Easter 2019

bee on green alkanet

there is green alkanet all over my back garden and I love it! the bees love it, it will die back in time for other plants to take over

my monster honesty is at it's peak and also attracting bees

I was trying to organise my pots and water every one in this dry weather and I see the stem of that honesty is enormous at the base. I'm wondering when it started. It looks like it's been growing for a while, I guess since last year at some point. That's why it's managed to get so big.

my comfrey is in bud

just to the left of the comfrey I saw Victor in the shade near the fence, the gap in the fence is convenient to the foxes who come and go through it into my garden

at one point he'd been laying in the sun, I guess it got too hot, one of my sea holly plants next to him and nepeta to the left

I see Scarecrow has gone next door to lay in that space which I just cleared by pruning the cherry laurel. That huge stump to the left is left from it being cut down. As no one else pruned the shoots back I thought I better before it gets to huge tree proportions again. I asked my neighbour first so he wouldn't freak out at me being in "his" garden. He said "ok" - he has his moments.  

at one point he went amongst the pots to find some catnip (he is in the middle)

this shows him more clearly with at lease 3 pots of catnip (nepeta) visible

I got on the stepladder to water the seedlings and check the plants on top of the greenhouse

while up there I discovered Scarecrow under the honeysuckle

I also saw the anemone or ranunculus has buds (I always get the two confused - I'll have to check last year's photos and see if I can establish what this is). One pot is looking good the plants in the other pot has been stripped by slugs before I got it off the ground and hopefully away from the worst of the slug damage.

Polly Pocket was attracted to it as well but she was too shy to come all the way down so I put a pot of catnip on the stairs for her.

The only place I've seen pink-sorrel is a walled cemetary in east London. It's formed a perfect dome .

Looking inside the dome, one can see why. All the stems are unbranched and grow directly from the ground.

Pink-sorrel flower close-up

in the cemetary was also Oxford ragwort

also there I saw veronica arvensis, only the second time I've seen this, the flowers are tiny