It's raining, it's pouring ...

I'm looking out over Suzanna's labyrinth garden, and as I write this it is pouring. Not stair-rods, but a steady downpour, and it's being doing it for hours.

It feels as if July this summer has been extraordinarily wet, as wet as last summer, which seems to contradict the forecasts of the climate change experts. I looked at Met Éireann and UCD’s report Ireland in a Warmer World, which says:

Autumn and winter seasons will become wetter: increases in the range 15-25% towards the end of the century. Summers will become drier: 10-18% decrease towards the end of the century. Regional details remain elusive, due to the
large uncertainty in local projections.

Summers drier? Of course, they are forecasting what will happen over decades, two summers in a row don't make a climate, and we're talking averages over the country. But it made me wonder. So I checked actual figures for the Birr Met station. They confirm that June and July 2008 have been somewhat wetter than usual, but nothing like so wet as 2007. Temperatures have been close to average. But interestingly solar radiation in July this year is much lower than average, whereas it was close to normal last year - I think that means July has been unusually cloudy.

Contrary to my perception, it is cloud that is the real feature of this season. And I can see the results in the garden. Plants that like a bit of sun, like dahlias are rather late. The tomatoes and cucumbers in the polytunnel are pathetic. And Suzanna's hot peppers in the greenhouse are barely surviving.

The big success this year is Suzanna's salad leaves, which she is growing in pots barricaded with chicken-wire. Another is the peas, which we are eating almost every day, despite the depredations of the hares. The latter seem to have left us, thank God - I haven't seen any for a week or more, though I can still see the forms they made in the meadow. The potatoes are also eating well - we have tried the first Pink Fir Aple, confirming my opinion that they have the best flavour of all, though we have yet to sample the Belle de Fontanay.

Another casualty of the season seems to be the butterflies. Earlier on we had plenty of Holly Blues, and the browns don't seem to mind the cloudy conditions, but there are almost no Vanessids - I haven't seen any Painted Ladies or Red Admirals, just an occasional Small Tortoiseshell. Rather disturbing, though since they are immigrants from the continent I expect they will bounce back next year.

First Fruits

The Summer is racing past me - it's the last day of June already, and I haven't blogged the garden since the last day of May. O mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! So what has June brought us?

We have been tasting the first fruits of the harvest.

We ate the first of our own new potatoes two nights ago, a fine variety called Charlotte, and they are very good. From now on we should be able to eat our own potatoes until the end of autumn at least: first the Charlotte, then an old early variety we brought back from France called Belle de Fontanay, and finally the main-crop Pink Fir Apple, knobbly but with an incomparable flavour. I can't wait.

We've also been able to pig out on raspberries for the first time, which is my favourite fruit - much better than strawberries to my taste. I foolishly neglected the soft fruit bed since I planted it six years ago, and allowed goat willow seedlings to grow up, saying to myself that the raspberries and red and black currants wouldn't mind, because they are woodland plants in nature. But this year the willows reached a good 12 feet and I have learned my lesson: without human intervention this garden would revert to Shannon-side willow scrub in less than ten years. I cut the willows down to the ground, and the fruit has instantly responded, though we won't get decent black currants till they fruit on the new wood next year, and I shall be constantly pulling the shoots from the willow stumps for years to come. The birds got the red currants, so I suppose I have to consider installing a fruit cage.

We've been doing well on globe artichokes too, really just an excuse to eat butter of course. I've had enough to give away. They are a mixture of green and purple grown from seed by Suzanna, so they are all more or less spiny and need to be trimmed with a scissors before eating. I must try to scrounge a root or two of the proper old variety without spines that my father used to grow when I was a child. The recent gales have been strong enough to blow some of the plants over despite their stout stems, so perhaps I shall try to pickle some of the small heads as the Italians do.

But the finest fruit of the season is my new Grandson Jonah!

Last weekend Suzanna and I flew to London to meet him for the first time. He is a little dote! At two months he is already half again as heavy as his birth weight; he constantly tracks the world around him with his lovely blue eyes; he is starting to enjoy making noises and playing games; and he is a very happy little chap, which is a great tribute to my daughter Ellie and her husband-to-be Darren, who are clearly wonderful parents. God bless all three of them! We also went with Ellie to show him off to some of my oldest and dearest friends from Cambridge, with whom I shared a flat in Ladbroke Grove all but 40 years ago. What warm welcomes we had, what wonderful teas, and what a pleasure to see my old friends holding the baby of the baby they had held when we all were young, what seems so short a time ago!

I offer this prayer of thanksgiving, adapted from the Prayerbook:

God my loving Father
maker of all that is living,
I praise you for the wonder and joy of creation.
I thank you for the life of Jonah,
for his and Ellie's safe delivery,
and for the privilege of being a grandparent.
Accept my thanks and praise
through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

When we got back from London, though, I contemplated murder. The hare had returned with leverets while I was away. They had eaten all the young French bean plants, and they were just starting in on the peas. My neighbour Geof has the same problem and is almost in tears about it. I searched the web for advice. The New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture says that night shooting is the only effective control, but I don't have the heart for that. Other sites say fencing with chicken wire is the only defence. A company in England markets a spray caller Grazers, but their Irish agent has not responded to emails - I shall try to order some on the web. Every time I see a hare in the garden - several times a day - I run out shouting and waving my hands in an attempt to frighten it into a more sharing disposition. Meanwhile ever practical Suzanna has been to the hardware merchant and built chicken-wire fences around her raised beds and salad pots.

The rest of the graden is looking very well, particularly the rambling roses. 'Neige d'Avril' is frothing over the patio arch, alongside 'Goldfinch'. The extraordinary petals of 'Veilchenblau' fade from an intial purple to violet grey beside shocking pink 'American Pillar'. Pink 'Belvedere', named for the great house near Mullingar in West Meath where it originated, is just starting by the gate, where it always attracts admiring comments from passers-by. I think I have finally identified the lovely repeat-flowering noisette I got from my mother as 'Champney's Pink Cluster', bred in America in 1811, though it might be it's child 'Blush Noisette', introduced in France in 1817.

May blossom fading

Already it's the last day of May, and I see that I haven't blogged the garden since early April - the May blossom is fading and my clout has been cast! The excuse is that Susanna and I have been away, despite last year's oath that never again would we desert our garden in April or May.

In early April I rushed to rotivate the vegetable beds, before we left for France - a tough job since they lay fallow last year. Charlotte and Pink Fir Apple potatoes went in, with broad beans and old reliable Kelvedon Wonder peas.

We took the car on the Celtic Link ferry to Cherbourg and joined the Irish Tree Society in their visit to the Paris area. Guided expertly and charmingly by Mme. Maïté Delmas from the Jardin des Plantes, we saw many grand gardens and fine trees, but to my mind none finer than the Domaine de Segrez in the enthusiastic company of the owner and eminent botanist M. Franklin Picard, who had added many rare species collected on his travels to a mid C19th arboretum. From there we took off by ourselves, visiting friends and reaching as far South as Limoux. The poor little car was groaning with cases of wine when we got back, including Monbazillac, Cahors and Blanquette de Limoux!

On our return three weeks later, the potatoes were just poking their noses out, and the broad beans were doing well; I was disappointed that the pea germination was sporadic - mice I suspect - but planted some more. I cultivated a third of Susanna's raised beds and she planted more peas, dwarf French beans, shallots, onions, garlic and beet - the other two thirds remains to be tilled. And I planted out a row of climbing French bean Blue Lake grown in peat pots by Susanna - incomparable flavour - and two rows of potatoes bought in France, Belle de Fontanay.

Then we left again for Germany, Leipzig, for Susanna's PhD Viva: the only place the external and internal examiners could get together was in the margins of a Conference there. My clever pearl beyond price sailed through of course, and will shortly be Doctor Susanna! Afterwards I took her on a long weekend in Berlin, so changed since we were last there shortly after the wall fell.

On the Sunday I worshipped in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche on the Ku'Dam. The original neo-gothic church was destroyed by allied bombs in 1942. Alongside the shattered tower which has been left as a memorial, a modern church has been built; in it a beautiful golden statue of Christ hovers in front of blue stained-glass windows. The moving service was a Confirmation, administered by a woman pastor Dr Cornelia Kulawik.

The Blue Lake peas were eaten to the ground when we got back, and I think I know the culprits - the hares! They are still in the garden, and there are leverets too, though I can hardly believe the latter are the result of the tryst Susanna and I witnessed in early April as they are too big. One was hiding in the long grass of the wild-flower meadow, body to the ground and ears pressed flat, completely still even when we walked only feet away from it - very sensible, since I have also seen the Kestrel hovering in the vicinity.

Everything of course is bursting out now. The limes in the Alley are all in leaf, even the very late one which I think is Tilia cordata - and not T. platyphyllos as the others are. The young oaks grown from acorns harvested in the botanical gardens are reaching for the skies - they are all peculiar hybrids, and planted too close to each other and to other trees, but we need their shelter. I have at last planted out the young long-needle pine Pinus x holfordiana which we bought last autumn at Westonbirt, where the hybrid was first raised around 1904.

The wildflower meadow is in full blow, and I am delighted with it. The meadow buttercups are spreading well, the yellow rattle seeded from Carney Commons is putting manners on the coarse grasses, the birds-foot trefoil, vetches and red and yellow clover are putting on a show, and the Ox-eye daisies are just begining, though fewer than in previous years. It is showing its value for bio-diversity, as there are several different bumble and solitary bees working the flowers assiduously.

It looks too as if it will be a good year for butterflies. There were plenty of Orange Tips, and I have seen Greenveined, Small and Large Whites, as well as a few tatty Speckled Woods and Small Tortoiseshells. There seem to be more Holly Blues than usual which is nice - the caterpillars of this spring brood feed on the flower buds of Holly, but those of the 2nd autumn brood on the flower buds of Ivy - I must check our young hollies for them.

And Susanna's labyrinth garden is a picture, already full of colour and interest. One of the standard Wysterias flowered for the first time this spring - a beautiful scent - and the green-yellow-and-red Parrot tulips I gave her for her birthday made a particularly exotic splash. The David Austin roses are just starting, beautifully set off by the lavender, and the Russell lupins are giving vertical accents. Interestingly, the Magnolia stellata is showing a second flush of flowers on two lower stems, which have a pink flush and wider petals than the earlier flowers: I wonder if the plant is grafted, but if so, we are getting two for the price of one!

Oh may the Lord be praised for the beautiful place we live and for the glorious variety of his creation!

Déjeuner sur l'herbe

An exciting day. Just as the Taoiseach was announcing his resignation (not before time), Susanna and I were behaving like voyeurs, watching the neighbours making love on the lawn!

As I was waiting for the press-conference to start, listening to RTE on this machine, what should I spot through the window, bounding through the Labyrinth beds, but a hare. Not our usual demure greyish resident hare, who is a good neighbour - almost a lodger - of whom we are proud, despite her partiality for crocuses, and latterly scabious, but a larger almost ginger creature. Susanna called me to watch him as he broke cover on the Lime Alley.

And then we saw the two of them. Our demure resident is definitely female! They were at it. Repeatedly, though each tryst was quite short. He was enthusiastic, and she was up for it, though I think he must have been a bit rough, judging from the little tufts of fur I discovered later. And then we spotted a very much smaller hare loitering not far away - a teenager perhaps, excited to see the grown ups behaving oddly?

Later on our demure resident disappeared, very sensibly, because a second big ginger fellow appeared. The two guys were not at all friendly, racing after each other, and scrapping - Susanna saw them box a bit, but I missed that. Jealousy over a woman is a terrible thing to watch. Neither one would back down, but eventually they disappeared into the distance in the next field.

I fancy this would be the song of our demure resident, in the words of the Song of Solomon (no one can persuade me it's about anything but sexual passion!):

I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.
As a lily among brambles,
so is my love among maidens.
As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his intention was love.
Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples;
for I am faint with love.
O that his left hand were under my head,
and that his right hand embraced me!

We look forward to seeing leverets in the near future!

Sixty Years Young!

My 60th birthday has come and gone!

I’d expected a quiet one, but Susanna had been plotting behind my back. “The courier is here”, she called. And when I opened the door there were my daughters Amy and Lucie, with their partners Ben and Tim, and my grandsons Cal and Gabe. I was taken completely by surprise - but what a lovely one! Among the presents they brought were a framed collection of happy family photos, and a CD of birthday greetings from them, from my other children Elinor and Barnaby who couldn’t be there, and from old friends, with more photos, and movies, and singing. Replaying it now by myself brings real tears of joy to my eyes - what a silly, sentimental old man I have become!

We were joined that evening by my brother Tom, with his wife Lucy and my nieces Hetty and Sophie, for a great family dinner, with a turkey hand-reared by a friend, and scrumptious birthday cake. And we played games: Are you there Moriarty?, Cahoots, and Holiday Planning. Over the meal Tom and I reminisced about our grandparents, in the presence of my grandchildren: if they were listening, they were hearing memories of their great-great-grandparents, from people who knew them. The continuity of memory that runs in families is amazing, and I think a very valuable thing, rooting us securely in a shared history.

Our gardens are often like that too. So many of the plants in our garden have an ancient history that I treasure. The tiny daffodils that have just flowered are an old cultivar of Narcissus minor from the Pyrenees: I got it from my mother, but it came originally from her Devenish grandparents' house Clonteem in County Roscommon, so I know it as the Clonteem daffodil. The balsam poplar, just coming into leaf and scenting the bottom of the garden, is a baby from my parents’ one, which in turn grew from a branch broken off her tree in Adare by Cousin Marjorie. “Here Lucie, stick it in the ground and it will grow”, she said: it did for her, and it did for me too. Other plants came from friends, or we have grown them from seeds or cuttings collected from beautiful places we have visited. They are now joined by a cherry (Prunus mume 'Contorta' I think) given me by Tom and his family for my birthday. A whole treasury of memories, rooting Susanna and I in our own landscape.

Despite the wind and rain, spring is bursting out all over in the garden. My birthday breakfast was scrambled eggs with our own asparagus from the polytunnel. There are tadpoles in the pond, so the frogspawn had been fertilised. Magnolia stellata (a house-warming present from a friend) is in full bloom, and M. 'Leonard Messel' is just showing pink. The first scarlet tulips are looking gay in Susanna's labyrinth garden. And the blackthorn has come out, so the fly will be up in a calendar month. How exciting it all is!

The theme of last Sunday’s readings was faith: the faith in Jesus the risen Christ confessed by Thomas who we wrongly call Doubting; the faith boldly proclaimed in public by Peter on the day of Pentecost; the faith passed down from the Apostles over the generations to us, which by the grace of God we will pass on to our children and grandchildren. It is a great gift from God which firmly roots us in the family of Christians of every place and age.

The Gardeners & The Hare

My very talented cousin Heath Rosselli has painted this fine diptych portrait of Joakim and Susanah in the garden. The Lime Alley and the wild-flower meadow are behind us, and if you look very closely you can also see a portrait of the resident hare!

We are really delighted with the painting, though the quality of the photograph does not really do it justice. I know it's rather self-indulgent, but I thought regular visitors might like to see an image of the garden I write about.

Heath lives near Bury-St-Edmunds, Suffolk. You can see more of her work here. She is also a Church of England Lay Elder at All Saints, Worlington - the equivalent of a Reader with us - though she doesn't look old enough for such a fierce title!

A brisk Spring walk

Only a few days ago we were back in winter’s grip, with freezing fog decorating everything with hoary rime. But at last its spell has been broken, and I seem to have woken from hibernation to begin putting manners on the untidy garden, which I have so neglected since November.

I’ve started to push back the hedges and shrubberies, though much still needs to be done. Glyphosate has been applied to the overgrown vegetable garden, which I didn’t cultivate last year, in readiness for digging and rotivating. If I’d tackled these jobs when they should have been done they would only have been half the work! The mower hospital has fixed the broken clutch cable and sharpened the blunted blades, and as soon as I collected the machine yesterday I made a start on the main paths and the croquet lawn.

The later purple and white crocuses are making a fine splash down the lime alley, though the slightly earlier yellow ones were a disappointment this year. When I checked, I found most of the new leaves and buds had been eaten down to the ground. My suspicions were confirmed ten days ago when I spotted the resident hare grazing where they should be. And I suspect he has barked one of the young walnut trees, given us by a friend who grew them from seed. It and its twin are now protected with ugly curly plastic guards, but I fear the barked one may be a goner. The hare has made a form among the Verbena bonariensis seedlings in one of the yew beds. He (or she – I can’t sex a hare at a distance!) gives Susannah and me so much pleasure that we don’t mind putting up with the little damage he does. I also notice that one of the limes in the alley has been used as a scratching post, and some species tulips I planted in the wild-flower meadow have been grubbed up: I’ve never heard of hares grubbing in grass, so perhaps this was done by a visiting badger – I have been told of a sett not far from here - I rather hope so!

Yesterday Susannah came rushing in from feeding her birds in great excitement: she had found a big mass of frog-spawn in the small pond on the patio. We have had frogs in the garden since we came here, and when I strim the wild-flower meadow in autumn I always dread the occasional splat as one gets in the way, but we have never had spawn before. When I went out to look I could only see the one frog in the pond, a female I think by its size. I do hope at least one male had been there earlier to fertilise the eggs, so that we will have tadpoles! Susannah’s birds must be the best fed in the county, and have been entertaining us all winter from the kitchen window. This morning I was delighted to see a charm of goldfinches. They were feeding on peanuts, which is unusual because they are specialist seed eaters, and we rarely see them on the bird table.

Spring started in January like a toddler, but has already moved into a brisk walk. The snowdrops are almost over, I can see the daffodils nodding as I write, Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum) is in full blow, and the Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis Rosea’ by the front door has bright pink flowers on bare wood – the latter is badly named I think, because for us at least it never flowers in autumn. Spring will be racing around like a ten-year-old by Easter!

Easter is so early this year, March 23rd, before my birthday which is unusual. I was born on Easter day. According to my mother, God bless her, I caused the nuns tending her to miss Mass, and I’ve been a trouble ever since! In fact Easter will not fall on March 23rd again until long after my death in 2160. The earliest day Easter can possibly be is March 22nd, which last occurred in 1818, and will not do so again until 2285. Easter will be very special this year!