The weathered look

Well, the wind blew through yesterday with torrential rain showers and flattened my beautiful mallows. Yes, I suppose it was a gormless place to plant them but I thought, they're summer flowering annuals, they won't be around for the worst of the weather, surely a six foot high fence and an enormous pampas grass will provide a sufficient windbreak. Lesson learned, pick the right plant for the position.

Bright spots on a wet day

The weather has been appalling all weekend. Torrential showers and now it is windy as well. Despite this, the sun occasionally breaks through. I nipped out to get some fresh air during one short dry spell and saw this tired bumble bee on the Bidens golden star.







Some tomatoes are almost ripe, amazing given the lack of sunshine in the last week.
A self seeded lobelia. I planted some plugs last year but was disappointed by the lack of growth and flowers. They must have done enough however to leave seeds for this year. Maybe the butterflies will find it.

Siskins

I've heard about robins and blackbirds becoming very tolerant of human presence, entering houses and even feeding from hands. My siskins seem to be developing a similar relaxed attitude. This little one didn't even wait for me to move after I'd put out the kibbled peanuts. She flew straight down to the tray and started tucking in. I could have reached out and touched her. There was nothing wrong with her healthwise, as a few minutes later she took exception to another siskin feeding on the table and started a fight.

A tale of two mallows

I don't know what I did to this tree mallow. Pruned it too hard? Planted it in the wrong place? Something very gormless no doubt. That position is the most exposed in the garden and does get blasted by the wind when it howls up the loch. I guess I'm just going to have to find something tough to grow there. I wonder if one of the burgandy elders would survive. It's a pity. I planted the mallow last year and it grew vigorously through the summer producing masses of pretty white flowers with rosy centres.

In contrast this annual mallow, Lavatera Mont Blanc, is romping away, coming through just as the foxgloves and verbascum are dying back. It's buds, when tightly furled, are blush pink but they open into masses of intense white flowers that gleam like spotlights in every corner they are planted.

The only problem is the butterflies and bees are paying no attention. I thought because lavatera are always present in wildlife seed mixes they would be a good souce of nectar but perhaps the white variants don't look or taste as good as the pink ones. I should have gone for the cosmos. I'm just a sucker for tall spires covered in bell like flowers. I've a hankering for some hollyhocks but have a strong suspicion that they would only get covered in rust in this climate. I shouldn't complain though because what I miss with the cottage garden plants is more than made up for by the spring show of rhodies, azaleas and camelias which love the wet, acid conditions.

A purpose for the pampas

It looks as if I am going to have to forgive the pampas grass for being a big, ugly, bully of a garden plant. The spugs love it. I was watching them today instead of doing the washing up. They are feasting on the seeds and hopping backwards and forwards chirping with excitement. A line of them sit on a frond, then another arrives and the whole thing sinks down, a bird flies off and it springs up again, so the fronds are constantly seesawing up and down like a giant sparrow amusement park. Daft, isn’t it to get excited by a sparrow? It’s just that last year I had one solitary male visit occasionally. He came back in the spring with his missus. I don’t know where they nested but they have brought a sizeable brood to feed at the table and another adult male has joined them. I counted eleven on the grass today. When sparrows are in “catastrophic” decline elsewhere in the country it’s lovely to see them thriving here. This bbc article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7739645.stm suggests that sparrows are most successful in gardens tended by “useless, lazy gardeners”. That’s definitely the case here and long may my gormlessness continue if see-sawing sparrows are the result.

moody blues

The loch is constantly changing from shimmering cobalt blues, through patchworks of azure and aqua, to pools of silver and grey.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

In case there is any confusion, I should explain this is an evil slug eating my beautiful courgette. The courgettes are the first veg I've grown apart from tomatoes and salad leaves. I know they're really easy and generous to even the most feckless of gardeners but I am very proud of them. They are beautiful and green and luscious and have cost practically nothing. The plants were seedling freebies from a friend, so all they have cost was the little bit of compost to plant them in. I'm counting on them to provide free food through the summer (and winter, if I freeze what I can't eat). I object strongly to slugs, who have plenty of food elsewhere (including my pansies and violas), joining the banquet uninvited. So grrr grrrr grrrrrrrrrr. The only good slug is a dead slug.