Honeysuckle, peonies and foxgloves

I have never really had a favourite season. I love the freshness of Spring and Autumn, the crisp cold of Winter and the hazy Summer sunshine. As I get older, I realise that each season seemed so much more distinct and well defined in my childhood memories, though I am unsure whether this is a consequence of global warming, poor recollection, or the apparent speeding of time as I get older.

The garden has its seasons too of course and I love them all, from the awakening of the first snowdrops in early Spring, through the scents of Summer, the bright colours of Autumn and the "crunch" of frost-covered grass in Winter. The philosopher Francis Bacon wrote that "there ought to be gardens for all months in the year", with May and June being marked by "pinks of all sorts" and, as we race towards the start of Summer, I have noticed a definite increase in the amount of "pink" in our own garden, with everything suddenly seeming more luxuriant and plentiful.

Sadly, the spring bulbs and forget-me-nots have died back and I spent some time this week clearing the latter from the borders to make way for the early Summer flowers that are starting to emerge. It is certainly a time when traditional cottage garden plants seem to come into their own; the roses, honeysuckle and foxgloves are all blooming and the lupins, peonies and satin flowers are not far behind.

I tend to allow the foxgloves and satin flowers to self seed freely within the garden and am experimenting with taking cuttings from the roses and peonies. I also tried propagating some of my honeysuckle this week, by both cuttings and layering (bending a vine towards the ground and burying it where it touches the surface). I used a similar technique last year with my gooseberry bushes and winter jasmine and both seem to have rooted well.

Honeysuckle is one of my favourite plants. Its scent evokes memories of childhood (we had a lovely honeysuckle climbing over an arch in our garden when I was a child) and conjures romantic images of the perfect cottage garden. It has the added benefit of being an important source of food and shelter to many small birds, mammals and insects and is vital to the White Admiral butterfly, which lays its eggs on the leaves of honeysuckle growing in woodland. A quirk of the plant means that honeysuckle vines will always naturally grow clockwise around a support and this fact even inspired the comedy duo Flanders and Swann to write the song "Misalliance", which details the doomed love affair between a honeysuckle and bindweed (which always climbs in an anti-clockwise direction). I have included an excerpt below, with an adjacent image showing a variety of honeysuckle growing through the branches of one of our lilac trees:

A bee who was passing remarked to them then,

"I've said it before and I'll say it again,

Consider your offshoots, if offshoots there be,

They'll never receive any blessing from me".

"Poor little sucker, how will it learn,

When it is climbing which way to turn?

Right, left, what a disgrace,

Or it may go straight up and fall flat on its face!"

Said the right-hand-thread honeysuckle to the left-hand-thread bindweed,

"It seems they're against us, all fate has combined.

Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Columbine,

Thou art lost and gone forever, we shall

never intertwine".

The birds and insects in the garden are enjoying the abundance of food at present and are constantly feeding themselves or their young. The garden was particularly noisy today as a number of starling and blackbird fledglings appeared to have left their nests at the same time and were flying (poorly!) around the garden, stopping frequently to beg their parents for food. I do enjoy birdsong (and the world would be a very sorry place without it), though I was getting tired of the constant bird chatter today and really felt for the poor parent birds which never seemed to stop for a rest!

In contrast, after being such a devoted parent for the past month, the mother of our little duck family seems to have suddenly abandoned her seven remaining ducklings. The youngsters still visit us daily and we had been concerned about their mother until she appeared yesterday evening with two males in tow. It therefore appears she may be planning a second brood this year. Whatever the reason, it seems the little ones are on their own now.

We have also seen three goldfinches (does that constitute "a charm"?) regularly in our garden. They appear to be particularly interested in our willow trees from which they have been collecting beakfuls of fluffy white seed heads, though I am unsure whether this is for food or nesting material. Happily, Goldfinch numbers in U.K. gardens seem to be on the increase, possibly as more suitable commercial bird foods become available. They often live in large flocks and have an interesting history. In the Christian religion, for example, there is a belief that the red markings on the bird's head were formed when it attempted to remove a thorn from Christ's head during the crucifixion. Goldfinches were also believed to offer protection against the plague and were kept as pets for many years throughout history, often being encouraged to perform simple tricks.

As a final nod to the wildlife in our garden, the following small tree (which I think is a Cotoneaster, though please correct me if I am wrong) has also started to flower and is covered with bees to the extent that, in the early evening it literally "hums" with the sound of them. It is certainly one of the best "bee-attracting" plants I know, with the added benefit that it is evergreen and also provides berries for birds in wintertime. We also have a small "ground hugging" variety which is yet to flower.

Frustratingly, an unexpected late frost last week has killed most of the corn and courgette plants that we had planted in our allotment. The warm weather we have had of late had made me complacent and so I was utterly unprepared for such a sudden change in temperature. I suppose I should have paid heed to the old proverb "Ne'er cast a clout 'til May be out", though (in my defence) one interpretation of this saying is that "May be out" refers to the flowering of the May Tree or Hawthorn, and ours has been flowering for some time now!

On a more positive note, three more sweet peas have germinated from the seeds I sowed in February! This was an unexpected, but pleasant, surprise and makes me pleased that I kept watering my seed trays "just in case".

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;

So long as men can breather or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.