Gardening
Rhododendron flowers and Skiddaw Little Man summit (865 m.) in the cloud
Gardening in Keswick in temperate cloud forest weather: there’s been 68 mm of rain in my garden in the first ten days of June, great for horticulture but not enough to replenish the lakes and a disappointment for visitors.
Fantastic to sight a hedgehog in my garden in Keswick in the vicinity of the hedgehog house I placed outside when I first took over this garden. This was at the end of a rainy day, the sort which my cloud forest garden thrives on. Also the earthworms and other garden animals which hedgehogs and some of the birds enjoy to eat: so there aren't a lot of slugs and snails here... This hedgehog seems in robust health and confident; maybe this is a female and maybe the shape I saw of its behind as it sauntered onwards suggests there may be hoglets on the way.
It’s a good year for flowers on the citrus trees I grow in pots on my patio in West London, maybe the best since the lockdown year, 2020. The lemon harvest looks promising, especially now seeing the pretty flowers being grazed and pollinated by Red Mason Bees (Osmia bicornis), attracted by the scent. It’s a while since I introduced a colony of bees to my garden and although they no longer use the nest I provided, I’m very happy to see that their descendants have reappeared this year after hibernation. Red Mason Bees do not have a sting and are not only harmless but very welcome: I specifically don’t use weed-killers or insecticides in my garden so as not to endanger them.
Photography in my patio garden with a manual lens used by my Father for his research zoology work, a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f3.5.
My Keswick garden meadow has been benefitting from no-mow May, rewarding with flowers. Now it’s time to make paths to be able to look after the apple and damson trees. Of course there’s been rain but also the long run of sunny days, with the day length now approaching its maximum as the solstice draws closer.
A few flowers in my cactus garden on my balcony in Marseille; this plant works in fives (five main flowers, ten off-shoots). But the aromatics (lavender, thyme and rosemary) have again failed. These plants survive in abundance in the harsh conditions on the calcaire mountainsides of Provence so I’m disappointed that specimens from nurseries can’t take the more reasonable conditions I’ve offered them.
