Flower time

It is wonderful how things change quickly at this time of the year. Here is what my garden has been up to. It's Saturday, which means it is time for us all to gather at The Propagator's blog, and present our Six things.
As he says, "Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything – a flower, a new plant, a job to do, a success, a failure, anything at all. Join in!"


1. We got chicks! We have five chicks, of a clutch of nine eggs. Here are two, posing rather adorably.

And here is one, heroically swallowing a bee. Look for the smugly dissipated expression at the end..

2. One most beautiful and most perfect peach rose, gently scented with tea and borne on purple stems.

 3. Our first cheddar pink. These are easy enough to grow, but this first flower has been three years and two location shifts in the making- thanks to my chickens.
Totally worth the wait.

4. I have always let my Edward rose grow as it likes, with the result that I had long bare limbs with roses at 8 feet high. Till I took Ms.Jekyll's advice. Tying the branches horizontally does ensure that they bloom all along the length. Take a look

 5. More roses. I did not think the red and yellow will play nicely together. But they do! Please do ignore the pipes..we plan to disguise them with rope. Some day.

6. And finally, a 'weed' which I love and do my best to spread. The pink evening primrose

Spring is here!

Finally. And with my garden waking up, my garden blogging has too.
So here we go. It's Saturday, which means it is time for us all to gather at The Propagator's blog, and present our Six things.
As he says, "Six things, in the garden, on a Saturday. Could be anything – a flower, a new plant, a job to do, a success, a failure, anything at all. Join in!"

1. Summer light. Long, warmish evenings with that magical low golden light. And my favourite corner in the garden with the iris patch, the bench under the pear tree, and the roses

2. Spiraea. Not something I am too fond of, but everyone in the village is. I think I have mentioned before how all the village paths are lined with it.

The flowers are called Aprilia here, for obvious reasons. It is not till I took a closer look at them that I began to like them. My discovering that the flowers are lightly scented might have something to do with my new tolerance for them. 

 3. A new rose arch. A gift to me from the Mian. He's a keeper, that one.

4. Lady Banks' Rose. Rosa Banksiae. Such a pretty little thing, with that luscious butter yellow colour! It took me three years, but she is finally blooming.

5. I may have mentioned last year that we had eight fruits on our kiwi plants. Of those, we got to eat three. But this year, it appears that we might get a wee bit more. One of our two female plants and the male plant are all over buds, the other female is trying.

6. Coriander. Mian does not like it. I do. And so of course, we have a field of it.

An easy swarm

I spoke about our heroic attempt to capture a swarm last year.

This year, we thought we will be ready. I have been lusting after a top-bar hive. Rather than the hole-in-a-wall system that we have, the top-bar makes it easy to separate brood and honey cells and to access them with minimum disturbance. At present, to access the honey, we need to remove all the new combs, which is distressing and wasteful.

Life got in the way though, and we still have not gotten around to building one. The bees got tired of waiting and took matters into their own hands. Remember that  old Langstroth hive I had 'borrowed' from A and cleaned last year? They all moved into that.

Mian and I were having coffee, and I noticed a lot of activity. The bees were swarming! It was a short move- just 10 feet away. And they were settled down in just a half hour.

And now for the top bar hive, which Mian still wants to build. As I now have on record.