Wild flowers

So far this year touch wood my garden has been porcupine free. Two years ago I was furious when my white irises were eaten before they could bloom, this year I have a lovely display which may have something to do with all the new growth after the porcupine pruning. 

Really they are wild flowers, a few white ones are flowering on the bank opposite our house and I’ve seen dark purple ones when we’ve been walking. I’ve also seen a lot of tubers that have been grubbed up and half eaten so any that survived have done well.   I’ve moved a few non flowering clumps from my border into the orchard, hopefully they will live or at worst distract the porcupine from the cultivated beds.

This is my current favourite orchard flower, it’d a wild orchid that I’ve been watching for several weeks, there are two the another not yet showing it’s flower.  I’m sorry the photograph is not very good, I’ll try again when it’s in full bloom.

I’ve also found a large self seeded cyclamen that is doing well.  I resist the temptation to move these plants into the cultivated garden, they seem happy enough.  

I’ve thrown down in the orchard a couple of packets of assorted wild flower seeds with some marigold and nasturtium seeds saved from last year and it’s rained.  I’ll hope for the best.  The orchard has a lot of wild flowers already, all the usual weeds plus plants we don’t consider wild, pot marigolds, sweet peas, fennel, mint, hellebore, honesty.  I like them doing their own thing, it confirms what I learnt last year when we weren’t here for 8 months, the garden does fine without us.  Of course that isn’t going to stop me gardening.

Finally a totally unrelated picture of my French lavender, it’s keeping the bees fully occupied, Mr FF says to the detriment of his broad beans which are actually set.  Good old nature.