Into June in the garden

From May the garden seems to explode with flowers.  The roses fight to take pride of place.  The Veilchenblau is a favourite with the bees.

The Étoile de Hollande and I have a difficult relationship.  The perfume is superb but I call her a bit of a thug but she retorts that I have never given her a proper  space and room to grow the way she likes.  She has a point.

The New Dawn stays cornered at the bottom of the garden but has got more light this year, but not more attention.

I’ve managed to move my peonies into better positions and I have been rewarded by finding out that the bees will take their pollen.  However, it seems that when I move a peony that I unwittingly leave some root behind and another one pops up, which was not my aim.

The garden has taken up a lot of time lately.  There has been such a lot to plant and then the broad beans had to be gathered and shelled – a long process.  The poppies are too pretty to entirely remove.

When the first of the pink poppies of Troy open they are surrounded by all types of bees.

There are plenty of red field poppies but it is the big pink poppies that are the favourites.

It is really a time of abundance for the bees in the garden as the cotoneasters are in flower.

They are loved by all the bees and the bigger the bush the more noise of bees there is.

Every year is different but this year has brought a lot of these little beetles in everyone’s garden here.  They look like little beetles that eat pollen.

I often see things and mean to find out about them but I am too slow.  All winter a strange assembly of sticks, like a caddis fly larva pouch, has hung on the garage door.  I have meant to check on it until one day I saw a chrysalis protruding from the end.  Too late I thought!

Luckily, we were just in time to see the emerging moth.  I think it is Canephora hirsuta, or Hairy Sweep, a type of bag moth.  It is a male because the females have no wings.  This is the first time I have seen it here.

The bees have been busy in the Persimum or Kaki tree.  This year the tree has produced a record number of flowers.

Despite the ground being scattered with the excess small fruits it looks like a lot of fruit has set.

We have been having strawberries for a while now and our first raspberries are coming through too.  These yellow ones are ready before the pink ones and are sweeter with a good flavour.

The first flowers have just opened up in the lime tree so the bees will be in for a busy time in the next few days and we will enjoy a perfume fest.