All I gotta do, is take a look at you….. (As Phil Collins sings on Groovy Kind of Love). A busy 10 days and more cold wet weather. But at this time of the year even rainy days and Sundays don’t get you down (to mix it with The Carpenters), if you grow blue Meconopsis grandis. So a glut of images to demonstrate why they’re such fabulous almost other worldly flowers come rain or shine.

All of the above images were taken in the garden during the last week, and for those interested in the rich ruby flowers shown in many images, we think it is a form of Primula beesiana (we collected the seed years ago), which seems to complement the Meconopsis colours, and matches its flowering time and preferred growing conditions perfectly. Primula beesiana originates from damp mountain meadows in China, the Meconopsis grandis from the montains of Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan. Does the fact that they both thrive here give you a clue to our local Welsh climate?

And at this time of the year there are a few other clear blue flowers in the spring garden which almost rival the intensity of blue, albeit on a smaller scale.

One of the best late spring bumblebee nectar sources, (another member of the Lamiaceae) the purple-leaved form of Bugle, Ajuga reptans ‘Burgundy Glow’

We’ve reached the start of the season for Aquilegia vulgaris flowers, many of which fall into the dark blue/purple range, and again are great nectar flowers for native bumblebees.

This is the best blue, and most floriferous, of several Brunnera macrophylla forms which we grow. We bought it as ‘Mayenne Blue’ at a plant fair years ago and it will flower for months on end in part shade, with these clear, forget-me-not blue tiny flowers.

Beautiful native Welsh Bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, are flowering right now – much later than usual over the last few years.

One of the native flowers which we encourage in the garden for its small pretty blue flowers and attractive creeping habit – Germander Speedwell, Veronica chamaedrys, which is shown here with the white Viola cornuta, which also litters our garden, beautifully.

The very pretty and almost unpronounceable Omphalodes cappadocica here in ‘Cherry Ingram’ form, a native of Turkish woodlands, but happy in our Welsh woodland, and if you can keep the slugs controlled it gives a lovely long spring display of clear blue small flowers.

All of the above images have been snatched in brief sunny dry interludes in what continues to be a desperately poor late cold spring for trying to get vegetables growing. Apparently this is caused once again by a misbehaving jet stream which is adversely affecting our wind and weather patterns. But we’ve had less time to notice such things with a screening of my film (Epiphany In Translation) in Shropshire, an evening garden group visit to the garden after the wettest 24 hours this year, a really enjoyable trip to give my ‘Botany of Desire’ talk last night to the Pembrey and Burry Port gardening club, and before all of this a trip with some of our cards and scarves to the Hergest Croft Plant Fair. This was somewhat disappointing since a cold wet Bank Holiday Monday kept many visitors away. Which was a shame, since Hergest is always such a beautiful and peaceful woodland based garden, even under gloomy skies.

Whilst wandering around the many plant stalls at Hergest Croft my attention was taken by a small stall featuring insectivorous plants – Venus Fly Traps, Sundews and Pitchers. Of course I’d seen many of these before, but not I think the extraordinary flowers of the Sarracenia purpurea, growing taller than, but alongside the actual lengthy pitchers. We hadn’t taken a camera so I’m linking by clicking here to a photo from the Wikipedia site of what the flowers looks like, and much more detail besides. The stall holder assured me that they were hardy, but I resisted the temptation to purchase one althoughI subsequently discovered that they are indeed native to the Eastern U.S.A., and Eastern Canada. Indeed they’re the floral emblem of Newfoundland and Labrador. Equally they are listed as only hardy to about minus 5 deg.C so although our bottom field has the perfect acid bog type environment for them I fear that they would not survive our low winter temperatures. But I was intrigued reading up about the stategy of ‘carnivory’ in plants as a means of obtaining the necessary nitrogen for plant growth in a natural environment where the soil conditions mean that there is virtually no useable nitrogen available at root level. So some plants in these poor wet conditions have developed a number of strategies to lure, trap and then digest insects, which are protein and hence nitrogen rich organisms and so a perfect growth supplement. Sticky hairs, lobster pot traps, pitchers and of course the fascinating trigger operated clam shell of the Venus fly trap, show the ultimate in lateral thinking problem solving/intelligent design/the result of random chaotic process (delete according to your personal world view),  common throughout the natural world but particularly dramatic in this specialised avenue of plant evolution.

But what about Rhododendrons? This year I’ve noticed that the new leaf buds of several Rhododendrons which we grow seem to attract insects – mainly a variety of flies, and then spiders. But the buds are clearly covered in a substance so sticky that it works as effectively as the ‘Hug Tight’ glue that the ‘Twits’, in the wonderful book of the same title by Roald Dahl, used to paint the branches of the trees in their garden so that roosting birds would land and become stuck, and so end up in the cooking pot. What on earth is the value of trapping all these insects as far as the Rhododendron is concerned? Well I have failed miserably to find any reference to this on-line, but I propose that since many Rhododendron originate from regions with high rainfall and free draining acid soils, then there may be similar nitrogen deficiency issues to those facing the Pitchers. And even without specialised digestive enzymes at work, I guess that the decaying insects bodies will lose their nitrogen quite quickly into the root zone of the shrub, and so in time be taken up and aid subsequent plant growth.

A Twit like sticky end for lots of insects and spiders on the emerging buds and leaves of Rhododendron plants. This must happen for a reason. Is it in some way protective to save damage to the new leaves? But Rhododendron all contain a nasty toxic constituent to their leaves, Grayanotoxin, so unlikely although Vine weevils manage to munch the leaves and live to tell the tale. Or as I suspect, is it a move towards carnivory to supplement a naturally nitrogen leached root growing environment.

A more overt ‘carnivory’ was apparent in the garden this week. We ditched our microwave oven years ago, and now if we forget to remove something from the freezer in time for supper it gets plonked on our slate wall to speed up thawing, or in this case by Fiona on a pile of logs outside the back door.’It’, on this occasion, being Fiona’s diet supper of rump steak. A couple of hours later she was power walking round the bottom field and thought she spotted a Carrion Crow on the ground with a large chunk of meat in its beak…….. She didn’t make any connection until she went to retrieve her steak just before supper time, and found the effectively slashed packaging.

2 days later a young rabbit was carefully skinned and picked or chewed clean at exactly the same spot overnight. Was the fox dung nearby a clue to the culprit this time? Why hadn’t the carcase been removed to a safer eating place?

The following night even these remnants disappeared.

Finally, as it seems with all types of garden plants, there are those that thrive and perhaps 3 times as many that have some novelty value and are foisted onto the unsuspecting obsessively collecting mentality of many gardeners (regretfully we lapse into this category) by the horticultural trade, understandably keen to generate turnover. In our very limited experience, Rhododendrons are no different in this regard and since they are now at their peak of flower in our garden, I thought I’d show a few of those that at least with us flower reliably and well. We thought when planning and buying Rhododendron we’d researched the subject pretty well and covered the 3 important factors for us of eventual bush size, relative flowering times and flower colour. And we bought many from a specialist nursery. But we hadn’t factored in for how floriferous or regular the flowering would be. Or considered subtleties of cold tolerance, and degrees of shade preferred, so some have already been moved twice, and still aren’t flowering! And like a lot of shrubs, if a particular Rhododendron doesn’t flower well for that fairly short 2 to 3 week season, then why give it valuable garden space?

R. ‘Dreamland’

R. Caroline Allbrook. This has flowered consistently well, even in the year after being moved. The flowers complement Bluebells beautifully.

R. ‘Doc’

R. ‘Grumpy’

R.Percy Wiseman

So these are some of our reliable favourites, at least so far, and all of these are in the small shrub category, so shouldn’t get much bigger than 1 metre after 10 years or so….

And finally…

White Viola and Pulsatilla seedheads.

Magic Terrace Garden

Copse and raincloud.

Thanks for reading.

Our garden at Gelli opens most of the year, when we’re around, by appointment, for charity under the National Garden Scheme. Please see our website for contact details:

http://www.thegardenimpressionists.co.uk

Colour in the copse with April sunshine

I moved the first ten N.’Topolino’ from the Big bag into their new position, with as much soil as clung to the roots, and watered them in once. I aim to repeat this once a week with another ten, and then see how the different batches flower next year. What I’ve noticed already is that other N.’Jenny’ moved at this stage last year, in the green, have actually flowered reasonably well in the first year after moving (perhaps 30 % flowering), whereas many bulbs planted dry in the autumn are completely blind in the second year. More thoughts on this soon, and the possible importance of worms in the subsoil, in this.

Time for more photos though, and where to begin with so much happening. The Tulipa ‘Flaming Purissima’are now at their peak, and are flowering just as the pink flowering currant is blooming.

At their peak Tulipa Flaming Purissima

 I like trying to match complementary flower colours like this, but sometimes the seasons conspire to wreck the combination the year after you’ve carefully planted an area up. However a consistently successful mix in semi shade seems to be Pulmonaria longifolia, primrose, Brunnera macrophylla and Narcissus ‘Jenny’, which develops over about a six-week period. I’ve added in Camassia leichtlinii which are just starting to carry the theme on, as well as the lovely blue Omphalodes cappadocica ’Cherry Ingram’. The photo underestimates the clarity of blue in these flowers.

Omphalodes cappadocica Cherry Ingram . A lovely spring woodland plant

 Since many of these need bulking up, it’ll be a few more years before the full impact develops, but already it’s a really pretty area.

The Tulipa ’Little Beauty’ are also now at their peak, and I’ve discovered a new combination to explore next year, planting T. ‘Peppermint Stick’ amongst them, or even a shortish white Narcissus like ’Jenny’. Last year the ‘Peppermint Stick’ were very disappointing and distorted, and I was convinced that this was because of residual effects of glyphosate weed killer which we’d painted on ivy to help with ground clearance. I’m very sceptical of the claims by many manufacturers that these products are inactivated on soil contact. Very little is known about the biochemistry of how many early discovery weed  killers work, and they really do need using as little as possible and with the utmost care. We are however pragmatic enough to accept that without them, we would have had problems creating the garden in the way that it has developed.

T. Peppermint Stick and T. Little Beauty

Along with the flowers and new growth, it has been a great early spring for insects with the warmer temperatures of late and lots of sunshine. Since we’ve had honeybees visiting the garden over all of this period, it’s been interesting to see how they differ in their preferred flowers from other insects. Once the snowdrops had finished, they’ve been almost exclusively interested in the Hellebore flowers, and Skimmias, as pollen sources. Apparently the bees from a healthy bee hive will collect about 20 kg of pollen annually which is made into a paste by the bees as a food source for developing larvae. So it obviously makes sense for bees to collect a lot at this time of the year when bee numbers will be starting to increase, from a winter base of perhaps 5,000 , up to 30,000 maximum for the foraging later on. But they don’t apparently seem to be taking any nectar from the flowers, and this may explain why they concentrate on just the Hellebores and Skimmias. In contrast, the Bumblebees seem to be great nectar drinkers and whizz from one flower to the next, principally the Pulmonaria, Rhododendron and now the common wild Dog’s Tooth Violets. Perhaps this reflects the fact that they tend to get moving earlier in the year, so maybe have collected sufficient pollen by now and anyway don’t have to produce the same number of larvae as a honeybee hive (typically a maximum of 150 per nest). Or is it that other worker bees are off elsewhere collecting nectar and our garden is just visited by a cohort of pollen-junkie workers?

The ‘firsts’ seen this week, in what is turning out to be a year of ‘firsts’, is seeing this small bee visiting the flowers of Tulipa tarda, Anenome blanda and Narcissus ‘Jenny’.

Solitary miner bee with yellow Tulipa tarda pollen

A rare visitor to Tulipa tarda/daystemon flowers

I’d never seen any insects visit these flowers before, which is why I’ve been very keen on artificial hand pollination to get viable seed produced. This bee seemed keen on both nectar, and pollen, as you can see from the yellow pollen sacs, and was fairly systematic in visiting flowers. It looks like a species called Andrena, which builds a mine under bare soil to produce its nest, but there are about 60 similar species apparently in the UK, so without catching it, I couldn’t be any more precise. I also photographed a couple of Bee flies (Bombylius major) on the same day feeding, hummingbird like, from Pulmonaria flowers. In fact I’ve just looked up that these bee-like flies actually parasitise the larvae of solitary mine building bees, by laying their eggs close to the mine’s entrance, and the fly larvae feed on the stored food and larvae in the bee’s underground nest …. so perhaps it’s not surprising that they’re both now to be found in the garden, having found a suitable niche environment.

Bee Fly - Bombylius major Linnaeus on Pulmonaria longifolia flowers...I must refer you to the quote from the Natural History Museum site by Dr.Erica McAlister Do look it up ! Being now very suspicious of quoting anyone directly, thats all Ill say.

 Also for the first time I saw a bumblebee systematically visiting primrose flowers – we have lots in the garden, but I’ve never seen a bumblebee on them before. And although it’s a regular spring visitor in the garden, it’s always a delight to see Orange-tip butterflies, and the first showed up a week ago, attracted to the white honesty flowers.

The first Orange-tip butterfly on White Honesty

Is there a more stunning blue than Meconopsis grandis? 3 weeks earlier than usual this year

 Finally 3 weeks earlier than ever before the first Meconopsis grandis, which always amazes me with the intensity of the blue colour in the 3 to 4 inch  diameter flowers.  

Of course with this explosion of plant and flower growth, the birds are becoming more active. A blue tit has used a good spot under the cowshed roof to re-create a nest from the site used by a house sparrow last year, and this has involved a bit of spring cleaning, but I’ve had the impression that there aren’t as many small songbirds around this year, and assumed it was as a result of the harsh winter. We’ve opted not to feed wild birds for the last 3 years, and still seem to have an abundance in most years, with no immediate threats from domestic cats. 

Out with the old , and in with the new. A blue tit removing debris from a previous nest

 We had friends round for tea 2 days ago, and I mentioned this observation on bird numbers as we sat outside in sunny weather with a brisk northerly wind. Shortly afterwards an unfamiliar bird flew past below the terrace. Was it our first cuckoo, or a sparrow hawk? Cuckoos are regular visitors to our bottom fields and we already have our first 4 swallows, returning 6 days ago with their distinctive “Look Out, Look Out” alarm call as I crossed the yard first thing in the morning. Then 4 days ago the loud constant grasshopper warbler sounds, a loud background chirrrrr added to the dawn chorus mix on a foggy morning from the lower field – though I’ve never actually seen one of these small birds. (There might even still be time to listen again as a podcast to the beautiful radio four programme on cuckoos by Professor Nick Davies of Cambridge University, if you didn’t catch it last week.)

The issue of the mystery bird was resolved about an hour later as our guest was getting into his car to leave. 

A pair of Pied Wagtails earlier in the week, in happier mode

A Pied Wagtail which had been collecting nest material and bobbing along the cowshed ridgetiles, flew down to the gravel of the yard about 10 yards from us, and walked around assessing whether it was safe to fly up to its nest site under the eaves with us standing there talking. There was then a dramatic flash of dark grey as a sparrowhawk flew out from the copse to the right, and plucked the little bird in its talons off the gravel before flying off down the track with it, to devour it elsewhere on the ground. Only last week I’d watched the wagtail preening itself, and observed how it only ever did so for a split second at a time, before glancing all about. Perhaps just then its attention had been focused on us and it had no chance to react to the lethal threat approaching from behind it.

A “Turn a different corner, and we never would have met” moment, and what a stressful existence to be constantly in fear of your own life – now there’s a thought, are birds capable of a ‘stress’ response over and above the hormonal ones designed to help with fight or flight?

The following day, we still had a pair of wagtails about, but the body language was different. No joyous bobbing along the ridges, just hunched still bodies, and later a solitary bird visiting the familiar perches, ridges and chimey pots with a repeated simple forlorn cry. 

A forlorn mate the day after the snatch and grab attack

I’m very keen now on encouraging as many insects into the garden as possible, since they’ll provide the food for lots of birds, like the wagtails, but of course a diverse smallbird population is always going to appeal to higher predator species. Apparently sparrowhawks hunt over a 2 to 3 mile radius, and in a year will take the equivalent of about 110 woodpigeons, 600 blackbirds or a couple of thousand smaller birds. My hope is that as more swallows arrive, the predator will find it less easy to have the element of complete surprise it enjoyed on this occasion, since many eyes are better than few. But for me a vivid reminder of both the complex inter relationships in any natural environment, even a garden setting, and just how tenuous a hold on life most living things enjoy.

Our garden at Gelli opens for charity most of the year by appointment under the N.G.S. Please see our website for contact details www.thegardenimpressionists.co.uk