A Quiet Spring – March and April Part 2

03 Mon Jul 2017

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees, wild flowers

Tags

blossom, butterfly, daffodils, flowers, fruit trees, gardening, plants, spring flowers, Suffolk, sunset

Let me take you back in time……

The daffodils this spring were marvellous! We had a few warm days at the beginning of April that brought the flowers forward and then from Easter onwards the weather was decidedly chilly. Very dry but chilly and with very little sunshine.

The white daffodils look just like butterflies when a breeze catches them! Most of these flowers are scented as well.

The blossom on the fruit trees was good this spring.

Wild Cherry

Wild Cherry blossom

Weeping Crabtree

Weeping Crabtree blossom

Crabtree ‘Evereste’

‘Evereste’ blossom

Crabtree ‘Harry Baker’

‘Harry Baker’ blossom

Greengage

Greengage blossom

Damson blossom

Pear ‘Concorde’ blossom

Other trees with blossom looked wonderful this spring too.

Amelanchier

Amelanchier blossom

The Blackthorn at the end of our drive

The Pussy Willow was covered in fuzzy flowers

I took photos of some of the plants in the garden.

The Spirea in Richard’s new shrub border was very bright and beautiful.

A pretty primula had planted itself in one of the ditches that surround our garden

We have a number of orange and red cowslips that grow here and there about the garden. I have started to gather them into one place so they don’t get mowed before they set seed.

The King-cups on the bank of the pond looked cheerful.

Primroses and Anemone blanda

The clematis flowered at the end of the month and filled the garden with scent.

Clematis flowers

Last autumn I ordered some tulips and planted them in large tubs. I was glad I did when I saw the damage the deer had wreaked on those planted in the borders! I covered the tubs in wire mesh and left them at the back of the house to over-winter. I had no mouse, vole or deer damage at all!

These lovely tulips look more like peonies! Because of the cool spring they were in flower for nearly a month.

This is a male Holly Blue butterfly (Celastrina argiolus). There were a number of these flying in the garden at the end of April.

A sunset seen from the back of the house

This post has taken me weeks to write because I have been so busy and tired! I thought about abandoning it a couple of times because of its lateness but decided to post it after all and I hope you will forebear with me.

My choice of music is ‘Schmetterling’ (Butterfly) by Grieg, one of his Lyric Pieces.

Thanks for visiting!

Spring Days

20 Sun Mar 2016

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, weather, wild birds

≈ 53 Comments

Tags

cherry-plum, daffodil, Emmaus, garden improvements, greylag, heron, ladybird, Mallard, new furniture, primrose, rook, rook's nest, spring flowers, sweet violet, wild birds

There isn’t much of interest to report – we have been busy and we are all very tired but there isn’t much to show for it all.

We have had a new suite of furniture delivered for our living room and the old sofas and reclining chair have been donated to Emmaus a charity that helps and supports the homeless. They have a second-hand retail shop at Ditchingham, a village a few miles to the north of us which is where our furniture was taken. The new furniture is very different but extremely comfortable. It is also less bulky than our old furniture so our living room seems a little bigger.

Our old shed has been demolished and we have had a concrete pad laid next to the tool shed where we will put a new potting shed. Getting rid of the old shed, which really was an eyesore, has opened up the garden at the north side of the house. Richard has dug over the soil which was underneath the shed and will add organic matter to it to help rejuvenate it. Eventually, he would like to plant flowering shrubs there. He has also added compost to and dug over the soil in the vegetable beds. The potatoes are ready for planting and Richard will begin sowing pea and bean seeds in pots soon. The weather has been much too cold recently for anything to be planted outside and as we have an unheated greenhouse we daren’t sow seeds there just yet either.

Last week we saw quite a lot of sunshine and even though the wind was from the north-east and very cold everything seemed very spring-like. This week there has been increasing amounts of cloud and a lot of drizzly rain so with the cold wind it feels like a return of winter. The daytime temperature has stayed between 5 and 6 degrees C all the week.

I walked round the garden last week and took a few photographs in the sunshine.

A Mallard swimming on the big pond

Mallard drake

Primroses in one of the ditches round the garden

Daffodils flowering on the bank of the big pond

A Rook’s nest being built in the Ash tree.

Greylag pair on the pond

Greylags on the pond

I have seen the heron in the garden a few times.

I tried to sneak up on the heron as it stood at the side of the pond but it saw me and flew into the field behind our house. This is a poor photo that has been severely cropped.

I found a half-eaten fish on the path round the pond which could have been left there by the heron or by the otter which is causing owners of ponds in our area to wish the otter was living many miles away!

Ladybird

Mallards in the front ditch

Sweet violet

Cherry-plum

My choice of music for this post is Emmanuel Chabrier’s ‘Suite Pastorale’. As soon as I hear it I think of spring days in the countryside – cool breezes, sparkling streams, flowers and singing birds. I hope you like the music as much as I do.

Thanks for visiting!

Daffodil Day

31 Tue Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

charity, Daffodil Day, open garden, spring flowers

The garden with the bridge over the water

Every year a friend from church holds a Daffodil Day in her garden in aid of her church. We get to walk round her wonderful garden full of spring flowers and also partake of refreshments provided by her and her colleagues. There are stalls selling plants and cakes and other produce and also raffles and a tombola.

A wet and windy afternoon

This year’s Daffodil Day wasn’t as successful as usual because of the awful weather on Sunday. There were frequent heavy showers often merging into more prolonged rain. The wind was very blustery and many people were put off from attending. Towards the end of the afternoon there was even a thunder-storm!

Not as many flowers as usual because of the cold weather

Richard and I arrived in the early afternoon and parked our car in one of the less muddy places. We enjoyed a hot drink and a cake while sitting under the awning. We bought a couple of small cakes and a pot of raspberry jam. We took part in the tombola and bought two plants.