Garden Glimpses, Update

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

Well, even if you haven't been blessed with the contrary name, how is your garden growing?

I think our Northern Hemisphere generally has been blessed with a lot of rain and the weeds are growing well, at least.

Here's how this Contrary Mary's garden is doing since my April Glimpses.  But please, if you are looking for gorgeous flower shots like I see so many green-fingered bloggers posting at this time of year, please skip this post.  No gorgeousness here!

I'm getting some roses, in yellows, pinks and whites, but not an abundance yet.

 Iris are everywhere, with more on the way.  My fave colour combo in the garden is blues and yellow, so I'm happy that they seem to self-seed.

They've pretty much finished their flowering - their papery leaves aren't very robust.

These are robust!  The self-seeding echium are getting pretty tall.  I'll stand next to one soon to provide the yardstick for this triffid of a plant some time soon.

My huge fatsia japonica died during the winter.  Anyone out there have any experience of dying fatsia?  Quite a few plants have met a similar fate along next to that particular fence.  Hmmnnn.  Maybe I should stop planting there.

However, a couple of the fatsias I planted elsewhere last year are starting to man-up.

The peach tree is now kicking off its leafage.  Right now, this is the totally abandoned part of the garden, the part I rush past with eyes averted.  It's the area that gives me the most stings and bleeding scratches and torn nails.  It's no surprise that I'm ignoring it right now, as I'm enjoying the novelty of having become a lady who has her nails done!

This is also an area I skim past, which has self-seeded echium and agapanthus and an sea ocean of crocosmia taking over half of the flower bed visible on the left.  That means huge amounts of digging to clear the spread.   Just imagine what that would do to my Tutti Fruiti gelled nails!

I'm trying to work out a way to rid this clematis of its dead wood without cutting off it's life-blood.

It's so difficult to identify what is connected to living growth and what is dead growth going nowhere.

The banana plant I'd struggled to keep alive for years flowered last year and I discovered it was actually a hedychium.  And just when I'd discovered what it really was, it died back in late winter, then carried on dying and is now very dead.

But life still bursts forth in the bird world.  Since we've actively put out seed and nuts (and mince pies) this year, our garden has become the place that most birds like to hang out and play.

But there have been no takers on the little retreat we created for them.  So birdies, please note the following availability.

Vacant.  Nesting box.  Available to  non-smoking  couple with plans to start a family.

And finally, the ceanothus I cut back hard a month ago is closing up the path gap again.  It keeps coming back fighting.

The devil won't be disappointed if he comes looking for idle hands in this garden!

A la perchoine.