The Spectacular, the Exotic and the Young

Wisteria sinensis from my bedroom window

The wisteria in my garden is tucked into a small niche next to the kitchen extension. So it is not immediately apparent when looking out at the garden.  It used to climb with great  abandon up the wall, to curtain over the upstairs neighbour's kitchen window and invade the next-door-neighbours' conservatory. Now I cut it back to create a  canopy over the space just outside my bedroom window.  Even though kept in bounds, it is still spectacular. This one is Wisteria sinensis - the one grown in nearly every English garden until the Japanese ones began to arrive. Now there is a bigger choice but I like the Chinese one with its great heavy-looking blue-and-white racemes and its wonderful scent.

If left to itself its shoots will spread all along the garden wall for at least 40ft. It needs severe pruning to keep it under control. I prune it in winter, cutting right back to a cluster of fat round buds. (The long pointed buds are leaf buds so they go.)  I prune again after flowering, and again, and again because it keeps stretching out.  I don't feed it - it gets mulched along with everything else and is quite vigorous  enough. 

My  next-door-neighbours on the other side have pruned their wisteria into a small tree - which makes a wonderfully exotic feature.

The other exotic feature of my garden consists of the parakeets that are perhaps based at Hampstead Heath but are interested in my peanut bird feeder. I am amused by them  but don't specially welcome them. I note that when they are around the actual garden birds  get out of the way. The other birds that like the peanuts are great tits and coal tits and I prefer them to the parakeets. 

                  

                                                 Parakeet enjoying the peanuts

May is certainly the month for young things. A baby sparrow was sitting on the golden privet the other day, all puffed up in what looked like a cotton-wool Baby Grow, while a young blue tit was being taught to fly  up and down the trellis by one of its parents. 

Baby sparrow 1

Baby sparrow 2 

        

 Meanwhile a mother and baby fox were sunbathing on the roof of my shed.  There seemed to be just the two of them, and this young cub was more sedate than my friend's three cubs down the road. As an only child perhaps it takes life more seriously. 

        

                                                                Foxes on shed roof 

                                      

 I heard someone on the radio this morning rejoicing that the swallows have arrived in her part of the country. I've been out gazing upwards but I don't think they have arrived here yet.