Wild Wednesday – oops…

I had intended to do a Wordless Wednesday post but a) there were going to be words in it, although fewer than usual, and b) my broadband was running like a slug last night. So this is really an wild-instead-of-an-almost-wordless Thursday. Doesn’t have the same ring.

Though the spring meadow is going over now, there are many other areas where wild and semi-wild flowers flourish.

I have a lot of naturalised aquelegias, mostly on the edge of the meadow under the apple trees and around the bench. Amazingly, they hold their own against the bracken which constantly tries to spread into my garden from the really wildy bit next door. There are dry stone walls about 4-5 feet high between us, but that’s no obstacle to bracken.

I’m not sure if ‘wild and semi-wild’ really includes the Rosa rugosa hedges, but there are certainly plenty round here, and they are just coming into flower, like mine:

Most of the flowers are the standard crimson, but some are white and flushed with pink:

These are becoming increasingly common. I’d like to see more of them, as the crimson is so strident that it dominates everything else, especially the middle garden which has rose hedges on two sides. It could do with diluting.

Beneath the magnolia and the camellias in the bottom garden, the wild garlic is also beginning to flower.

The patch is spreading really well – it started as twelve bulbs which I introduced. But it does flourish around here quite naturally; the woodland edges and shaded road sides are covered in it. In fact, I could have just left it and perhaps it would have appeared anyway…

…rather like the Welsh poppies which spring up everywhere.

I do try and keep them under control as much as possible by removing the seed heads but it makes no difference. They’re in the hedges, the beds, by walls, in the greenhouse (!) and the only place they don’t appear is the meadow. Yes, they’re lovely – but there are limits. And the cold frame is a limit.

Just cleared mine out. Happiness, after all, is a well-stocked cold frame.

And, hooray, hooray, the first flowers are appearing on the broad beans. I can hardly wait – even though the beans are drinking a lot of water and acquiring lovely frilly edges.

It’s so dry – my water butts are almost empty – why haven’t the slugs given up? They like it damp, dammit, not sun-baked, but I’m developing visions of slugs enjoying the sunny holiday weather, lying on little slug deck-chairs, going for a nibble on my broad beans as a slug equivalent of popping off for an ice cream.

Hmm. Too much sun.