I have been running with this late spring for weeks. The late spring has been a bonus, it has allowed me to get a lot of plants in in the new garden to catch the wave of May’s super growth. Most plants will then slow down and ‘sit’.
Last weekend was the cusp, when we tipped full-on into spring, although around here the Horse Chestnut candles are not yet lit. Apples, lilac and cherries are all out, the plum blossom has gone over, even the Blackthorn was late this year.
Last weekend was one of warm weather which started the fast forward in growth. Orange Tip butterflies were skipping about looking for Cuckoo Flowers which are now waving their dainty lilac heads in the meadows. The intense yellow of Cowslips jangle on roadsides.
This garden has come with a load of Spanish Bluebells (hate ’em) but hard to eradicate when established. In the wilder bit of the garden where it floods, there is a clump of what looks like a crossing of Spanish and English – pity.
Mole problems again, different garden, different mole. It has popped some of my meadow plug plants back up like organ stops, and got into the woodland ‘mound’ and popped plants up there too. And if it’s not moles it’s chickens ripping stuff up, or a cat going mad for the emerging Nepeta and repeatedly destroying it.
This last week has been very windy but the rain has also helped accelerate growth. A newly planted old tree peony which I brought with me from Bath has taken a hammering. I took out a snowberry hedge (hate ’em) and let the wind in, so now am hastily replanting with leftover hornbeam which will take a while to establish and grow the network of branches required to slow down the wind.
Wanted to visit Hunts Court at North Nibley this weekend for a couple more roses but I think it is no more – a pity.