Spring garden update

We're hurtling towards the summer season and this weekend, there has been much more than a simple hint of the warm weather to come.  The sun blazed in the sky, and with Lizzie away watching Take That in Birmingham, I slopped the sun cream all over my arms, face and neck, and set to work on what I am calling The vegetable level of our garden.  It's a mostly concrete and paving level, separating the deck in front from the woodland bank behind, but there's plenty of potential to exploit here.  Over the last few weeks, I've removed some of more stupidly-placed paving slabs, revealing good, fertile soil underneath, into which I have planted some oriental poppies, flowering chives, and a borage plant - essentially, a new border designed with bees in mind.  The concrete nature of this part of the garden doesn't mean it need be barren of life, however, and the whole area lends itself to container gardening.  Since Easter, our windowsill has been packed out with seedlings and young plants, and most of these have now been planted up in pots of all shapes and sizes.  In have come courgettes, cucumbers, pumpkins, raspberries, chard, spinach, lettuces, strawberries, tomatoes, and two very proud sunflowers.  The transformation here has been great to work on - just look at it now (right) compared to just five weeks ago (left):

One new addition, which I'm hoping will really increase the wildlife we see this summer, is a new container pond.  I've packed it with some lovely water plants, a bit of gravel, some pebbles, and a few broken branches which create an escape route for any stranded creatures.  For a good wildlife pond, the water needs to be dechlorinated, good quality and as natural as possible, so I've found an inexhaustible supply - my indoor fish tank, from which I syphon out several litres of water on a weekly basis, and which I will now use to keep the water here fresh.  The result, I really hope, will be damselflies, dragonflies, and maybe even one of the frogs or toads that I have spotted around the garden in recent months.

Container pond

Wildlife, as you may have guessed from this post, is central to our enjoyment of the garden, and is very much as the forefront of our minds.  We're not using pesticides, and we're trying to maximise the habitats on offer for a range of insects, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles.  The neglect that appears to have been shown to the plot by the previous occupants is not necessarily a bad thing, for biodiversity appears to have thrived as a result, and it is this that we want to encourage further.  Exciting sights over the last couple of weeks include a female slow worm, a bank vole and, just yesterday, a caterpillar of a Jersey tiger moth.  Apparently the Jersey tiger moth, once confined to the Channel Islands, has taken up residence in Devon and Cornwall, as well as other south coast counties, and the hairy little critter certainly looked at home here.

Slow worm

Jersey tiger moth caterpillar

What else is happening in the garden?  Well, a rather lovely patch of oxeye daisies has sprung up in the front garden, and we decided to keep this when we cut the grass last week.  The front garden is also home to a stunning and beautifully-scented rose, poking over the wall, and although technically belonging to next door, is a plant we're really enjoying.  At the back of the house, the grape hyacinths of the woodland bank have died back, giving way to an abundance of white bells, whilst elsewhere the intense scarlet flowers of our azalea, the lovely mellow pink of weigela, and the butterfly-loved lilac of buddleia frame the garden, mixing a perfect amount of colour into the lush and healthy greenery of a garden in spring.  This weekend has given a taste of what the summer may have in hold - and I can't wait to see more.

Next door's rose

Azalea in full bloom