The borders are looking more colourful as we’ve just put in an osteospermum and a dianthus, otherwise known as Livingston daisy and carnation. The osteospermum is cinnamon orange, the dianthus two shades of pink and they’re surrounded by three punnets of pansies, twenty-seven plants in total, in saffron, deep purple, pale lilac and lemon. It reminds me of Kaffe Facett’s philosophy when knitting Fair Isle jumpers: when in doubt, add another colour.
The Tang of Tarragon
The herbs that we’ve also just planted have already added a spot of colour to our lunch; Barbara roughly chopped a sprig of tarragon, which added a bit of oomph to our lunchtime tortilla, along with a few chives and some fried-up tomatoes and potatoes.
Plants, Plastic and the Planet
It’s great to get that instant effect but I felt guilty consigning the plastic pots and plant trays to the domestic waste bin, as they can’t currently go in with the regular recycling, although we’re assured that there is some further sorting for recycling before the waste goes to incineration.
When we did a lot of growing from seed, I’d save every pot and tray that came our way, but, after the long and sometimes dreary winter, we like to get off on short breaks as often as we can in the spring.
The Buzzard’s Stratagem
As I typed this, there was a commotion from the pair of crows that seem to be regulars at this end of the wood.”Karr! Karr! Karr!”, one of them croaked, as they began to repeatedly fly up, then dive down on a buzzard that was flying away from the wood. On one dive, one of the crows appeared to make contact with the buzzard’s wing.The buzzard’s strategy seemed to be to find a thermal and gradually spiral up over the meadow, using up far less energy than the irate crows, which gave up the chase after a few minutes.
iPad Pond Photography
I’ve typed this post on my iPad Pro, out in our back garden, and hoped to finish with a photograph of common blue damselflies in tandem, touching down together to lay eggs individually in the pond, but that was beyond my skills and patience as an iPad photographer, so I settled for an easier subject: a frog amongst the duckweed.
Right, time to continue my Battle of the Bean Bed against the chicory that is making such efforts to take it over.
Great shot of the frog in the pond Richard.
It was quite challenging, holding my iPad over the pond and making sure that I didn’t drop it in!