In which I decide to protect Sedum telephium with chicken wire...

...from being eaten by deer, and end up rescuing a fuchsia from under my neighbour's overhanging rhododendron and having a bonfire.

It was perfect spring bonfire weather today. After four hot-for-here days of strong sunshine and shade temperatures reaching the low 20sºC, today was overcast but dry and a pleasant cool maximum of 12º.

The sedum had already had parts bitten off by roe deer so it is now behind chicken wire. Hopefully it will flower more profusely than last year, and perhaps the flowers will even last more than a day!

Just down from the sedum is where the pale flowered fuchsia grows close to our neighbour's garden wall, so close that in some places it has even put roots into the wall. Other stems were lying almost flat to the ground because of overhanging rhododendron ponticum. I cut that back and decided to have a bonfire.

Gathering dead wood from around the garden, I gave one of the dead branches of the old rowan a bit of a tug and it came away in my hand. The hole at the bottom of the trunk is getting bigger too.

boot for scale
the bracket fungus is Root Fomes

There is still one live branch growing from low down on the trunk, which you can just see in the bottom left corner of the photo to the left. This has leaves on it. The tree is not giving up easily.

dead eucalyptus roots

Some other dead wood was provided by the now well dried roots of the eucalyptus tree that fell over in a gale in December 2013. There is sufficient overhang to keep a good deal of rain off. The bare soil is proving very attractive to fern spores. There are lots of tiny new ferns growing there.

In the area where the roots were when the tree was upright a clump of beech seedlings have grown. This–well, one of them–could be a keeper. Time will tell.



So the bonfire went well on a new patch of ground behind the apple tree. Meanwhile creeping buttercup is recolonising the bonfire site of autumn 2014, and the bonfire moss is looking tawny.

bonfire moss and creeping buttercup

Also colonising the old bonfire site is thyme-leaved speedwell, ribwort plantain, and mouse-ear.

ribwort plantain

thyme-leaved speedwell

mouse-ear, not yet flowering

And finally, I discovered yesterday that the May-flowering narcissus that I have been calling "My Sister's Narcissus" because it is always in flower on her birthday, 12 May, is officially called Pheasant's-eye daffodil. Here is a juxtaposition photo of the largest clump near where Toad stores his dinghy.