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.

Midsummer finds on a midgy brae

I spotted a white foxglove so donned my midge jacket and went for a closer look. Then I did a Boggy Brae wander in search of whatever might have turned up since my last look. My searches are not aimless. I remember where things have turned up before and keep checking to see if they reappear. Sometimes something new turns up.

First I looked round the base of a wild cherry tree to check the progress of the Lesser Stitchwort that lives there. Sitting on an old, punctured Thermarest mattress that last summer my grandsons used as a summer sledge down the Boggy Brae banks, and peering through the midge netting covering my face, I took some hazy photos of it.

Lesser Stitchwort (Stellaria graminea)

In my quest to remember botanical names I shall think of this as the star flower in the grass. the Latin name actually describes it perfectly. Was stitchwort a cure for stitches or does the English name mean something else?

I enjoyed the haziness of the photos when I looked at them on the Mac.

Then I spotted something reddish purple where red clover does not gow but where a Northern Marsh Orchid has been known to pop up. Sure enough, that's what it was. I left its protecting Cat's-ear in situ and marked the spot for mowers to avoid.

Checking other known orchid spots, I found another Northern Marsh Orchid among the tall fescue grass on the south-east bank and the leaves and early spike of a Southern Marsh Orchid on the north-east bank where it has flowered for several years.

Northern Marsh Orchid (Dactylorhiza purpurella)

Southern Marsh Orchid (Dactylorhiza praetermissa)
at summer solstice this year

Southern Marsh Orchid,
in the same spot as above,
at summer solstice last year

In the boggy lawn below the north-east bank clumps of Star Sedge are making a pale yellowish haze.

Star Sedge (Carex echinata)

The Yellow Flags have finally got going and the flag patch looks good with the Meadow Buttercups around it.

Toad has finally got rid of his Wayfarer dinghy that hasn't been on the water for a decade. The Vice-Commodore of a local sailing club has taken it away to make it seaworthy again so it can be used as a training boat. We're pleased about that. I had mentioned that I needed to have it moved so that I could burn the pampas grass. Once every few years the clump needs to be set alight in dry weather to keep it under control. The little Topaz dinghy has been dragged up the hill a bit to be out of the way too. There's a big muddy patch where they have been and I discovered a new plant, which almost but not quite got crushed in the boat moving operations – boat moving operations that required a tow rope and the Rattletrap in haul away mode because the boat trolley wheels had sunk so far into the mud that they were unbudgeable without a fair tonnage of pulling power. Bog power!

This is the new plant. It's nearly a metre tall. The leaves are mostly basal and are flat and ridged with slightly ripply edges. If anyone recognises it, please do let me know. There are mosses and liverworts in the Boat Bog area too. More on them anon.