The South East facing wall of our house is the "blue" wall, in early summer and this is the first of the blue plants it houses to come into flower. It's clematis alpina Francis Rivis - I'll show you the others in a week or two when they come out. If I say so myself it's quite an effective display.

This is the view from my kitchen window.

You can see the blue flowers of the clematis on the right hand side growing up the wall outside the kitchen window and as I only get round to pruning it when I can't see out of the window any more, it's consequently a mass of twigs underneath the new growth, which makes it an irrisistible nesting area for birds in the spring. Usually it's wrens, this year I think there's a robin in there and possibly a blackbird. It's a lovely view while I'm doing the washing up - the nodding blue flowers, and the hard working birds nipping in and out to the nest.

Never Give Up

This is Salvia Elegans,or Pineapple Sage. Or as I like to think of it, The Probably Dead Plant. Being borderline hardy, it dies down to below ground level each winter, and (I hope) shoots again from the roots in spring. However, it's always very late indeed to wake up, and every year in April  I poke about in the dry twigs and think it's probably dead, and then in May I'm certain it's a gonner, and then at the beginning of June, just as I'm about to dig it up, it suddenly springs to life. At the risk of sounding like Rabbi Lionel Blue on Thought For The Day, I can't help thinking  it's a metaphor for  perseverance and never giving up, (well at least not until the end of June anyway).

Of course if I had taken a cutting or two, (cuttings strike very easily ) and overwintered them in the greenhouse, I could have avoided all this. If only..

Salvia Elegans, or Pineapple Sage has the lovely grey green leaves of all salvias, and this one bears a brilliant if small scarlet tubular flower in late summer and autumn. In a good summer it can grow three feet tall,  providing plenty of material for cuttings!!

Anyway there's no sign of life yet, and after the winter we've had this year, I do really think it could definitely be a late Salvia, a stiff,  gone to meet its maker. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-salvia.

Probably.

Cupcakes, Fairy Cakes, or Buns?

I've recently bought one of these

the stand that is, not the cakes, - these were made by Claire for little Brown's 2nd birthday last weekend. And very delicious they were, obviously I had to try a couple in the interests of research....

 In fact, I've bought three of them, one each for my daughter and step-daughter, and one for me. We all like cooking, and I think they're quite a nice way of showing your little cakes off to advantage. There's a bit of a trend for having individual cupcakes instead of one large cake as a celebration cake at weddings and birthdays, and this would be ideal for such an occasion. They come in various sizes, this one is a 23er, but you can leave off the lower tier if you want to.

One of the first things I learned to cook as a young girl were Butterfly Cakes, little fairy cakes topped with butter cream and with the halved lids perched on top at a jaunty wing-like angle. I say fairy cakes, but I notice a current trend to refer to these little cakes as Cupcakes, I'm thinking that must be the American equivalent, and I also notice that they're tending to be a lot bigger than the ones I made as a child, another not altogether unwelcome trend if you're a fan of cake. And who isn't.  I can't help thinking though that some of the "cupcakes" I've seen illustrated would have served as dessert for a family of four in the old days. Just goes to show that not everything gets worse.

If you look on Amazon you will find literally dozens of books of recipes for cupcakes, which is quite amazing really, since, give or take a few additions, the basic idea is sponge cake baked in individual cases and decorated however you like. So call them Cupcakes if you're modern, or Fairy Cakes if you're posh, or, if you're from Yorkshire, more prosaically Buns, it all comes down to a fairly basic recipe and the rest is up to your imagination and patience. I fall back on my usual all in one sponge cake recipe, which I rehearse below -

All in one Sponge

4 eggs
1 pack 8oz/250g of butter at room temperature
8 ounces/250g of self raising flour
1 rounded teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon of cornflour
8 ounces/250g of caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
about 2 tablespoons milk

Put everything in food processor and switch on till blended. That's it. You might want to mix it without the milk first and then add as much milk as you think you need to get a soft, smooth, but not too runny mixture. Depends on the size of your eggs really.

Spoon into little cake cases or larger muffin cases or mini muffin cases, about 2/3rds full, and bake until golden.And when cold decorate with fondant, butter icing, glace icing, or whatever you like.

Leopard's Bane Starts Off The Herbaceous Season

I always like to see the bright jolly flowers of  Doronicum, or Leopard's Bane, in late Spring - it's the first of the herbaceous perennials to flower. I'm surprised that it's not more popular, as it does flower quite a bit before even the early subjects in the border. One of the problems is that it's about the same colour and size as the dreaded dandelion, which is in flower at the same time, but it's really well worth having, bridging the gap, as it does, between the spring bulbs and summer perennials.  It  grows pretty well anywhere, mine is under trees, in light shade. It makes a large clump in just a few years, and can be divided after flowering. I think mine's the ordinary sort, but several named varietes are available.

Brandy and Lovage, tis 'ansome, my luvver*

These are the first few shoots of my Lovage coming through in the vegetable garden. Although it's a herb, I wouldn't recommend planting it in a little herb patch, as I did when I first had it, next to parsley and thyme. Little did I know, but like Topsy, it just growed and growed and was soon taller than me, and quite overwhelmed its neighbours. So I moved it to the veg garden where it comes up bigger and stronger every year, a bit like a rhubarb patch.

The young shoots have a strong celery-like flavour and can be used to advantage in a vegetable soup. Or you could try making the famous Lovage cordial with it. I've no idea how you make it, but when I was a pub landlady in Devon some years ago we always had a bottle of  Lovage behind the bar, and it was quite a popular drink for specific occasions. I think it must be a Devon thing, as I'd never heard of it before. But it was especially popular as a remedy for the morning after the night before. Rarely drunk on its own, people would come in lunchtimes and ask for a Brandy and Lovage "to settle my stomach", and then proceed to down another half a dozen in short order,  which did, I think, rather defeat the object. But it seemed like fun. 

*translates as "Brandy and lovage is quite delicious my friend" 

Rhubarb Crumble

I've picked some rhubarb at last, despite my earlier disparaging remarks, and as there's already quite a lot of it, I feel I should be using some, if only in the interests of seasonality. Crumble is always a winner in our household, and the sourest fruits seem to make the best crumble - Bramley apples, blackcurrants, and of course rhubarb.

I always try to keep a bag of crumble mix in the freezer, - it's just as easy to make a big bagful if you have a food processor, so that provided you have some fruit, frozen or fresh, or even tinned, you always have the makings of a quick pudding, without all the washing up and fiddling about.  

This is my standard crumble mix:

1 lb/500g plain flour

8oz/250g butter

6oz/150g demarara sugar

4oz/125g porridge oats

Whizz the flour and butter in the processor to breadcrumb stage. Add the sugar and oats and pulse minimally to just mix in. Tip into a plastic bag and keep in the freezer.  To use, simply place your chosen fruit in a dish with enough sugar to sweeten, and top with the required amount of  frozen crumble, according to who's eating it. In our house, if  John's coming round, it's hold the fruit, heavy on the crumble for example. 

Bake in a medium oven for about half an hour, depending on the size of your dish of course.

Best with cream, or custard, although some weird people like it with ice cream. There's no accounting for taste.

Clear As Mud...

We have, or rather had, a nice pond in the garden. It's still a pond but it's not really very nice. You can't really see from the picture but it's the colour of pea soup.  I'm afraid I put this down to the ducks, who were allowed to spend quite a lot of last year on the pond, and their somewhat careless personal habits mean that the water has been "enriched" and is now too high in nitrogen which has caused the algae to flourish, hence the green water.

 I've had ducks on the pond before and not had this ill effect, but I think really you do need to have a source of running water such as a stream to make ducks really at home without running the risk of this kind of problem.  At the moment the ducks are in a run and have their own childrens paddling pond, which I can empty and refill at regular intervals. I'd prefer to let them free range, but I know they'd be straight on the pond, if they got the chance so it's not an option, for a while anyway.

So if you have ducks, and you don't want to end up with this

keep them out of your ornamental pond!

And Pretty Maids All In A Row

I planted these tulips along the edge of the drive two or three years ago, as an underplanting to a lavender hedge. Sadly the lavender hedge has been a bit of a disaster, and its remains will have to be dug out and replaced this year, but I was waiting until after the tulips had finished before starting the job.

They are the very ordinary Red Aperdoorn tulips, for me the quintissential Max Bygraves Amsterdam tulip, and I like them for their very tulip-ness, if you know what I mean, and although I wouldn't normally plant things in soldier-like rows, I think tulips lend themselves to this situation and I'm pleased with the effect. Underplanting with forget me nots (rather than dead lavender) would be un-original, but no less enchanting for all that.

You need to get your tulips in the Autumn for planting in the dormant season, but you don't need to rush to plant them early when you put in your other spring flowering bulbs, and they can happily go in any time during the winter months when the ground is reasonable, even as late as January.

Elizabethan Stockings?

These are my Hose in Hose Primulas, which are really just starting to go over, but I thought I would post a couple of pics as they are fairly unusual, and very garden worthy. They are called Hose in Hose, because of a mutation which causes the calyx of the flower to form itself into a second set of petals, so that you have one flower appearing to grow out of another. You can see how ancient the variety is since the name came from the Elizabethan gentleman's habit of wearing two pairs of stockings one over the other, with the outer one folded over, ie hose in hose. The variety was first mentioned in John Gerard's Herbal in 1597 and although it used to be common in gardens it has faded from availability for some reason. It's a good strong grower, and is easily divided to form a large clump giving a lovely display in March and April. Here's a picture showing how the flowers grow one inside the other.

Sorry about the dirty gardener's hands.

Snakes Head Fritillaries

I took some time out today to have a walk just down the road, around North Meadow, Cricklade, which is an ancient Lammas Meadow, a National Nature Reserve, and is home to more than 80% of the nation's population of Snakes Head Fritillary, Fritillaria Meleagris. North Meadow represents a part of England's rural heritage which, once common, in now almost extinct. It is a flood meadow, and although now owned by English Nature it is still largely managed by the ancient Cricklade Court Leat in exactly the way it's been done for hundreds of years.  Most such meadows have been either developed or "improved", by being ploughed up and treated with artificial fertilizers, but North Meadow has the distinction of being "unimproved" and is therefore able to support it's amazing crop of wildflowers.

People come from all over the country, indeed all over the world to see the fritillaries in April, and if you are in the West country at this time of year, it's well worth taking a detour to see them. More information here

Eco Warrior

The cost of potting compost can be quite prohibitive if you have a large garden like ours. And peat based compost has environmental concerns too. I make my own compost of course, but it's never enough for my needs, and since I have fairly terrible soil, I do tend to need quite a lot of compost to improve the soil when planting out, just to give the plants a decent chance. 

 I shop around for the good deals at garden centres and usually find I can get reasonable compost for around 5p a litre. Lidl is often good value, but currently I'm using Countrywide Stores own brand compost which is available at their stores for 3 x 100 litres for £16.

However, for garden use, as opposed to potting use, I get a cubic metre, which is 1000 litres, of Warrior Compost produced by my local recycling centre here in Wiltshire, Hills, and costs £33 including delivery. It's made from recycled local garden waste and is excellent stuff, weed free and accredited by the Soil Association and at just over 3p a litre great value. When I can make enough room by the gate, I intend to have a bulk delivery which will be even better value then I will be able to use it with abandon as a soil improver and top dressing. And I can  feel good about it because it's not only cheap but it's green as well. 

 If you don't live in Wiltshire, try your local recycling centre to see if they do a similar scheme.