What a lovely sunny day it turned out to be yesterday. I worked on my website in the morning, and walked the dogs. Everything seems easier when the sun shines! After an early lunch I spent most of the afternoon in the garden, planted some sweet pea seeds and potted up some more seedlings that are getting quite big. Last autumn I planted some crab apple seeds and lots of them have germinated. A whole tray of little crab apple trees. I know lots of experts say that they will never grow true to type, but I love the experiment of seeing how they do turn out and these little plants are totally free and fill gaps in the garden with different shades of foliage. I don't like order around the garden, I love it to look natural and a bit wild but not out of control! It's quite hard to strike the balance. We all laughed when we looked on the aerial map of our road. In a sea of grey terraces, garden furniture and trampolines our garden looked like a little tropical jungle in the middle of it all!
The other day we fixed our wisteria arch. It is rotten in places and I know it will have to be replaced at some point but we are hanging on as it is going to be such a hard job. We mended it with some old shelf supports that were in the shed but as so much of the wood is rotten it is still a bit precarious. The wood pigeons are thrilled and are using it as a landing platform when they fly into the garden, I'm not really sure it is up to their weight! It is hard to imagine looking at it now that it will be a mass of green within six weeks.
When I was in the greenhouse I found a little spider that I had never seen before. It was completely white. I caught it, put it out into the garden and took a photo before it went on it's little journey!
I have looked it up on google to see what it is. Apparently it is a crab spider, colloquially known as "the white death spider" This is only because they are so successful in killing their prey not because they are a danger to us. It is only found in the south of England and Wales they are able to change their colour to match their surroundings. It can take a few days, but they can appear white, yellow or green. How incredibly clever! I really wish Scarlett had been with me as she loves insects and would have spent ages studying it with a magnifying glass. My eldest daughter has tried so hard to make her grow up not afraid of anything and I know she would have loved it!
Yesterday evening after it was dark I went out and scattered some wild flower seeds on the grass bank outside our house. We are lucky enough to be raised up behind a hedge, with a little path that in the summer can feel like we are in the countryside, despite the traffic on the road. There are some flowers growing on the bank by the hedge but I thought how nice it would be if this was a mass of colour in the summer. I'm not sure if my orderly neighbours will appreciate it, I have already been told off for feeding the birds in the front garden as they "cheep so loudly in the mornings!" I fear the conversation may go more down the weed route than wildflowers so I scattered them under the cover of darkness! I felt like a guerrilla gardener!
I'm going to have a look at the census this morning and try and get it out of the way and as Tom is working maybe take the walk to Lidl to get a few bits from there. I hope everyone has a lovely Saturday what ever your plans. xx
