After the full compendium of weather recently, there’s been a growth spurt in the garden, especially in the pond. Serenading breaks out whenever there’s a glimpse of sun. We have basso profundo toads in the bottom pond rising through baritone in the stream and a few countertenors under the top pond bridge. World weary females are lurking under the rocks trying to avoid eye contact whilst the younger males loiter nervously by the stepping stones, eyeing each other in the manner of 14 year olds at a school disco.
We have blobs and bubbles and ribbons of spawn everywhere. The first batch turned into frozen tapioca during a cold snap so I am keeping a close eye on it in the interests of science to see if the tadpoles survive. As the Christmas hippeastrum in the kitchen has finally pegged out I have been tempted to scoop up some blobs to put in a big glass vase in the kitchen so I can observe development over the morning coffee. It is only the certain knowledge that I’d forget to move it in time and we would have a plague of froglets in the fruit bowl that deters me, and even then….
Spiky ruffs of fritillaria imperialis are wafting their foxy aroma all around the stream bed and I find myself wondering if Lyra likes this or considers it an insipid imposter in the manner of banana flavoured anything. Down in the nuttery we have the first drifts of anemone nemorosa. It is astonishing to see such huge clumps emerging from the tiny thread like rhizomes. I have been wary of weeding down there until they came up for fear of disturbing them but when rehoming some bits and bobs at the edge I managed to hit a mature clump and was astonished to feel the hard knobbly cluster that had developed. Tough little beggars indeed. My weeding, in the dry intervals, is not quite keeping up with the sprouting of the peonies and I can see some annoying dandelions infiltrating the twisting pinky red shoots. Do I leave them or try to get them with the snakes tongue tool and risk losing a spike????
I’m ahead of myself with the seeds though – the new water less and use plastic bag bath hats policy is working a treat. I shall keep you posted but the call for the pub has sounded so I am off….
Live from Ruthven 