In the garden 23 June 2016

The woodshed rose (Rosa Albertine, I think) and this year's first amanita mushroom that I kicked over by mistake while weeding the north-west birch bank. Not surprisingly, it's an amanita associated with birch: Ringless Birch Amanita.








Dog roses in the hedge at the bottom.



The progress of the Southern Marsh Orchid, and Reflexed Stonecrop on the drystone wall that hasn't, yet, been eaten by deer.

Progress of the old rowan

At the bottom of the old rowan new shoots are growing on and near the still living branch that you can see in this pic taken in March:

 

Like the live branch, the shoots are growing from the base of the tree. What surprises me is that they are right next to the root fomes fungus (Heterobasidion annosum) that's also growing down there. I've put a small orange arrow near the bottom of the left photo below to show where the fungus is. I don't know if the live branch and the new shoots will overcome the fungus's attempt to kill the tree but they are having a jolly good try. Time will tell. There is more of the fungus fruit body on the other side of the old trunk and rhizomorphs growing right up under bark.

Also near the base of the old trunk I found a tiny wild rose the other day. It's raining heavily just now so I won't go and check if it's still there or whether its leaves have been eaten by the roe doe who was eating the umbrella tree a few minutes ago. She just looked at me when I went out to pick up my pots of thyme and parsley that I'd put out for some rain-watering. She'd probably eat those as well, you see, though possibly not in the middle of the day just outside the back door. In the photo on the right below, the "umbrella tree" is the small willow with the convex crown on the lower right. I've trimmed the deer-stripped low branches off since I took this pic.

I keep finding rowan seedlings so we are not going to be rowanless whatever happens.

That little orange arrow may not look like much but it took me ages to work out how to do it, via Photoshop (grr) and then Pixelmator and with tips along the way from Toad!

One day to the summer solstice...

...and the woodshed rose is doing its stuff,


foxglove season is fully with us, and honeysuckle is taking off

honeysuckle and young birch growing together

It is perhaps not surprising that this rhododendron Toad planted "up top" a good number of years ago has never flowered. It is still suffering deer depredations. Hey ho. We think it will have red flowers when it has outgrown deer chompings.


Meanwhile, the splendour of ponticum, such as it is in its non-Tennysonian way, falls. Also that of fuchsia.


I love the word music of Tennyson's poem and I always think of that first line, minus the castle walls, when spring and summer flowers begin to 'go over'.

The splendour falls on castle walls

            And snowy summits old in story:

       The long light shakes across the lakes,

            And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

        O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

            And thinner, clearer, farther going!

        O sweet and far from cliff and scar

            The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

        O love, they die in yon rich sky,

            They faint on hill or field or river:

        Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

            And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Boggybrae being a little behind the rest of the world, Mouse-ear, Greater Bird's-foot Trefoil, and Lesser Stitchwort are just beginning. Have an African daisy while you're at it. These, like Ox-eye daisies, are doing less well than they were.




The chives are lovely right now. Bees love them. The leaves are always useful as garnish on food or just chopped and chucked into whatever dish one's making. Recently I thought of floating some of the flowers, which are also edible (quite strong flavoured so go easy!) on some soup I made (recipe at the end). Pale Escallonia, some cuttings of which I gave to a friend earlier in the year, is opening its flowers now.



In other news, Toadlet is at a sleepover with a pal. This pal, who is a singer and wants to get into the Korean Pop Culture scene might be moving to Korea this summer. Toadlet could not let her go that far away never having watched the Harry Potter movies so they arranged a Hogwart's movie marathon.

Here is the recipe for mushroom, tuna and sweetcorn soup. There are loads of recipes for mushroom and tuna pasta sauces so it was bound to work.

Ingredients:
home-made chicken stock (approx 300ml)
chopped onion (approx a third of a big one; I was chopping one for something else and chucked a handful in the soup pan)
crushed clove of garlic (I love splatting garlic with a broad bladed knife and a whack with my hand)
chopped mushrooms (100g or so)
small tin white tuna in brine, drained

Boil these up, cool a little and whizz in a blender. Then add

small tin of sweetcorn kernels in water (drained)

Serve with your garnishings of choice. All or some of these work: dash of cream, chopped parsley, chopped chive leaves, chive flowers.

The lane looking dry

In the herbage between the tyre tracks of the lane that leads only to 'oor hoos' and a field a Northern Marsh Orchid has sprung up. Fortunately the vehicle traffic on the lane is usually just driven by Toad, me and the postman so it might survive long enough to produce seed.

You might be able to pick it out just to the left of the middle in this pic above.

It is really very unusual to see the lane looking dry so I'm recording it! Took this pic yesterday. It rained during the night so normality has resumed. The ferns on the right are in front of our neighbours' garden wall. When you get to the fuchsias that's us.

The middle part of the back lawn is looking fabulous–better than I've ever seen it–with heath bedstraw. There is some pignut in the foreground and one orange hawkweed; masses of both elsewhere in the garden.

last night's sky to the north at 9pm

More roe rose nibblings

The rose-nibbling deer have visited again. On Saturday this part of the Den Rose had several flower buds. The blighters left one.

Something tells me I'm not going to have to prune this much this year.

They also munched the front porch rose, "Irrepressible", again.

They munched on the fern nearby as well. They can eat as much fern as they like!

Fortunately the Den Rose, being a rambler, has rambled along the side of the den and I've propped up some of the shoots, hopefully keeping some buds out of deer reach.

Den rose against the den

Buttercups all the way down

From the back terrace down to the boggy bottom (otherwise known as the Boat Bog because Toad's Wayfarer dinghy sat there unused for nearly a decade; he has freecycled it now and only has the wee Topaz) of the Boggy Brae it's buttercups all the way down – a little over 40 metres. You might be able to make out some sticks and black string (made out of Toadlet's old school tights! Re-use, recycle and all that jazz). I've marked where Whorled Caraway is growing there and in two other places so Toad doesn't mow them down by mistake.

Buttercups all the way across from the Boat Bog (which is less boggy right now than I've ever seen it in ten years; we've had a good, long-for-here dry spell) and diagonally across the front lawn too:

from bottom to where the hedge appears to end
(it doesn't!) is about 30 metres

There are no mow areas in here too, marking patches of wild angelica and primroses. Both are spreading because I leave them to seed each year. The flag irises are doing well. I counted eighty flowers the other day. I've stopped counting. The sort of effect I'm after is like this field of wild angelica and purple loosestrife that I saw on my way to Oban a couple of years ago in August. We haven't any purple loosestrife yet but there's knapweed and Devil's-bit Scabious aplenty. Marsh thistles too if I let them; I do rather discourage them as they are a bit imperialistic in their march for dominance.

The Libertaria grandiflora that appeared in the Boat Bog last year under grey sallow is doing well as you can see. I hope it spreads.

Beside the hedge (see above), while I was pacing the buttercups' spread, I found a Northern Marsh Orchid.

Northern Marsh Orchid

At the top of the front bank there is one Southern Marsh Orchid as well. It pops up in the same place every year, whereas the Northerns pop up randomly and never in the same place twice. I'm guessing they spread more easily by seed and the single Southern grows from its rhizome or tuber each year. I've found a good web page to read: Laneside Hardy Orchid Nursery. I'd like to encourage more marsh orchids. Below is a pic of 'Southern' at the moment (well, two days ago) and in late June 2014.

Another spreader is Reflexed Stonecrop. It grows on the dry stone wall at the top of the front bank. Last year there was, unusually, only one flowering shoot. This year there are five and I found some non-flowering bits on the ground below the wall in among the primroses. When I took a step down the bank to get that shot to the left, a little bird flew out from a hole in the gorund nearby. I was very excited to find what I think is a Willow Warbler nest. I scarpered pretty fast and hope the bird returned to sit on her clutch.

Willow Warbler eggs,
I think

Elsewhere foxgloves and honeysuckle are getting going and the azalea that I call the Salmon Azalea is blooming beautifully.