Here’s today’s selection of six things from the garden, on a soggy Saturday in Somerset.
First up, bees in the honeysuckle.
The huge clumps of honeysuckle in our back garden are in full bloom and covered in bees when the sun shines. Speaking of bees, we have a bee-hole in the garden, which bees pop in and out of, so I put up a ‘mind the bees’ sign to remind us to take care around there.
My second selection is the bird life in the garden.
Despite the presence of our sleepy toothless cat, the blackbirds nesting in and around the garden are doing well, the rose patch is frequently visited by blue tits fledging from next door’s bird box, and we’ve seen gold finch, willow warbler and bullfinch visiting to feed or splash in the pond. As I write this, the cat is curled up asleep on the lawn while the blackbird families are busily bickering and hunting for worms and bugs. I am sure I heard a baby blackbird’s voice break a few days ago. Listening to the high pitched pips of what I guess are baby blackbirds in the elder bush, I heard a voice go from squeaky chirrups to a clear, full throated call within just a few moments.
The bluetits were on the roses just a couple of metres from my window. The parent birds were grabbing the greenflies from the roses, and the young were perching on our ‘globe’ sculpture, waiting to be fed beakfuls of tasty bugs. I attempted a photo of the blue tit through the window, it’s not very good but you can use your imagination to guess how magical this looks in real life, almost within touching distance.
I found a few feathers a few months ago. (Best not ask how the feathers ended up on the lawn but there are some fat pigeons and fatter foxes in the wild space next door).
In a fit of whimsy I made some into a fancy fascinator for the horse statue. Back lit by the morning sun it looks rather striking. The ‘horsey’ border under the apple tree now has foxgloves, ferns, aquilegia, and roses coming through…
Bees, birds and the horsey border takes us up to three. My fourth selection is in the horsey border, its the the primula candelabra, a gorgeous fancy primrose on a stick that looks a bit like a flower from the yellow submarine movie.
These primula arrived as tiny plug plants, and were successfully nurtured and planted out by my lovely husband. The apparently can grow up to 1 m tall over 2-5 years, so these maybe little babs that get much bigger in time.
At the front of the pond there are some pansies that haven’t stopped flowering since we put them there six weeks or more back. There’s a fabulous view from the den to the side of the pond, where we’ve seen some beautiful damselflies, and the first sweet pea has flowered. But sadly, none of these moments made it to the Saturday Six. #SixonSaturday is a marvelous meme about sharing garden highlights, and it would be foolish to break the rules of this important habit. 😉
My fifth choice is roses. I did some proper pruning of the spectacularly prolific rose ‘James Galway’ and got some frilly and fabulous blooms for a bouquet. Named for the virtuoso flute player this a big frilly ‘rosy’ kind of rose, and I love it.
It is the biggest rose bush in the whole garden, not just because it’s in one of the sunnier spots, but also because it’s an especially monster-sized variety of rose. Yesterday on ‘Gardeners World’ Saint Monty of Don said that ‘roses are tough’ and they are essentially fancy brambles. This rose grows so big, so fast I can entirely believe it is brother to the bramble. And the blooms are blooming marvelous. 🙂
And finally, let’s have a shout out for the yukka and its big three buds that are coming through with this summer’s flowers. We know pretty much nothing about this big plant, except that it was here when we arrived, and it produces huge pillars of pale yellow flowers which are usually taller than me.
My lovely husband would like to ask any readers if they know about a flowering pattern with yukka. He had read that they only flower every other year, but ours had two blooms last year and has three forming this year. It seemed to be a mature plant six years ago when we arrived, and I guess it could have been there a good while…
Well, that’s my six, with a few gratuitously sneaked in under the counter, and I still want to share a new post about how we make compost and why it’s worth it, which you should read immediately, unless you’re not even slightly interested in compost, or have more pressing matters to attend to…
Whatever you are up to, have a lovely weekend!
J x
Some species of Yucca seem to bloom whenever they want to, and some do so out of season. Technically, each rosette is monocarpic. They supposedly die after bloom. However, they are replaced by new side shoots so efficiently that, among some species, their demise goes unnoticed. Otherwise, arboriform species could not develop trunks and limbs. (Other species retain their unsightly deceased rosettes until they decay, which could be a few years. I happen to grow chaparral yucca, which retains such rosettes quite prominently.) New rosettes do not bloom during their first year, but may be mature enough to bloom for their second season. A mature specimen contains rosettes of various ages, including some that are less than a year old, as well as some that are mature enough to bloom. Some of the more mature rosettes bloom while less mature rosettes do not, which means that a mature specimen has potential to bloom with a few stalks annually, even if most of its rosettes do not bloom. Of course, there are about fifty species of Yucca, and some others really do not bloom annually.
Thanks so much for that Tony!
You are welcome. Incidentally, your yucca is Yucca recurvifolia, which is now known as Yucca gloriosa var. tristis.
It could be Yucca flaccida.
I’m no expert on yuccas, I can only tell you that the one we had bloomed in late summer every year once it matured.
What a lovely selection of plants and flowers and yay for the bees.
James Galway is fabulous! Should flower later, though, in honour of that fine Irish tune, ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ …
Re yucca, our neighbours’ yucca does flower every year, but it has many or few flowers in alternate years.
I don’t know much about Yuccas, but it looks like you got some info from other gardeners. That ‘James Galway’ Rose is beautiful! I’m a huge fan of Roses (I guess every gardener is, right?). Making compost is rewarding. Have a great week!