Garden Diary – Roses, Rescues & Wildlife

Last week saw more roses blooming, me rescuing a plant and a bee, and lots of wildlife viewings.

Two more roses opened up their beautiful flowers after their buds have been promising loveliness for some time. One is a newish bush planted in a pot so that I can enjoy it on the patio, whilst the other is getting on a bit now, but still looking very healthy despite being bought when we were at our last house and so dug up to move here. Roses are resilient shrubs.

Talking of resilient plants, I accidentally bought a new one. I popped into a shop and there was this pathetic looking purple Lupin. All its bottom leaves were dead through lack of watering, but it was the most gorgeous colour. I took it to the till and said, “how much discount for this half dead plant” she asked, then came back with, “half price”. And so the poor lupin was rescued and came home with me for a good drink and some TLC. I do find it annoying to see plants ‘on sale’ that haven’t been watered!

Not that the garden has needed much watering recently, finally we’ve had proper rain. You can almost see the fruit swelling on the apple and pear trees.

The pond is also filling up nicely, which makes it easier to see what’s living in there. We particularly love watching the newts swim rapidly up to the surface to catch a fly, then even more rapidly disappear again, but last week one of them was on the surface for quite some time, allowing me to get a rare photo.

Some pond dwellers though thought they might like to come in and see where we live. This seriously cute frog was sitting on the doorstep, then moved himself to actually look in. I thought his behaviour was a bit odd and I wondered if he’d got a bit hot and bothered as the sun had come back out that afternoon and it was extremely hot. I got a saucer and filled it with rain water from the butt, and to my great surprise and delight he got straight in. Bless his little webbed feet!

And so, onto another hot and bothered wildlife rescue. I opened the greenhouse one morning to find a bee had been trapped in there all night. He was on the courgette flower absolutely covered in pollen, looking decidedly weary. When they get exhausted they actually look drunk. I shot back to the house to get a tiny blob of honey. He immediately started drinking it and within ten minutes he was flying around, and with a bit of persuasion he was out of the door.

The garden is full of bees and other pollinators at the moment, they are really loving the foxgloves of which there are finally more this year. I decided two to three years ago that I hadn’t got enough of them so started sowing seeds and it’s now paid off.

Most of the flowers in the garden are attractive to bees, which is no hardship to me when they are as beautiful as foxgloves, campanulas and roses.

I can’t say that marigolds, both French and English were ever my favourite flowers, but I plant them in with the vegetables to attract even more pollinators, which works very well and I have to admit they’ve gradually grown on me, (not literally) ha ha.

Quaking grass is another plant that I’ve come around to. It came into the garden with another plant from a neighbour. It’s only an annual but it seeds itself everywhere, for the first couple of years I went around madly pulling it up wherever I found it. I thought I’d successfully got rid of it but this year it’s back again. I looked at it dancing around in the wind and thought, ‘do you know what, I really like it!’

Monday 26th May 2025

David Austin’s ‘Gabriel Oak’ has woke up from his winter slumber 💕🌸💕🌸💕

Happy Bank Holiday Monday everyone 🌿💕🌸💕🌿

#magentamonday #BankHoliday #roses #pinkflowers

The newts in my pond have become rather camera shy, so this is a treat indeed 🦎💦💦💦

#wildlife #wildlifepond #pond #newt #mygarden

Tuesday 27th May 2025

One beautiful lupin, rescued from a shop where the plants hadn’t been watered 🤷‍♀️ All the energy it takes to get a plant to this stage, then no one can be bothered to water regularly! Anyway I got a £2.50 bargain & brought it back to health 🌿💜🌿💦

#tuedayblue #lupins #flowers

Wednesday 28th May 2025

David Austin’s ‘Rhapsody in blue’ #RoseWednesday

Doesn’t it make you think of blackcurrant ice-cream 💜🍦💜

#rose #roses #Flowers

All this rain is super good for the fruit swelling on the trees 💦
Pear ‘Louise Bonne of Jersey’ making my mouth water in anticipation 🌿❤️🍐❤️🌿

KitchenGarden #fruit #pears #fruittrees #growyourown

Thursday 29th May 2025

I had bought a few foxgloves, but as they are biennial (grown 1 year, flower the next, then die) I was initially getting them every other year. So a I started sowing seed to help things along & finally I have a lot more. The bees are happy too 🐝🌸🌿

#insectthursday #digitalis

This little fella got trapped in the greenhouse last night, he looks like he spent the night inside that courgette flower! 😃
Unfortunately he was exhausted but after he’d sucked up a tiny spot of honey, he flew off happily 🌿🐝💛🌿

InsectThursday #bees #savethebees

Friday 30th May

The fairies bells have started ringing 🌿💜🔔 💜🔔 💜🌿

Campanula persicifolia (Fairy Bellflower)

Great for bees & they seed themselves around the border.

#flowersonfriday

Warning ⚠️ Cute frog overload!
You all know how much I love my frogs 🐸 Well this one was just looking in & seemed a bit odd, so I got him a saucer of rainwater & look who got in 🥰🐸❤️ Ahhhh 😍

wildlife #frogs #froglove #TooCute #MyGarden #pond