Four pictures for the price of one today. The berries on the Amelanchier canadensis tree have started to ripen and are being eagerly devoured by the garden residents. Cedar Waxwings have been occasional visitors, American Robins have been almost constantly seen and then we have a tree-climbing Eastern Chipmunk and a juvenile male Northern Cardinal. Lots of nutrition for the natives.
At the weekend this splendid and rather large (the wingspan is 40–50 mm) moth appeared on the deck and was being attacked by a Chipping Sparrow. So large is the moth that even if the sparrow had won the battle it would have not been able to eat it … which is perhaps why a friend came to assist. In moving to get the camera I disturbed the birds and they flew away leaving the moth still alive but less than happy with life. Later in the day it expired.
Have we taken our invitation to wildlife to come into the garden a little too far?
Apparently we have had only about one month’s rain in the past three months and the last few weeks have been abnormally dry and hot. A couple days ago they forecast the possibility of some showers but what we got was a drenching storm … so much appreciated.
Here is a part of the no-mow lawn (the “mead”) looking at it’s best under a torrential downpour. You can see why the wildlife likes living here with us … not your typical suburbia.
After the spring flowers on the uncut lawn area (the mead) we are now beginning to see the appearance of summer grassland flowers – including four species of clovers.
Why would anyone have a mown lawn and miss these pleasures?
A garden resident this summer where we have several tall trees from which it can sally after passing food. Great Crested Flycatchers are sit-and-wait predators, sallying from high perches (usually near the tops of trees) after large insects, returning to the same or a nearby perch. Their clear, rising reep calls are a very common sound in summer.
There has been a short hiatus in the garden between the spring flowers, mostly shades of blue some yellow, and the early summer flowering. One of the first is this beautiful white Iris sibirica. A very elegant flower.
This Rhododendron was hidden in a very shady corner of the garden when we moved here in 1998 and was not “doing” at all well. Rhododendrons can handle shade but do like a bit of sunshine. However, in recent years it has decided that as the environment it finds itself in is not going to improve it had better put some effort into making the best of what it has got by itself. This June it really doing rather well – colour in that corner is just what was needed … but oh, what a time we had to wait.
We planted three of these roses in the garden a couple of decades ago. One didn’t last long, crowded out by encroaching dogwoods. Two are still with us but overshadowed and so the leaves and flowers are quite high on bare stems. This chap was planted in the front by an ambitious squirrel and after several years of slow growth is now making a good living.
The flowers come only once and last a bare week but are quite gorgeous. The seed-containing hips are apparently some of the biggest of any rose and a red/orange delight in the fall. really though the rose is grown for its beautiful foliage. It is native to the mountains of central and southern Europe, from Spanish Pyrenees east to Bulgaria, and north to Germany and Poland.
This is a small part of one of the three newly installed raised vegetable beds we are experimenting with this year – dense plantings of tatsoi, mizuma, aubergines, roquette.
Elsewhere peppers, tomatoes, carrots, chard, peas, bunching onions and few other good things. Coming though just now are germinating bush beans.
Planned succession is the secret.
