Lakes, Buttercups, Bluebells and Blossom

Last Saturday I was up with the lark to go on a walk in the Lake District. The walk started at Honister Slate Mine where we were the first to arrive in the car park. As we started our climb we actually heard and saw a sky lark, such magic and so beautiful in a gin clear sky. As we climbed towards Great Gable 716m the Lakeland hills kept unfolding. These are some of the stunning views.

Crummock Water in the foreground Buttermere in the distance

Looking towards Wasdale

The view of Great Gable from Green Gable

We could see as far as the Solway and Morecambe Bay. As the day progressed cloud began to appear as did fellow walkers. We ended our walk at Yew Tree Farm, Rosthwaite where we stocked up with Herdwick lamb. The best lamb you have ever tasted and it is always requested to be on the menu when my family come home.

Herdwick sheep and lamb

Another contrasting view is the one below taken from near the summit of Hartside on the Pennines. The bleakness of the view has a beauty of it's own.

Dramatic Alston fells

The old apple tree in the Artful garden is now in full flower, with the prospect of a bountiful supply.

Apple tree smothered in blossom

The strong winds have blown the blossom off the cherry tree and it has settled into pink confetti drifts at the edge of the lane.

Cherry blossom confetti

Alchemilla Mollis always looks so wonderful when it has rained or there is a fall of dew. The raindrops collect like sparkling jewels in the leaves.

The beauty of raindrops

These beautiful king buttercups are of such a rich golden yellow.

King buttercups

The bluebells are now in flower. There is a lovely walk in Kirkoswald where there are rivers of bluebells and wild garlic.

Bluebells in my home garden

The dandelions of last week have now turned into dandelion clocks. Do you remember blowing the clocks to see what time it was? The number of blows it took to blow off all the seed heads dictated the time. 

One o'clock, two o'clock......

This is Sydney the cockerel who has lead a charmed life. He survived being a dogs dinner. At one stage his head then his tail was in the dog's mouth. He escaped with a dint to his pride and a reduction in tail feathers, but he can still strut his stuff in front of the ladies. 

Stanley

These are some of my pottery houses from my shabby chic range. They look lovely in the garden surrounded by the flowers.

Pottery House - shabby chic range

Pottery House - shabby chic range

The daffodils and tulips are all dying back, which is good as I am needing to plant out my bedding plants. I have been sculpturing the lawn in the Artful garden adding curves to widen the flower beds. I have had several long days planting out all my bedding plants with still more to do. The light nights allow me to work late into the evening to the accompaniment of birdsong and a friendly thrush who comes within touching distance eagerly seeking worms as I dig.

Stop press Boozy Floosie is coming out of rehab next week. Rumour has it that she looks like a new woman. 

Rhubarb, Cowslips and Blossom

The weather this week has been extremely variable. We had floods last Saturday over 2.5cm of rain in less than 24 hours. The road to Kirkoswald was flooded both sides of Lazonby bridge and I went through a hugh water splash on the Kirkoswald side as water was pouring off the fields, I thought my car would get stranded. Thursday morning we woke to a good dusting of snow on the Pennine hills and the strong winds are back as are hailstones. The garden though is still thriving. The apple blossom is just coming into flower. There was very little plum blossom and the blackcurrant bushes in my home garden have fruit buds forming. I have moved most of the plants I am growing onto my patio to acclimatise before planting out at the end of May.

I found this beautiful almond blossom in the gardens next to Hexham Abbey.

Almond Blossom

This is the view as I travelled down from Hartside on the top of the Pennines. This view always varies and sometimes you can see as far as the Solway estuary on a very clear day. This road journey is voted as one of the 6 best in the world.

A stunning view

Dandelions like ramrod yellow lollipops are dominating all the grass verges. They need the sun to shine for the flowers to open. 

Dandelions rule OK?

It is not often your see the verges filled with cowslips, what a stunning sight. 

Beautiful cowslips

Cowslips close up

Blue and white go together well, as do the forgetmenots, grape hyacinths and aconites in my home garden.

What a difference the sun makes 

These tulips resembles peonies when fully open.

Peony lookalikes

Crazy Maisie and Looby Loo have relocated to the pew at the top of the orchard. They have both got their names down for the Hay Barn Health Farm as with summer approaching they both feel they could do with a makeover.

Crazy Maisie and Looby Loo chillaxing

If you have a surfeit of rhubarb here's and idea. It taste delicious.

Rhubarb Cordial

Ingredients
Rhubarb
Sugar
Lemon juice

Place 3kg chopped rhubarb in a large pan with 150 ml of cold water. Slowly cook the rhubarb over a low heat stirring occasionally until the fruit is a complete mush.
Sterilise some bottles with screw tops by washing thoroughly and heating in a low oven set at 100C.

(Homemade jelly bag -  place a piece of sterilised muslin in a fine mesh plastic sieve so that it covers all the sieve. Hook the sieve over a large mixing bowl so that there is a good space between the bottom of the sieve and the bottom of the bowl.)

Steadily pour the rhubarb into the sieve and the juice from the rhubarb should drip into the bowl below. Leave to drip overnight.

For ever litre of juice add 32grm of granulated sugar and the juice of 1 lemon. Put the juices and sugar into a saucepan over a low heat and stir occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Once the sugar has dissolved bring up to about 75C for a few minutes. Add a knob of butter to help remove the scum that forms on the surface and use a spoon to remove the scum. Pour the hot cordial through a fine sieve over a  funnel into the sterilised screw top bottles. Screw on the bottle tops straight after filling. 

The cordial should keep well. Dilute to taste eg. one part cordial to 3 parts water.

Flower Power

The weather this week has been April showers in May, warm and sunny then a quick rain shower that makes me either rush to shelter in the summerhouse or have raindrops falling on my head. I have planted out all year round cauliflower, rainbow chard, perpetual spinach and red lettuce bowl, the warmth and rain should encourage growth.

Last week I went to Acorn Bank near Culgaith in Cumbria. The are famous for their Apple Day in Autumn and they have some lovely orchards.

Acorn Bank orchard

This is a beautiful Japanese quince flower situated in the walled garden.

Japanese quince, the petals look as if they have been painted

This oak tree has stood here in this field at Acorn Bank for 500 years.

What stories this tree could tell

The tree is partly hollow but is still alive.

You can climb inside the gap

This flower I found in the herb garden, what an amazing construction.

Herb Paris

Primroses covered the river banks at Acorn Bank.

Wild Primroses

At one time I had lots of lily of the valley in my home garden. They have an exquisite perfume.

Lilly of the Valley, highly perfumed white bells

We have a lovely small red rhododendron in the home garden. It flowers now so it is always debatable if it will survive. We are still lighting the heater in the greenhouse as temperatures are dropping at night to 4C and below. 

Rhododendron

There are lots of birds, robins, thrushes, blackbirds and finches flying around my garden with worms in their beaks. Walking into my garden shed today I was greeted by a mistle thrush fledgling and as I turned around I saw that there were actually 2 little birds. Still too young to fly as their tail feathers have not formed. Their nest in on a shelf at the bottom corner of the shed and the mother bird must get in through a gap in the tin roof.

Mistle Thrush

I have been making a wall hanging for a friend. The background fabric is linen which I dyed in the washing machine and the flowers are made from mainly silk which I have hand dyed. It is to hang in my friend's kitchen. 

My wall hanging

Wall hanging Flower detail 

After a hard day in the garden

Spring in Bloom

We have had some very warm and wet weather that has meant the garden looks as it is on steroids as everything is growing at such a vast rate. The tomatoes are now planted in single pots in the greenhouse.

I have planted out the cabbages in the Artful Garden and put insect repellent covers over them so we can eat the cabbages and not the little critters. 

Covered cabbage plants

I have harvested our first purple sprouting broccoli. It only took 2 minutes to steam and tasted superb. This was planted last summer so there was a long growing season.

Home grown broccoli

The blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes are in full leaf and flower and the rhubarb will be ready to pick soon. The sink garden is looking very pretty as is the aubretia.

Aubrieta at the entrance to the Artful Garden 

The tulips are looking stunning in their variegated colours, the more the sun shines on them the wider the petals open.

Tulips, bellis and forgetmenots 

Sheer beauty

I have been travelling around this week and seen some mirror lakes in the farmers fields. They really reflect the sunlight and have a silver glow.

Maize grown under plastic

I visited the gardens at Sizergh Castle in the Lake District and saw some lovely snake head fritillarias, easy to see how they got their name.

Easy to see how they got the name 'snakeshead'

Also the bracken and ferns are just beginning to uncurl, a beautiful shape. Antoni Gaudi was inspired by nature in his architecture and the fern frond can be seen in his work.

Bracken frond

Hay Baby in my home garden has been hat less for a while, but now we have sunny weather she has had a new hairstyle with hair extensions. She spends her days either watching the trains pass on the Settle - Carlisle line or admiring the house flower beds depending on which way the wind is blowing.

Hay Baby

I am sorry to report the Boozy Floozy has been found drunk and very disorderly in the Artful Garden. She is therefore going into rehab to rediscover herself. 

Boozy Floozy shame on you

Walking along the local lanes on a gin clear evening I discovered this fungus on a hollowed out tree. Look at the beautiful bark patterns.

Tree fungus

Bee Happy

April showers bring forth May flowers, how true that is.This past week we have had radiant sunshine, small and large hailstones and snow on the Pennines all within one day! There have been several hot days and for the first time this week I wore only a T shirt to garden in, it was wonderful to feel the warmth of the sun. 

All seeds in the greenhouse are all starting to germinate and I am watering them every day. They are all too small to plant out except the tomatoes that  will need to be re potted this coming week.

My greenhouse

The birds are singing from dawn to dusk and the coir liner from my hanging basket seems good for nest building.

The Harper bird unique to the Eden Valley

The recent  news about the shortage of bees has not affected the Artful Garden where there are many rare bee species.

Blue Wanabee 

I love forgetmenots and  the way their colour fades from blue to pink. I have rivers of them in my garden. 

Forgetmenots

Yesterday I noticed that the pear and damson blossom is just beginning to come into flower. Last night was a heavy frost so I do hope the blossom will have chance to set so that we get some fruit this year. Last year there were very few plums or pears.
My beech hedge had come into leaf and this is 2 - 3 weeks later than normal.
The expression coming out of a hedge backwards definitely applied to me, as I grovelled under the low hedge branches at ground level, to retrieve leaves from the back of the hedge. 
I have finished my marathon clearing of the big border that backs onto the hedge. I had to clear some stone piles from previous bed clearances and managed to fill 12 compost bags of weeds, ground elder, ivy and nettles. There was a good feeling of satisfaction when I had finished the final raking of the bed. The bed is now ready for all the plants I am growing. 

I went on a bike ride in Keider Forest in Northumberland and found some frog spawn in a gully along the cycle track, another sign of Spring. 

Frog spawn

I found this stone near the frogspawn, nature can form some lovely patterns. 

What has made these patterns?

In the forest were several fallen trees with the roots exposed.

Can you see the shape of a pelican in the root system?