Seeds and Stuff - May 2016

The garden is looking beautiful at the moment - we've had lots of sun and lots of rain, although it's been pretty cold too.  But the rain and sunshine are working wonders!

The roses are beautiful - although still quite early - and I've never seen so many! 

The Bridge of Sighs rose has so many blooms on it - and of course it's all way too early - I hope we don't suffer later in the summer because of it.

The solanum has surprised me as I thought I'd chopped it all down last year!  But it's come back again, more vigorous than ever and is quite low growing too - and the weight of it is dragging the branches nearer to the ground.   The fern, I'm very pleased to say, has perked up considerably and is looking great.

In fact, the "woodland area" is quite possibly my favourite bit of the garden at the moment - and Finn's too by the look of things!   The jasmine which I planted when I moved in has gone mad this year and is beginning to cover the shed.  Can't wait for the flowers to appear as they smell wonderful.

Only one geranium flower so far, but lots of buds on the plant.

Not quite so many aquilegias this year - but the ones I have got are very tall and leggy - which is why I think there aren't too many of them.  They're not man enough to stand up to Finn charging around knocking them over.

This lavender is beautiful - the flowers are purple and yellow - something I hadn't seen before Monty Don featured them on Gardeners' World last year - Mum and Dad were duly despatched to Heacham Lavender in north Norfolk to procure some.  The bees love it!

Here is my pride and joy - my Cercis Siliquastrum - the Judas Tree.   I have been coveting one of these since the Chelsea Flower Show last year when it was featured in a number of gardens and I finally got one at the Creake Abbey Plant Fair last weekend (post to follow) - it's going to be glorious!

Although clearly not a plant, this lovely bird feeder is adorning my pergola now - any more things hanging on the pergola and it may very well fall over, so I think this is it for a while!

And while Finn is mostly very good, I have to report a casualty in my garden - one of my beautiful honeysuckles has been wilting recently and I couldn't think why - it gets loads of water and sunshine on it.  However, all has become clear - Finn buries his marrowbone rolls near the base of the honeysuckles - God knows why - and evidently managed to bite clean through the root of one of those while retrieving his snack.  I've done a bit of a first aid job on it today - there was some tiny root left on it, so I've buried it deeper, put lots more soil over it to cover, given it a really good watering and put a load of the old garden tiles over it to try and deter pesky Finn.   Fingers crossed!