At last the rain has come
The Bannockburn House Trust Garden Blog
– by Margaret Pollock
As I write this it is raining and it is a wonderful sound as it beats off the garden path outside the door after such a dry Spring. We have several newly planted trees and bushes so it has been quite stressful trying to keep them alive and watered as their leaves slowly unfurled. They say it is the driest Spring for over a century and whilst it has been wonderful to have such a long, sunny spell (over 650 hours) it was becoming increasingly difficult to carry out heavy, physical work ( e.g. digging and planting potatoes) in the strong sunshine and high temperatures. The polytunnels, in particular, have been dangerously hot regularly limiting the time we could safely spend working inside.
One of the early signs of the warm spring was the magnificent display from our Wisteria which draped its pale lilac flowers all along the main garden wall a huge 14 days earlier than 2024.
The Swallows have returned and are nesting in one of our outhouses. We also have House Martins on site and so we find ourselves gazing skywards as the birds fly past, trying to work out from their tail feathers which is which. Meanwhile, the Starlings have already fledged their first family of the year and I am in awe of their ability to find food for their chicks given how dry the garden and surrounding countryside has become. May brings a transformation to the garden as daylight lengthens and temperatures climb, especially overnight. The fruit blossom has been magnificent this year and already there seem to be signs of a large fruit harvest on the way. Plum trees are laden, cherries too and I worry that a lot of young apples will drop off in June, unless we give the trees a good drink during any future dry spells. To counter this we have been busy mulching everything we can to try and lock in the moisture. We have been spreading grass cuttings over many of the vegetable beds and wood chip around the fruit bushes and rhubarb. Our rhubarb always grows well but this year it has been incredible. We have already picked well over 80lbs and counting. Some of the crowns have grown very large stems with huge leaves resembling plants from a prehistoric forest. They could be very useful should we ever decide to do a ‘Calendar Girls’ photo shoot.
Drummond has just had his 2nd birthday with us and he is now about five years old. He loves to lie on the paths in the polytunnels, enjoying the wind-free warmth and he has come to realise that no matter how loud the falling rain sounds inside the tunnels, he seems to stay dry so he is content. Despite his presence, the voles still seem to be managing to steal all our strawberries as they ripen – presumably at night time while Drummond is sleeping elsewhere! I like to know where he is before I go home at night ( so that I can be sure he hasn’t been shut in somewhere) and sometimes this can prove to be quite time consuming. He is always finding new places to rest or watch things from a safe distance and recently I could hear him but not see him. It took me some time to find him. See how well you fare.
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