The blue honeywort has been as spectacular as ever, humming with bees and other pollinators and self seeding all over the place. I'm having to ruthlessly remove seedlings as the plants can become pretty big and I'm worried they'll crowd out the lower growing sun lovers like the thyme plants.
The fedge, a cross between a hedge and a fence, made by planting and then bending goat willow stems, is starting to take shape. The lower branches are removed, leaving a hedge at the top, giving a light and airy division between the cultivated border and meadow beyond.
I adore rosa rugosa, and the open cup-shaped single flowers are easily utilised by bees and hoverflies. I have a couple of white ones, a pale pink that always looks dirty and an absolutely stunning deep pink that is yet to open.
The wisteria has taken a good six or seven years to establish and it is unusual in that the leaves and flowers come out at the same time denying us that classic wisteria display of waterfalls of blue against a wall. On the other hand, we had bull finches nesting in the foliage last year and this year there is a pair of black caps already established.
This is the last piece of essential hard landscaping - the bank was cut out when the house was built and has taken a decade to be anything other than bare clay. Buying in topsoil has never been an option and we were lucky to exchange some strimming for the sleepers. The bed has been planted with ancient French varieties of roses and as it is next to our deck and terrace, our summer evenings should be well fragranced!
Our black cat sleeping off his last vole supper beside the pond. I know that for many people having a cat is not compatible with wildlife gardening and I accept this, but like most things it is a trade off; yes he does catch the odd bird, lizard or slow worm, but his focus is very much on voles. We are over run with them, and although there are also plenty of natural predators around - buzzards, owls, snakes, foxes - we still see them and the damage they do on a daily basis. And the cat is part of the natural environment, too - his mother was semi-feral and he was born in a woodpile. He was six months old before we could get within half a garden of him, but eight years on and he considers the sofa to be his rightful place!
The aquilegias are another plant beloved of insects and that happily crosses and seeds all over the place. There is a native variety, a deep blue that grows in all the woods and along the verges of the woodland roads.
Cranesbill, perennial geranium, tucked into some shade on the new sleeper bank.
A European green lizard, probably a female, up on one of the piles of debris I have scattered around the place to provide habitat. She will have hopefully laid eggs in somewhere warm and moist, which I fear will mean in my compost heap just a couple of metres away. I shall have to be very careful when taking compost for the next few weeks!
Lovely nigella, comes up all over the garden and where possible is left - it can be found flowering somewhere throughout much of the spring and summer, followed by architectural seed heads.
After a much needed 45mm of rain in the last 24 hours the ground is too sodden to do much more beyond putting in some support for the broad beans which have their first flowers (they are very late this year because having missed the chance to sow in the autumn as normal, these were sown in early February). The first lot of pea sticks will also need to be cut and pushed in, but today I'll be mostly reflecting on how the garden has developed so far, as well as thinking about planning the next projects.
And finally I have a slowly growing patch of Dutch Iris in amongst some of the first low growing conifers we put in to stabilise another area of bank. It has taken a good five years for them to put on a display, perhaps symbolic of how important it is to step back and take time to enjoy, appreciate and protect the natural world. Happy Earth Day #RestezChezVous #StayAtHome
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