May 5th 2002
In the garden there is a bit of a gap now
between the spring flowers and the start of the summer blooms, but in the
greenhouse we have some Oleander, which are covered in buds, and early flowers,
brought on by the sunshine we have had recently. The Callistemon is also giving
us our first show.
Callistemon citrinus "Splendens"
Oleander Nerium
The nights are still cool, recently down to + .3c,
and the last few days we have had a cool wind, so we haven't put any of the
tender plants out yet.
Our clematis collection is now at 50 different named plants, one more to go and
we will stop at that, we really have no more room. Yesterday we cut down a 9
metre plus Scots pine tree. When Lyn first moved into the house, is was only
very small. Fortunately another Scots pine was growing only about a metre away
from the one we wanted to cut down, so we were able to get a rope through the
top of the one we were keeping and tie it to the one to be removed, we then
started to cut it down in sections and lower it down on the rope, so we didn't
damage the garden below. We stopped cutting the trunk at about 3 metres above
ground, to use it to grow a clematis up of course !!!!
We have many birds visit our garden to feed, and two blackbirds have become very
tame / crafty. They demand food by either staring through the kitchen window
while sat on the sill outside, or by standing on the gutter of the conservatory
and bending forward and downwards to look into the window, who could ignore them
??. Their favourite food is Australian Sultanas, nice soft plump ones.
One of the Blackbirds standing on a pot, just outside the conservatory door.
Aquilegia
May 22nd 2002
The weather is much more changeable now, in the
last week we have had gales, thunder, lightning and torrential rain. Fortunately
no hail, at this time of year it would destroy many of the large leaved plants.
The Musa Sikkamensis came out of the greenhouse earlier this month, but is now
back in, due to the weather.
One of the blackbirds now comes into the conservatory regularly, we have also
seen it on the arm of a chair in the sitting room !!!, we will not encourage
this as he leaves a "calling card".