Through the Garden Gate June 2025

Although I'm no longer posting updates for the sake of it (posts about boilers and dog-friendly churches may follow), the heat will keep me indoors on this day off until I venture down to the steeple house for Corpus Christi and then to Malham church where the new incumbent is being installed; so thought a few garden snaps cheer up everyone, including myself. 

I thought this might be a new arrival, but in fact it seems just to be the Biting Stonecrop flower. It's just that the plant has never bothered flowering before!

Meanwhile, just above it, the bonsai-ed rowan is starting to look convincing and in very healthy leaf (provided I remember to water it). 

The same could be said of the slightly spindly rowan and the lovely red acer along the bank, which have to be watched in this hot weather. The acer was almost burned to death two years ago.

Meanwhile I can't work out how the old damson tree, with its split bark and powdery wood, survives from one year to the next. What's still alive? But yet again what's left of it is fruiting very well. Lady Arlen suggests I should save some stones and try to plant them, which I will. Meanwhile the roof of the Temple is rotten and needs replacing but finding somewhere that will supply the board seems less straightforward than one might hope! I can't fit a big sheet in my car, nobody will cut one in two, and delivery charges are steep.

The wildlife pond inserted into the midst of the big bramble bank is a great success, especially now I've managed to rig up a little pump fed by a solar panel on top of the damson, which circulates the water a bit. I often disturb a bird taking the water when I go to check on the pond. 

I am very glad to have seen off another incursion of the box-moth caterpillars - at least I haven't detected any for a couple of weeks - but the beautiful cinnabar moth caterpillars happily chomping the ragwort are far more welcome guests. 

Finally here is some hedge woundwort - stinky if you break the leaves, but fun to have.