Well I can see some. Can’t you?
Oh all right. Here are some more spottable ones – as seen from the Stiperstones on the day of our recent sin eater quest. The hill in the background is the Long Mynd – a small segment of its westerly flank.
Landscape
Of Sunset Over The Rooftops From The Allotment And Much Toiling On The Plot (As In Gardening Not Writing)
All of a sudden we’re having summer here in Shropshire, and it’s a case of catch-up at the allotment – not only with the jobs that could not be done over the cold, wet thrice snowy winter, but also trying to keep up with spring-sown plants that are romping every which way and need to be put somewhere. The ‘somewhere’ inevitably needs more preparation than I’d realised, and more digging than I’d hoped to do, given my no-dig pipe dream objectives. I’m beginning to think our Silurian Clag really needs total soil replacement – as in complete interment by a foot of decent loamy earth. And if that’s down to me, then that means making humungous quantities of compost. It could take years.
Yesterday I did five solid hours of labouring under the sun. The new plot by the polytunnel was alive with bee-hum. The bees were whizzing by with such greedy intent among the raspberry flowers, I could actually feel the air move as they passed me. Bbbzzzzzzzzoom. And then the birds were singing their hearts out – loud, louder, loudest – especially the blackbirds. Which reminded me to put netting over the strawberries. I ate my first sun-warmed strawberry yesterday – the best strawberry of all – that first one.
The five hours slipped away. Gardener’s time is of course quite different from everyone else’s. He Who Waits At The Farrell Establishment never knows when supper is happening. Also when I do decide to head for home the light is usually so diverting that I have to start taking photos. Besides, the raggedy old allotments are a wonderful place to be at sundown – when you have put the spade away and shut up the shed – the wide views over Wenlock; the scents of growing; the quietness of plants.
copyright 2018 Tish Farrell
The Changing Seasons ~ May Has Been Very Yellow
Spring has been all of a gallop this month, as if plant life is set on making up for lost time. Within the space of two weeks the rapeseed field behind the house went from muddy, over-wintered, pigeon-scoffed plants, scarcely a foot high – to a billowing yellow sea taller than me. (Oh, the unbridled power of agri-chemicals!) It has anyway been great fun walking down the tractor trails within the crop, completely surrounded by sweet-smelling eye-high yellowness, and coming home covered in petals.
Now though, the flowers have almost gone, helped on their way by the last two days of storm and cloud burst. This morning it is foggy over the Edge. Fog in May? And I can’t see the wood at the top of the field.
In the garden there have been changes too. Behind the house, on our top level, the last scrap of lawn had been dug up, and the shed of He Who Builds Sheds And Binds Books now has a smart gravel forecourt, complete with red geranium in pot, which really isn’t what a chap wants outside his lathe and screw-collection domain, but I think looks jolly. Btw: the shed doesn’t actually have a chimney. Not too keen on the plastic water butt, but it’s there for now – water-gathering over aesthetics.
Our neighbour Roger also gave us some wooden sleeper pieces, left over from his own garden make-over, and these have now been used to contain the main herbaceous border beside said shed. The border has been blooming with aquilegias which are now giving way to alliums, foxgloves, euphorbia and oriental poppies. I have also put in the plants bought at the Arley Plant Collector’s Fair last week (previous post), and am looking forward to china blue scabious and sweet scented phlox in a few weeks’ time. The bed is now officially FULL.
The narrow border on the left hand side of the gravel, and above our kitchen door, has also been given a containing wooden edge by re-purposing timber thrown on the bonfire heap at the allotment and duly carried home across the field. Yesterday I noticed that the small Coxes apple tree that is growing there is now busy making apples. So soon. It was all blossom only last week.
Now shed-building man is wondering what he can do to the old privies to stop them being head-banging, dysfunctional garden sheds, this while still retaining rustic quirkiness. At the moment a very fine, self-planted foxglove is growing beside them so operations are presently on hold.
Out at the front of the house, half of our boundary is open to the kerb-side. I have replanted the border with assorted verbascum, alliums, centaurea, hesperis, foxgloves, hellenium hoopesii (very yellow), Whistling Jack (a magenta, Byzantine gladiolus) and a few other things, including a small weeping crab apple called Red Jade. This border is my cultivated response to motorists who insist on breaking the 30mph speed limit (and the law) by speeding along Sheinton Street at 40mph and above.
And now here are more scenes from the Farrells’ May garden, beginning at the front. It’s all rather rampant:
And in the back garden:
Please visit Su to see scenes from her recent trip round NZ’s South Island
Plant Collectors’ Fair At Arley Arboretum
Set within a walled garden above the River Severn on the Worcestershire border is one of the oldest and finest arboreta in Britain. It was begun around 1800 by Earl Mountnorris who owned the Upper Arley village estate. But by the 1950s both arboretum and the village cottages had fallen into neglect. Enter Roger Turner, Midlands philanthropist and iron and steel man. He set about restoring the arboretum and brought Arley village back to life, repairing properties, building new homes and a community centre. When he died in 1999, the estate was left to his Charitable Trust. The arboretum was first opened to the public in 2002, its objectives both recreational and educational. So could one a imagine a lovelier venue for last Saturday’s gathering of nurserymen and women all selling their very special garden plants?
The fair was set up just outside the walled garden entrance and overlooking the parkland. For the small price of £2.50 you could go to the fair and spend the whole day in the arboretum.
And then into the arboretum:
Arley Aboretum and Upper Arley village for more information.
“How Green Was My Valley” ~ Thursday’s Special
Here in Shropshire, May has been a month filled with much welcome sunshine. Everywhere you look, the countryside is brimming with green-ness, so no colour enhancement was needed for this view across the River Severn at Arley (just south of Bridgnorth). It was taken last Saturday at the Arley Arboretum Plant Collectors’ Fair – post to follow.
I’m sorry you can’t see the river, which is actually quite wide at this point (hiding behind the foreground hawthorns). Nor can you see the railway line that runs midway across the frame. For this is the landscape through which you will pass if you have the good fortune to board the Severn Valley Railway, and chug along the river behind a good old coal-fired locomotive, trailing its long white steamy banner as it goes, and not a few smuts. Clackety-clack and much toot-tooting and many a rustic halt en route. Oh, the nostalgia!
Thursday’s Special: saturation
How Green Was My Valley a 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn set in Wales: tales of the Morgan coal mining family. Also a 1941 John Ford film.
Inside A Copper Beech Looking Out
The beech tree is in Much Wenlock’s Linden Field ~ the place where the modern Olympic Movement had its beginnings in 1850
And every July the Wenlock Olympian Games are still held on and around the Linden Field and at the adjacent William Penny Brookes School, which is fittingly named after the Games’ founder.
Coming Home From The Allotment ~ The Priory Ruins At Sunset
Lately heavy labouring on the Farrell allotment plots has been taking precedence over blogging. Tasks have included sowing, weeding, mulching, path mowing, plot edging, erecting pea and bean sticks, planting out the broad bean seedlings (long pod, crimson flowered and the Sutton varieties), beetroot (golden, boltardy and cylindrical), cauliflower, broccoli and pea seedlings.
I have also recycled several builder’s pallets (rescued from the communal bonfire heap) to make two new compost bins, and to extend an existing one into a double-bay effort. And I have been gathering comfrey, grass cuttings, shredded cardboard, household peelings and whatever greenery I can crop from neighbours’ neglected plots to feed the bins. I am aiming for mega-quantities of compost come the autumn so I can give all the raised beds a deep protective layer that will hopefully prevent the soil from turning into concrete over the winter, which is what happened to any exposed surface this year.
In the polytunnel over-wintered lambs lettuce, Chinese mustards, leeks, Russian and Tuscan kale are being eaten and/or cleared to make way for the tomatoes, peppers and the single cucumber plant that I managed to germinate. All in all, it feels like a gardening marathon, but doubtless it will (mostly) be worth it. And one good thing about being up at the allotment at this time of year is the chance of taking sunset photographs of the town on the way home.
First though evidence of the labours:
And now we’ve got the gardening done, more early evening shots around town as I head home; views from south through east to north-east:
At Six A.M. From My Window ~ Rooks Waking Up
Unlikely – that I was awake enough to take this photo
Unlikely – the early morning yellowness of an oil seed rape field
Five Minutes In A Very Yellow Field ~ Regular Random
The field of oil seed rape behind the house has burst into full yellowness under our sudden heat wave. Its scent is lovely too – for now. Later it will be all downhill to odour of rotting cabbage. Something to look forward to then. In the meantime I’ve been having great fun snapping away and capturing the glow in all directions. Those of you who often visit this spot will recognise the old windmill on top of Windmill Hill, seen here from my less than usual angle.
Regular Random Frequently Flying Scientist Desley Jane challenges us to spend only five minutes with a given subject. Please visit her to find out more.
Land Lines On Llanddwyn IsLand
These photos were taken on Llanddwyn Island, Anglesley, North Wales a couple of Christmases ago. It was a brilliant sunshiny day, but the wind was cruel.
Llanddwyn bound: crossing to the isle of lovers for more about the island that is really a peninsula of Newborough Beach.
