I won’t dwell on my garden too much this month, because it’s mainly scorched – it’s been so hard to keep things alive. I’m not boasting, but I think I may have mentioned, we have 8 water butts and they are all empty. I have to say, I love the hot weather, but we do need rain (preferably overnight please). I think my wish is about to come true, but unfortunately just in time for our holiday in Northumberland.
I think the warmer weather must have attracted this Hummingbird Hawk-moth – they’re one of around a hundred day-flying moth species found in the UK – but I’ve never seen one in our Yorkshire garden before.
Anyway, following on from last month’s post, I duly installed the side panels on my bird camera/feeder and moved it to a spot on the house wall, which I am hoping squirrels won’t reach – so far, so good ….. The panels were marketed as being a great deterrent to large birds, but …..
However, I am now getting lots of visits by cute birds, mainly blue tits and great tits but also a black cap, so I’m very happy.
Talking of blue tits, I sent *GR up a ladder last week, to take down our tit box so we could clean it out. Sadly there was one baby in there who didn’t make it into this big wide world. I was interested to see that a lot more moss had been used in the making of the nest this year – probably from my mostly moss lawn!
It’s a shame the birds don’t nest a bit later in the year because there are masses of caterpillars available now – on my roses, nasturtiums, courgettes – you name it, they’re there! Also my nasturtiums are covered in black fly – not a good look, but hopefully that will keep them off my dwarf beans.
Victoria has the most spectacular display of lavender in her front garden which is teeming with bees. It’s really difficult to capture just how many with a phone camera, but there’s no doubt she’s providing sustenance for a vast number of bees. She gave me a big bunch of her lavender the other day and this too was very popular with the bees.
I was surprised to find that my amaryllis had grown more buds – the first flower appeared 2 days before my holiday. I felt that these beautiful flowers shouldn’t be left in an empty house, but I thought GR might have a sense of humour failure, if I suggested taking Phyllis the amaryllis away with us, so I took her round to Victoria’s so she could enjoy the blooms. I have to say Phyllis does look very at home in Victoria’s hallway.
The most exciting news since my last post is that GR and I have a new grandson, Little Bean, baby brother to Little Bud, who has just turned 2. What a delight!
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Rambling Rose 