Dear Readers, having been away in Canada and the Azores this spring the garden has burst into full leaf/flower without me noticing the transition. Gordon Bennett! The place is like a jungle, and today we did a little bit of judicious cutting back, in particular of the green alkanet which, lovely as it is, was completely blocking the path. And then, after a bit of duckweed removal, we got the chance to sit back and see what was going on, to the continuous chorus of baby blue tits in the high-rise nest box. We tried to avoid looking at the adult blue tits, as they won’t return directly to the nest if they think they’re being watched. I just hope that everyone fledges successfully. We’ll keep you posted.

Anyhow, just have a look at what else is going on.

Sicilian honey garlic

The Sicilian honey garlic is one of my favourite bulbs, and as soon as the flowers are fully developed they’ll be mobbed by bumblebees.

Honeysuckle

The honeysuckle has scrambled up through next door’s cherry tree, and  I have never seen it better. It’s tangled up with some clematis, and I would dearly love the bittersweet to come back too, it was such a favourite with buzz-pollinating carder bumblebees.

Herb Robert and Red Valerian

Every year this patch of ‘weeds’ grows around the water butt, and every year my husband tries to dissuade them. This year, he’s given up.

We’ve had a good skim of the duckweed, so it’s a bit better now. This frog obviously doesn’t mind….

…and there are lots of happy tadpoles.

Large red damselfly

The Large Red Damselflies are back. What a pleasure they are, as they fly around like fluorescent red sparks! One was flying around next door’s garden, and landed on the arm of the child who lives there – she was delighted, and so was her mother. It’s so important to teach small children how to behave with animals, and how to treat them respectfully.

And finally, here was a visitor that I half expected to see yesterday – an ashy mining bee, the third species of mining bee in two days. It didn’t stay long so the photos aren’t the best, but I was just glad to see the little chap/pess. My neighbour said that she thought my garden was like a nature reserve, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

In the autumn I will get the whitebeam and the hawthorn trimmed back, and the hedge (which is fast turning into a linear forest) tidied up, but for now I just need to do a bit at a time, and to remember that the garden is for enjoyment, not perfection.