ONCE MORE INTO THE HEDGEROW

I’m seeking comfort in the wild plants at the moment.  They seem so resilient in the near desert conditions down here and the hedgerows continue to look abundant.  Weeds and wild flowers are tenacious and the perennial ones have very deep roots that can tap into what little water there is left in the soil.  The arid winds have blown off the petals on the Dogroses and Hogweed and Honeysuckle are taking their turn now, together with the Wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana).

MIDNIGHT BATHING

     

Our field is full of buttercups at the moment, which look wonderful in the sunshine and distract the eye from the equally large numbers of thistles growing there...




There are not enough hours in the day for all the gardening I have set for myself (yes, it’s my fault entirely), but there are now more daylight hours in the evening, which helps a little.  I cease upon the midnight, but only for a bath, because – and it thrills me just to write this –  a nightingale has been singing in the trees outside the bathroom window.  It sings its heart out every evening from around 10pm until I’m not sure when,  but way past midnight.  My family have pretended to be as excited and troop obediently upstairs or outside to hear it.  “Yeah, cool.”, they say in their down-beat way.  I know they’re not impressed now, but they’ll look back on this when they’re ninety and tell their great grandchildren that once there were nightingales.  It is magical and I shall learn more about them.

DOG ROSE DAYS

I’m so enjoying the hedgerows this year - perhaps it’s the endlessly glorious weather, but whatever it is, I feel like planting a hedgerow in my garden; nature seems to be managing things better than me at the moment and the wild plants are coping with the conditions more successfully than all my pampered garden plants.

LATE FROSTS ON THE EARLIES

 Regardless of the weather, spring is marching on and although some plants are late or out of sequence with one another, most are just getting on with it.   

I’m trying to work out if it’s partly the challenge of gardening that keeps me interested - the fact that no season is ever quite the same and something always catches me out.  I’ve been careful not to plant out anything tender yet, but thought I’d be safe with my early potatoes. Not so.  They caught the frost badly overnight and are looking very sorry for themselves.  They might recover and send up new growth from below the ground - fingers crossed.

GREEN AND PLEASANT

It's all mimsy in the lanes and groves.  The cow parsley billows on all our edges and despite the desert conditions here it’s still lush and green in the fields.  The scene in late spring is almost too lovely - apparently pictures of idyllic country views from the Weald of Kent and Sussex were used in the war to remind everyone what we were fighting for.

It’s the time of the year when all the umbellifers (flowers with ‘umberella’ shaped heads) are in bloom.  The hedgerows are awash with their delicate creamy umbels.  Not just cow Parsley and Elderflowers, although round here they don’t leave room for much else to bloom.