Trough Work

After Chris Genever single handedly lugged this massively heavy stone trough from the well up on to the terrace (patio to him!) I thought it was about time I got some plants in.  Having ensured maximum drainage and put in a layer of grit, I made up a fairly gritty mix, placed in a few pieces of stone and put in  a few Alpines - all purchases from Malvern Spring Garden Show.

Bees in Trees - in Plague Proportions!

A sunny and much warmer day and jobs included lawn edging and planting out Pinks, Petunias and Aeoniums and moving other plants from the greenhouse and into the cold frames for hardening off.

Bees in the apple trees

Whilst lawn edging, I heard a loud droning - rather like machinery.  Wondering what it was, I looked up into the Prunus Serrula above and saw that the entire tree was alive with bees.  I have never seen or heard so many bees at one time.  The noise was astonishing.  They were definitely not swarming and all were busy going about their business. On many of them, I could see the pockets on their hind legs bulging with pollen.  This is a big mature tree and it was literally full of bees!  The funny thing is that this tree is grown for its shiny peeling bark which is a real feature in winter.  The flowers are small, pale and insignificant. It is covered in blossom all of which appeared to be moving with the vast numbers of bees moving around the blooms.  We hear nothing but doom and gloom about the ever decreasing numbers of bees, their decline due to Verroa and sudden hive collapse which made this all the more amazing!  It was like a plague of bees infesting a single tree.  It's not as if there weren't huge numbers in the apple trees 'cos there were - just nothing like the prunus!  Absolutely no shortage of pollinators here!

A whole tree of bees!

Winter in May

The spring flowers are blooming and the trees heavy with blossom.  Queue strong winds and lashing rain and glacial temperatures - a drop from 20 to 8 degrees C. in just a few days - winter is back in town and the lawns are strewn in petals and tender young leaves which have been just whipped off the trees in the vicious gusts of winds.  These 2 photos disguise the cold temperatures and the fact that 2" of snow fell in Shropshire - our neighbouring county!

Towards the Hennery

Towards the Pear Arch

We are back to one Chris on Saturdays and we started by moving the urns to their summer places and carrying some of the tender plants out of the greenhouse.  It was just too cold and too wild to bring out Pelargoniums and standard Fuschias but we did make sufficient room for a few tomato plants.  Having done that, we set about laying out the very, very last of the York flag stone remains between the Pear Arch and the Hennery.  When the trees are in full leaf, the grass there is quite shaded and in winter, it is wet and is prone to excessive erosion from trips to the compost heap.  I cut round each stepping stone and Chris dug out sections of turf and set each stone in its place - carefully and patiently cutting out strips of turf to fill in around and between them.  I busied myself re-defining all the edges in that area - weeding and tidying as I went.  The last job of the day was to spend 20 minutes dead-heading the dandelions whilst waiting for our selective dandelion killer to arrive.  We picked half a bucketful each and with a whole bucket last week that zillions and zillions of seeds that won't be blowing around and seeding everywhere!

Coop Commentary

Wild Winifred 

It's 10 days since the arrival of our new flock and, I have to report that our egg total is actually 10! 8 brown (Marigold) eggs and 2 cream (Partridge Star) eggs. They continue to settle in and don't fly off to the furthest corners when I enter the Hen Pen. They won't take corn from my hand yet but are happy pecking around close by. Winifred alias Miss Flighty Whitey seems to be top of the pecking order despite being the smallest.  She's the least friendly and always wildly chasing - something!  Bumblebees, sparrows, blackbirds - anything will do.  She really isn't fussy. By comparison, Persephone is very timid and gentle and the remaining 2 are somewhere in between.  All girls seem very happy in their new home and are very happy to explore inside the Hennery and even stay in there for shelter from the rain and winds - which makes them rather more sensible than their predecessors.

Persephone

A day at Malvern Spring Garden Show

Lovely but is it really a garden?

............TV Made it look better than reality

Head Gardener and Chief Blogger took a day off from gardening and did battle with plummeting temperatures, slashing rain, and gusting winds to visit the Malvern Spring Garden Show.  I'd been working in The tickets were a whoppingly scandalous £38 on the gate - GULP.  Luckily I'd booked ahead and paid £29 - still very expensive.  One had to feel sorry for stall holders who wares were being blown over with violently flapping canvas and poor plants and trees lying flat in rows under the slashing rain.  We found some sunshine in which to quaff a jug of Pimms before the weather deteriorated and even managed to time lunch before the queues hit.  I didn't find the gardens particularly good but I did like the old boat shed. It displayed such a really convincing theme of dereliction, it was difficult to even class it as a garden! We saw the beeb and their camera team with Jo Swift bustling with importance - even though last week's episode of their nationwide ever popular Gardener's World was ditched for the minority sport of snooker.  Typical!  A few more photos taken with my camera can be seen at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/100788191989823327785/SpringGardenShow2013?authkey=Gv1sRgCML6o9XExaLatAE

Things are waking up in The Fernery

Most of the ferns had already had last year's fronds removed a few weeks ago but the Aspleniums were left until this afternoon.  It was a bit like opening Christmas presents.  As the old dead and crisp brown fronds were gently cut away, new fronds could be seen unfurling beneath.  It was pleasant work on a warm and sunny May afternoon with the scent of cherry and pear blossom hanging heavy in the air and a robin singing competitively in an Acer above me with a thrush on the highest bough of a conifer and to complete the trio, a distant cuckoo in the valley woodland.  As I worked, I pondered how nice it might be if I didn't know anything about gardening as if I knew nothing at all, I wouldn't worry about all the things that desperately needed doing! Mmm?

New stepping stones in the Fernery Path

Sunset Sundial

Another Pugh eBay find and a day out in York

End of another busy Saturday in the garden as usual - 'nuff said!