A return to writing about Emthree after a long gap, though I regularly make visits. It is the time of the Chelsea Flower Show and there is an increasing emphasis on wild gardens using native plants and so forth. Yet a dazzling effect has been produced in Emthree almost entirely by selective weeding and pruning. Almost nothing has been planted.
This spring there is a greater quantity of bugle that ever before and their blue purple spikes are not only good to look at but attractive to bees and other invertebrates. The pale blue of forget-me-nots and deep pink of campions contrast nicely with the bugle and there are other flowers dotted about. White-flowered herb-robert, for example, and sweet vernal-grass.
The trees have all survived the winter well and look very lively in their shiny new spring green and I spotted what appears to be a foxglove plant towards the north east corner of the original square metre. This will be a first for this species if I am right.
Since April Sammy, one of our granddaughters has been living here with her two sons and several cats. The cats are very adept at catching small rodents and rabbits and this will, I think, change the ecology of Emthree, possibly quite substantially (like re-introducing wolves into Yellowstone Park).
As I walked back to the house, I heard the shrill screaming of a flock of swifts above then saw the black-sickle shapes swirling about high in the sky. When so much wildlife is threatened, it is good to see things like this. The cuckoo too has been calling locally.
