We have had so much rain over the last couple of weeks, sometimes torrential, sometimes just a light sprinkling with sun in between the showers. One morning when I was up nice and early, the raindrops were twinkling in the sunshine like diamonds, every shrub, leaf and flower was bedecked so I thought I would try and capture some.
Berberis.
This post is mainly an update on various recent posts, starting with our family of Great Spotted Woodpeckers. It didn’t take long for the youngster to learn how to feed from the peanut feeder, now there is no stopping him/her, it is there nearly all day long!
Young Gt. Spotted Woodpecker
For over a month now we have been seeing the beautiful blue of Meconopsis flowers in the borders. All the plants are new this year, some grown from seed, some new hybrids bought from specialist growers which formed part of last year’s Christmas present from himself, the undergardener! The first to flower were Meconopsis baileyi, formerly M. betonicifolia.
Showing just enough blue to tempt me out of the house to investigate.
Once again , it is the time of the month when Christina asks us to have a look at the foliage in the garden, rather than the flowers. It has been difficult to photograph the foliage without flowers creeping into the photos, there are so many of them, I did try to avoid them.
I like to go for combinations of different foliage, hosta with ferns and astilbe.
The other day, having said that we hadn’t seen the young woodpecker at the feeder, just 15 minutes after publishing my post, there it was being fed by it’s Dad.
Dad was very busy feeding the youngster.
I have been taking photos of flowers and long shots of the garden with the little “point and press” camera that I have had for a good few years now. However the telephoto facility on the camera was abysmal, the complete opposite to the macro facility which was excellent for flowers and insects. I have been wanting to take photos of the wildlife in the garden for a long time now and decided reluctantly that the only way to do this was to eventually change the camera.
It seems the garden has gone crazy, everywhere I look there is an abundance of flowers. Now, as well as weeding, there is deadheading to do and I can barely keep up with it all. Every new day brings more delights with buds opening into beautiful flowers left, right and centre, it is a question of where do I start this post?
I’ll start with the Wisteria that I thought we had lost about 20 yrs ago! All of a sudden I found these beautiful flowers by the garage, so it hadn’t died after all!
Just a short time after writing the post about the bog garden, there is now more colour with the reds, oranges, yellows and purples joining in.
Candelabra primula “Inverewe”
Just as the Rhodos and Azaleas start to fade, the baton is taken up by all the roses in the garden. The odd rose flower has been seen in May, but the main flowering period is in June with more flowers later in the year as long as I remember to deadhead the flowers regularly.
One of the first to flower is R. Regensberg which was a Mother’s Day present from our daughter many, many years ago. This photo was taken last month.
Bringing a lot of colour to a couple of borders are the rhododendrons and azaleas which are flowering at the moment. Some started flowering about a month ago and had nearly finished before the main ones started, so flowering is spread over 2 months, which I feel is better than having them all flowering at the same time, because then they are over so quickly. A few were already here when we moved in, the rest I have planted as the years have gone by.
