I’d got a few plans in mind for the garden in Wales this weekend (there’s quite a bit of weeding and cutting back to be done), but rain and Storm Freya have curtailed them somewhat. Still, I’m pleased to see the mixed daffodils dancing on the river bank, including some of those I planted rather late last year.

I did however, brave the rain in order to sow a couple of packs of woodland wildflower seed – by broadcasting them along the river bank, mixed with some seed sowing compost. This wasn’t exactly in accordance with the instructions on the pack, but making a fine tilth and sowing in drills would be totally impractical given the site! The mix contains foxgloves and campanula – both  of which are happy to self seed effectively, so I’m hopeful we’ll see at least these two  plants germinating and growing well. 

Whilst out there, I also managed to plant these beautiful purple crocus amongst the snowdrops and cowslips on the river bank – I’m hoping they’ll spread over the next couple of years, but I’ll probably add to them in Autumn. 

We’re pleased to see that this purple leafed cherry, transplanted from the garden in Walsall (where it had self seeded) is alive and kicking, although it hasn’t flowered. It was looking distinctly unhappy by September last year and dropped all its crispy leaves very early, so this is good news.

The river is quite turbulent at the moment – it’s probably hard to see what’s happened here from a photograph, but the grass covered mound in the centre of the image is a massive root ball of a tree that was cut down about 5 years ago – the river rushing through has now dislodged it away from the bank this afternoon – not quite sure what to do with it!

I’m back indoors now and tucked up in front of a cosy warm fire – trying to ignore Storm Freya whistling around the cottage!!