Tuesday 19 June 2012

MISH MASH

 Just a few photos from,mostly, recent days. The tree surgeon came for a quick chat the other Saturday and was surprised to see bullfinches flitting about, but I was more pleased with seeing a pair of great spotted woodpeckers coming to the open topped peanut holder, taking a peanut and then flying into the oak tree. Not once, but many times in three or four days. He said that bullfinches are becoming rare but to me they're just those pinky red breasted males with paler wives which visit the garden on numerous occasions.
 
Plants this summer either seem to be going crazy or have totally disappeared - here's a delphinium thats, at themoment, about 7' tall, I reckon.

 This contraption formed out of wire netting, an old piece of trellis, pieces of 2" metal mesh and rolls of pea netting pegged to the anti-heron wire are what has been keeping next door's bloomin' cat from fishing out the goldfish - this was taken in April, but at long last Stuart has found time and enough plastic posts to come and replace it all.
 The fish think they're in an open-air swimming pool now that the 'roof' has gone, as well as a lot of weed, replaced by this.
 It's an electric fence, run off a battery, which will, I hope discourage That Cat from fishing in my pond. I'll just have to remember to turn it off before we start gardening...No,not Stuart.
 The honeysuckle has done well-hanging down from the (reclaimed) trellis over the path.
 I don't know what variety it is but it has a scent though not very strong.
 Gilluan brought a couple of handsful of these ages ago and they've all taken - it's polemium, aka Jacob's Ladder. They're all blue though I had some a few decades ago which were peachy coloured so these rather surprised me.The bees like them,
Here's a closeup of the flower, quite a dainty thing.

Do you know what this is? I'll show you later on ...
Sunset at the end of May, just before the sun finally disappeared behind the trees on the Waddesdon ridge.
That's all folks...

5 comments:

Kath said...

that last pic is a stunner.
I loved how lush the garden was looking at the weekend. The delphs look fabulous, mine have gone over now.

Marigold Jam said...

Your garden looks lovely. I've never managed to grow delphiniums the slugs always get them so am amazed at the monster you have in your garden.

Sylve said...

Glad you liked the garden Kath, it's been evolving for 17 years now. Just wait till yours is that old!
Hallo Marigold, I'm lucky that tall plants seem to grow tall - there are a couple of self seeded mulleins by the pond which will probably be whoppers again as well.
The slugs seem to congregate by the patio doorstep, just handy to dose with the salt pot...

Bernard said...

I'd hazard a guess that the plant in the picture is a 'Crown Imperial' or 'Kaiser's Crown' (Fritillaria imperialis) ?
I don't have one in my patch, so this is only a guess.

Sylve said...

You're in the right direction but not quite spot on - I'll post a photo when it flowers. PS, I do know what it is, just testing...