Mid April in the garden

Blue skies and sunny days often bring overnight frosts and after the high temperatures we had two weeks ago most of the plants have suffered from frost damage. The leaves hang, a bit droopy and sad but they will recover.

We too are passing our second April in confinement, not so strict this time, we can go 10 kilometres from the house which is more then the one kilometer distance for one hour of exercise that we endured last year. Like the plants we will survive.

Nature continues and we have baby blackbirds in the garden. They do not fly away when you approach but this careless attitude will only last a few days and we do not have cats.

We have more and more Honesty (Lunaria annua) self-seeding over the garden. I love the colour and it seems to be able to find better places to grow than I would have imagined. It is perfect to attract all the pollinators.

The furry bee flies look cute but are parasites of solitary bees so I cannot help feeling a twinge of antipathy towards them.

This little bee had a slightly metallic sheen to it and it could be a Lasioglossom (perhaps morio)

Butterflies also take advantage of the Honesty and the orange-tip butterfly is especially photogenic.

I checked ot out onthe Butterfly Conservation web site. Guess what? It lays its eggs on Honesty in gardens. I have never noticed any caterpillars on them so the site must be correct that it prefers some of the wild flowers that are around just now. I’ll try and remember to keep my eye open for signs of caterpillars.

The last of the tulips are fully open now in my layered planter. So providing interest from the middle of February until late April is a worthwhile effort.

The last white tulips (Mount Tacoma) looked better on their own than while the pale pink (Candy Prince) were open. The pink was definitely a candy pink and looked pallid beside the pure white tulips.

Live and learn!

Confinement continues in the garden

The Wisteria is starting to flower in the garden.  A very special time as the perfume greets you whenever you step outside.

(We have Wisteria in the front garden,too.)

We are going into our fourth week in confinement.  President Macron made his announcement and explained the measures to be taken on Monday night, 16 March.  We had realised France would follow Italy’s advice and we had started our voluntary confinement the previous weekend.  In keeping with the spirit of the confinement we have only made rare trips to the supermarket for provisions during this period.

We content ourselves in the garden.  The Victoria plum tree is in flower, or it was sold as a Victoria plum but the plums are not like the U.K. Victorias.

The large plum tree has already set a considerable amount of fruit.  The mild weather was favourable both for the flowering and fruit setting time.

I saw this white butterfly on some Honesty.  I thought at first a Cabbage White but seemingly the veined wings point to a Green-Veined White, even the veins are not green.

It makes a pleasing contrast with the Honesty for a photograph.

I was pleased to see clumps of this dark-leaved variety appearing, I received the seeds from a reader.  They suite the garden well and I let them self-seed so I will never be without them now.

This fumitory has found a corner in the garden and will also do a bit of self-seeding.  I hope I do not regret removing it because it looks so pretty.

The Bluebells have started flowering at the bottom of the garden, taking over from the Muscari which is just starting to set seed.  The Stitchwort is very welcome as a wild flower that blends in well with my intentional plantings.

The bee fly is not so welcomed by me.  It is on Thyme here and can forage for nectar in a large variety of flowers as it has a long proboscis and a perfect landing technique.

These little furry flies from the Bombylius are parasites of solitary bees and as I have mining bees in different parts of the garden, I know they will be on the look out for the bees nests to  lay their eggs.

The garden is getting more attention than it ever has and we are having more coffee breaks than usual.

It never leaves our minds, though, of the people who are flat-out caring for others at the risk of their lives.  We salute them and support them by adhering to the rules set out to protect all of us.

Spring in February?

Nothing looks greatly different in the garden since the big chill.  However, we had the big wind next with winds over 100 km. an hour and the winds were higher in the coastal regions.   This left our area without electricity.  We were out for just over 24 hours but depending on where you lived others lost their electricity for longer.  In areas with no piped gas, houses are frequently all electric.  So it is a good idea to keep in plenty of candles and a camping stove.  The really super-prepared have a little generator but we have stayed at the candles and camping stove level.

Now we have sunshine and day time temperatures touching twenty degrees centigrade which has coaxed our plum tree to open its first flowers.

After the big wind some of the fine branches of the plum tree had broken and we brought in the twigs to enjoy watching the flowers open inside but they had hardly finished flowering inside before the tree itself had started to flower outside.

Some butterflies are out and from the freshness of this Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) it is a new season butterfly just hatched rather than one that has overwintered as an adult.

The winter flowering honeysuckle welcomes different visitors now like this early bumble bee (Bombus pratorum) queen

and the Carpenter (Xylocopa violacea)

It is not so visible from a distance but the willow tree at the bottom of the garden is opening out its buds too.

The catkins are still at their attractive fluffy stage but soon the pollen will appear attracting the pollinators to this important plentiful source of early pollen.

The Hellebores are making a big impact in the garden now.  The bees make them a noisy attraction but the constant replanting of the self-sown seedlings is paying off.

The different groups are spacing out their flowering times somewhat, depending on how much sun they receive.  I find the ones in full sun flower earliest.

The Bergenia is starting to flower but I dragged it from one poor position last autumn to some other positions where I hope it will flourish.  It has not welcomed the change gladly.  Still there is always next spring.

I was given a heather as a present but sadly with no idea of the species.  It was very pot bound, probably meant for impact rather than planting out.  I sawed of the bottom tangle of roots and sawed it in two.  I had just finished planting it when the bees appeared.  Well, that was one of my questions answered – the bees like it.  The heather I have had success with here is Erica x darlyensis which is more tolerant of chalky soils.  This one does not look the same as my others and has lilac flowers that fade to white.  I hope they will thrive in their new home.

It is only when you look closely that you see the changes in the garden.  The purple flower is self-sown Honesty (Lunaria annua), a bit early, I would have thought.

The violets, both purple and white varieties, appear as weeds in the garden but are always welcome.

In fact, there are a lot of good stuff in the weeds in the garden.

The speedwell (Veronica (perhaps) persica) is covering the surrounding fields and the garden with a haze of blue but this little flower provides much needed pollen and nectar for the wild bees like the one above and also the honey bees.

The hover flies too stop by for the nectar.

Gardening is not for the impatient.  I have longed for a Chimonanthus praecox for my garden and now eventually I have a bush and it has flowered for the first time.  I do not know the species as I bought it in France where the species does not seem to matter much but I love it anyway.  My main criteria was the perfume and one sniff of the heady, sensual perfume told me I had a winner.  Also called wintersweet but I think of it as the ice flower although the weather at the moment is nearer to summer than winter.