Photos

Bright yellow flowers of yarrow intermingling with blue echinops

Sunshine yellow blooms in the garden despite heavy August rain

The sky is grey, today’s news headlines are the usual shades of black, but the outlook is decidedly bright yellow. Flowers of Yarrow, I used to find them a nuisance, they pop up everywhere and spread fast. But in early August they are lighting up areas of rain-soaked garden all around Pond Cottage.

In a newish ‘yellow border’, there’s a big flamboyant Rudbeckia just settling in. An impulse buy from Caulders, the local garden centre. Hoverflies followed me and the plant out of the shop door. Seemed a good sign.

I often confuse the flat headed flowers that abound in our wild garden. Umbellifers of all kinds. Ragworts don’t have a good name but pollinators love them. So we let them romp too.

An impulse buy, Rudbeckia (with a cultivar name I need to look up) was attracting hover flies at the garden centre, some followed me out the door. More winged creatures followed us to the border.

Invaluable reference book: The Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe

There’s still a lot of green – after a few days of heavy rain the Gunnera and Rodgersia are now looking very much perkier in the developing ‘Jurassic Glade’ on the waterbank.

Summer days by the pond

A bright splash of sunshine: bold yellow Inula helenium at the Pond Gaarden, picture Fay Young

I spent a lot of time walking round the garden through sunshine and showers. Mostly showers, it has to be said, some of them torrential. But sunshine bloomed in borders at the top of tall stems. So tall you have to look up. Even when grey clouds are glowering, the sight of Inula helenium smiling down at you can make you smile right back. Better still on a bright day, that sunny splash of yellow is spectacular against a deep blue sky.

There are other colours from February onwards…

An avalanche of snowdrops tumbling down a bank at Pond Cottage: picture Fay Young

In Memoriam – a spring song in late summer

Early morning. Flickering light through the leaves of the cherry tree where the blackbird sings in May.

A wayward branch of struggling winter flowering tree that never bloomed until spring and then only on this one limb which had found an escape from the westerly winds.

But sadly, it has had to go. Or, to put it more precisely, to be taken away. Removed to make room for the external insulation cladding that will make the cottage fit for winter months, better equipped to meet the climate-changing challenges of extreme hot and cold.

When the work is done, we will plant something new to cast dancing shadows through the bedroom window. And lure another young blackbird to trill another tune, practicing his mating calls in May.

Let Nature Sing: Our Blackbird Sings the Blues

A branch bearing pink blossom peaks through our bedroom window at Pond Cottage in spring

Note: The Photo section of this blog has been a bit misleading…I need to learn how to use it properly. But for now, since we opened with Scotlands Garden Scheme, here are occasional glimpses of life at Pond Cottage and around the pond.

The seasons are in no particular order. After all, climate change upsets the natural order. These days November can feel like April. And August 2022 is very hot…

Two swans glide across reflection of blue sky in the pond at Pond Cottage: Fay Young — Back so soon? Swans left with their eight cygnets in August but return alone in October. Will they spend the winter here?

A bronze heron statue seems to stand patiently looking at the autumn colours growing on the pond bank — The heron waits patiently – autumn has been a little late this year

The author's shadow in a photograph of Pond Cottage waterbank garden, sporting two pink flamingoes. Picture Fay Young — Flamingoes enjoy the summer

Beechwood Beast: emerges from the tree. Picture by Fay Young — Preparing for the treasure hunt

A simple wooden bench overlooks the pond with trees and sunlight reflected on the surface: picture by Fay Young — And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow: WB Yeats

A pausing place by the pond. Ray has been busy making benches for people to take a rest along the woodland trail. This one is made from a plank of Sitka spruce resting on two logs, a design suggested by our eight-year-old grandson (you can find his bench, painted bright red, strategically placed under green willow. looks great).

Time for some moving pictures. Swans march and dance to music by Bobby Perman. See more about this year’s extraordinary display on the blogpost: Swan watch: a parents’ guide to survival