Mothering Sunday and the garden.

Mothers Sunday in the garden.

I’ve just had a great weekend. My grandson came to stay to help out in the garden. He was fantastic, we went grocery shopping yesterday morning and he carried all the bags, loaded them into the taxi, brought them indoors, unpacked the bags and then put all the groceries away. After lunch he started painting the garden fences. Needless to say I’m very impressed. 

He spotted the frogs in the pond. Yep my frogs are back!

First I saw one, then he saw two, which I thought was wonderful because with two frogs we get tadpoles. The grandson was fascinated by the frogs; he kept stopping work to kneel by the water. He wanted to catch them or hold them and wasn’t pleased that I wouldn’t let him. He seemed to think of them as some sort of novel ‘pet’, I don’t think he understood frogs don’t want to be touched. I warned him off because I didn’t want him scaring them away but it’s a bit of a shame how kids these days don’t seem at all in tune with the natural world. 

  Anyway he continued to sit by the pond on his self imposed frog watch and eventually he counted a total of eight frogs all visible at one time. I’m looking forward to a bumper crop of tadpoles later this year. I finally persuaded him to return to painting fences.

While he painted I set about my first tidy up of the year. I’ve removed all the dead foliage from last year, sorted out the strawberries and raked up the dead leaves. 

My garden looks a terrible mess over winter because I leave all the leaves and bits of dead plants rotting where they fall, but it doesn’t seem to do the garden any harm. Once I raked away the debris the snowdrops and daffodils looked a lot better, very cheery. 

I have something pink in flower. I think it’s the Japonica bush I planted a while ago that has, until now, done absolutely nothing. Anyway, what ever it is, and I do think its Japonica, it’s very pretty and has been in flower for a couple of weeks. What a strange time of year for something to blossom.  I seem to remember buying a Japonica bush a long time ago because I once picked quince fruit from a Japonica bush and made extraordinarily delicious jelly. Hopefully, if this is my Japonica bush that I’d forgotten about, and if it’s the right sort of Japonica, I’ll be making quince jelly later in the year.  That’s a lot of ifs and maybes but, I remember that quince jelly being utterly delicious.

These odd little purple flowers have been flowering all winter, even through the winds, frost and ice. Wow………….that’s impressive, brave little flowers.

This morning the grandson finished painting the fences while I did a bit more tidying up and then, we fed the birds. He was a bit noisy in his admiration and considering his excitement, it’s a wonder I managed any photographs at all. But we were visited by a sparrow family and a lone robin and they all hung around long enough for some quick photos.

And then it was time for the rest of the family to visit. It’s mothering Sunday and they bought cards, flowers, cakes, chocolates, wine and box of luxury toiletries.  I feel like a very spoilt mother and granny.