weather was not favorable and then they were severely disturbed by the young female who tried to join them. However we were delighted last night to here owlets calling in the pigeonnier. We had seen one owl fly out but were convinced that he had not found a mate. How wrong can you be?

Now to the plants:-

They have at long last recovered from the devastating frosts in April. Actually we have lost very few  but some are only just coming into leaf. The rain throughout May has benefited the garden no end and I can honestly say it looks like an English garden at present.. Of course flourishing flowers means flourishing weeds but it feels like we're winning.

 

The prairie is the best it has ever been. I would like to say that it is the result of John's careful seed sowing last Autumn, but it is more likely to be the result of the month of rain!!

'Sumer is icumin in'

 Over the past few days we've been setting up the 'Exotic' garden now that there is no danger of frosts.  In fact, the weather has changed so much, so quickly, that the danger now is that the plants need watering as we are having temperatures in the high 20's.

So we began laying out the plants ...

and then we had to plant, which meant digging new holes through the underlying plastic (old fertiliser sacks) as, of course, the new plants are never placed where we had plants last year!

Once all of the plants were in position, I could put down a new covering of sand.

In between setting up this feature in the garden, we replaced and planted up the boxes we look after at either end of the village.

The boxes are bigger and hopefully, more colourful this year!