Some Jobs Can Wait

This is an ivy overgrowing the outhouse.  My best excuse for not tackling it is the blackbirds nest just above the door.

Anyway, it's too nice a day. 

Pots

Washed pots.

Genie took the initiative, and started weeding yesterday.  Well, that's where we started.  We removed the ancient and crumbling lid from the old compost bin, though 'bin' hardly describes it: a stone and brick edifice built to last.  I got halfway through removing a low front wall a couple of years ago.  Pippy wanted to build a summer house at the back of the garden, and this was the first step in demolition.  I didn't quite see the logic of having a summer house looking onto the veg plot.  Now I understand that this is a good place to escape the domestic environment, away from the house, a sun-trap and the part of the garden that gets the most attention.  During our coronavirus lockdown I've appreciated this hideaway too.  But I don't think I'll be building a summer house here now.

More flowers, are coming into bloom.  Peony:

A standard rhododendron. This is looking a little worse for wear, and maybe suffering from too much competition.  I'll try to remember to water it more.

A large fern is just getting going:

A Plan with No Plan

A Sunny Sunday

Lawn mowed, croquet set-up.  I would love to say I beat Genie with a cup of tea in hand, but I could only manage an honourable draw.

The Rake's Progress

After two days of showers, the veg plot is mainly weeded, and seedlings started. So looking for something to do, I tackled the 'Shagmonster' a much neglected 'ornamental' grass. The middle of this bush is it's own mini compost heap, and harbours brambles .  Since most of the dead leaves were in the centre, the end result of extracting a wheelie bin's worth was somewhat underwhelming.  

Shagmonster Before:

Shagmonster After:

Tool of the Day:

Mum-Monica's Rake. Still in good condition after at least 60 years of use, and unlike Trigger's brush, it's still on its first head and first handle.  The end tines are bent inwards from decades of Monica knocking it on its ends to clear rakings.  Would I straighten it? No chance!

Bees, Beans and Butter

The beans are in the ground. After a month of very settled and sunny weather, the beans are ready for planing out from their first home in the greenhouse. We made sure the ground was good and moist, then popped in runner beans around our mighty construction, with a dwarf variety, called 'butter bean' (confusingly) around the smaller frame.

Genie and I potted up a lot of the herbs, too. 

Some of the rescued strawberry plants went into the shallow stone trough, displacing a thyme plant, which was split and put into the 'rockery'.  I use quotes because the stones are there, but there are no rockery plants - something I want to rectify.

Genie sat on a nettle.

Rob kindly offered me some nematode slug control he had left over in a WhatsApp message. He said he put it on his strawberries. I said we prefer cream.  He treated this old joke with a dignified silence. Quite right.  

There was enough for most of the tender shoots in the veg plot, but I left one strawberry bed as a 'control'.

I was a bit too lazy on Sunday.  There were lots of jobs I could have got on with, but I wanted a proper rest having been somewhat poorly in the second half of the week.

The laurel over the stone seating area is in flower. The bees and furry hoverflies love it. So do I. The scent is subtly spicy, warm, and almost buttery (to my nose) and, with sound of the bees, makes a drowsy combination. The bush is too big for the location now and it leans over the seating area.  I need to think how I can shape it.  Not now though.  Too sleepy.

Blossom

This weekend, it's half a year since Pippy died. And here we are, all locked away from the World. And still the seasons roll and the blackthorn blossoms in the lanes.  Pippy would have a story for this, of course.  I know blackthorn, despite its beautiful flowers, has a sinister reputation in folklore, possibly derived from the long sharp spines, a stab from which can turn septic because of the tendency to leave a splinter in the wound.  The wood is dense and hard, burning like coal, and traditionally used for walking sticks and cudgels. Also witches wands.

So here it is, Prunus spinosa:

In the garden, the cherry and the apple trees blossom.  Also Prunus

Same family, Rosaceae, different genus, Mallus: the apple. This one is a Cox's orange pippin.  A stumpy little thing, only about 4ft tall, but very fruitful last year, while the three other apple trees in the plot seemed to concentrate on getting tall.  Come on, Pippin, the rhubarb is almost taller!

Lush, ain't it?  Plenty of room to hide elephant's eggs (I keep looking).