The little things you appreciate in the garden

[shovetheholly]

Gardens are such an explosion of sensory experience... but what are the little things you notice and love, that make you happy?

I love the electric purple of allium christophii - was talking about this yesterday with aircooled. I could look at that colour all day.

This year I've become aware that bees make different buzzing noises in different flowers. (I guess this depends on the flower shape?) In my Japanese anemones, it's a high, fast note. In allium bulgaricum, it's like the bell of the flower magnifies the sound. On oregano, there is this background hum. Lovely.

I love the smell of tomato leaves.

[LetThereBeCupcakes]

Watching my dog nibble gooseberries straight off the bush. I know I shouldn't really like him nicking my harvest but it just seems such a compelement.

By pure chance I've planted some beautiful maroon coloured antirrhinums next to deep purple larkspur and the combination is stunning. Makes me smile every time I walk past it.

[echt]

Gardenias. I'm fortunate to live where they are grown out doors and have humungous pots of them on either side of the front door. It's winter now so they aren't in flower, but when they do...

[shovetheholly]

Cupcakes - isn't it funny how sometimes the best combinations can just happen like that!

I love all of your stories about your dog, too!

Echt - wow, I bet your whole house is fragrant. It's the most amazing smell.

Another one - I love the way onion seeds come up as loops! LOOPS! It's so bonkers!

[howtorebuild]

Insects going from plant to plant, especially if I introduced the plants.

[aircooled]

Discovering the wildlife that shares the garden is definitely a joyful thing! I love how the bees seem ecstatic when certain flowers open, rolling around in the pollen as if they can't believe their luck. As shove has already said, the sound of bees enjoying the nectar in Allium siculum is really loud, almost deafening!

[Liara]

O Echt, you have just taken me right back to my childhood. There was a massive gardenia just outside my bedroom window. I really miss it, and although I grow gardenias as house plants they never do very well.

For me it is the butterflies. My garden is full of them, and watching the dc rush off to find the butterfly book to try and identify them never ceases to delight me.

[agoodbook]

I have been busy for the last two days, and while my back was turned my crocosmia lucifer has gone from bud to flower in the rain. How do flowers do that? :)

[coffeeisnectar]

The glorious smell of the lilies now they are in full bloom. The last four tadpoles nearly ready to lose their tails an hop off to their new life as frogs. The plums on the tree are so heavy that we have to duck under the branches. The sweet peas have gone mad and are looking gorgeous. We have a bullrush for the first time this year and the pond Lily deigned to produce two gorgeous flowers this year.

[MyNameIsInigoMontoya]

A robin is making friends with me and keeps appearing whenever I go out to do anything, and gradually coming closer and closer.

The DCs made brightly-coloured insect houses on a day out and DS has hung his in the lilac tree, but half hidden so the bright colours just suddenly catch my eye from certain angles.

The corner which was meant to be my pink/purple/blue bit has decided instead to be purple-blue and yellow, as the bright-yellow achillea which I tried to remove last year has come back and decided to play with the peachy rose and the yellow daylily I never got round to moving, while the pink things mostly seem to have given up. But it actually looks rather nice so I'm appreciating the way it is rather than being disappointed!

Also, not my garden but there's one I walk past on the way to the park which has something that smells absolutely amazing. Can't tell what though due to the fence, but it's lovely!

[TheSpottedZebra]

Yy to onion loops. Bonkers! And tomato leaves - the smell will always remind me of my dad.

I'm oddly delighted by the fact that I always find a frog in the same place. He's my frog now.

[shovetheholly]

I'm loving these! It's making me so happy to read this thread. As I sit at my desk, working on a boring report, it has brightened my day. I'm jealous of those low-hanging plums too!

It's interesting how many are about the wildlife and insects. Sometimes I think that's a bit of gardening we don't really talk about, yet it's so very much a part of a what a flower-filled outdoor space is about.

Birds too! I have four tiny little long tailed tits in my garden at the moment. They're fledglings, so they haven't developed the warmer colours of the adult birds yet, but they are like little fat fluffy balls flying around! Then there are the goldfinches, with their lovely bright red heads, skittering around my apple tree.

[coffeeisnectar]

One of my cats lazes under the tree in the shade so we don't get birds in the garden but they do sit in the neighbours trees teasing the cat.

[maudpringles]

We have a little robin who visits most afternoons.
I am certain it's the same one as they follow a routine
Lilac tree - bird bath - back of chair- fence
I look forward to it.

[HaveYouSeenHerLately]

I had a yellowhammer sitting on the drainpipe above the back door for ages last week, watching me fill planters. The most unusual bird-visitor I've had yet and he allowed me such a close up view

A hummingbird hawk moth was zipping around the patio yesterday, collecting pollen.

I had to look up a unfamiliar green insect and discovered it was a southern oak bush cricket

I moved in less than 18 months ago and have made great strides transforming my suburban garden. This is the first year I've had any significant wildlife, they seem to be appreciating my efforts!

Great thread

[MyNameIsInigoMontoya]

I love long-tailed tits, they are one of my favourites although I've only ever actually seen them a couple of times!

Also found a hedgehog under the hedge a few weeks ago, that was a nice surprise!

[Notgrumpyjustquiet]

Hellebores
Sunflowers
Finding frogs lurking about
My blueberries
Bees fussing about in the clover in the lawn
Dahlias
Things you can chop down to the floorboards and they still grow back

[HaveYouSeenHerLately]

I want to 'like' everyone's posts - great stuff

Wish I had a hedgehog

It's the first year I've ever grown sunflowers and I have one that's currently 7ft tall! Showing no signs of stopping

[MyNameIsInigoMontoya]

In our old garden I once saw THREE hedgehogs come out from under the shed Never saw them again though!

[RoosterCogburn]

After years of thinking about it last year I planted my herb garden.

It has gone from being a stony neglected corner of the garden to one of my favourite bits

Suddenly it is full of colour and scent, mint in flower, borage, nasturtiums, marjoram, rosemary, camomile, thyme, 6 different lavenders plus many more plants- I love to sit next to it and just smell all the glorious herby scents.

Yesterday I picked a huge bouquet of herbs so now my living room smells amazing as well

[aircooled]

That sounds lovely Rooster. And shows that even in the most unpromising corner of the garden something will thrive!

[evelynj]

I seem to always plant veg in my 2 raised beds & mostly let things go to seed but I love the kale & rocket flowers & even the lettuce shooting up. So joyful how fast things grow & the sheer abundance in my borders even though I'm not a very attentive gardener most of the time :)

[echt]

Definitely birds. Wattle birds and spine bills are both nectar feeders, hanging on flower stems to poke their beaks in, and surprisingly bold, not caring if you look directly at them, often arriving if I go into the garden.

Nothing is like the British robin, though, and I miss them.

Magpies will quickly come to be fed. There's something about the arrangement of their legs which means when they run towards you, their gait is exactly like that of a velociraptor.

Miss hedgehogs, too.

[rambunctious]

Just like everyone else I love the sound of the bees and other insects going about their daily business in the garden!
And spotting the frog (Jerry Springer, named so by DS2) as he indignantly hops out of the knackered old Belfast sink I pretentiously call my pond pond while I clear it of blanket weed.
And finding little seeded surprises: after moving my hellebore around the garden a couple of times over the last couple of years it is obviously happy in its present location, as there are lots of baby hellebores that I discovered today.
Oh, and finding hedgehog poo on the decking. Makes me feel really privileged!

[SusanHollander]

We had two hedgehogs but we had to block up their entrance as they were setting the dogs off every night when the house was asleep scurrying around outside the back door. I was very sad to say goodbye as I'd been feeding them but DH was pretty adamant, what with the nightly wakings. I hope another kind soul has taken over feeding for me.

We now have a lovely little wood mouse who doesn't seem to bother the dogs. I leave food out for 'him' and he's pretty brave and friendly, often popping out to say hello when we're outside before scuttling off again.

I've got a male blackbird feeding his young daughter who often visits (and sung for me the other day) and I had a robin but I haven't seen him for a while sadly. I know it's possible to hand feed them so I'm hoping he'll return and we can build to to that. I have about a gazillions house sparrows but can't seem to tempt goldfinches yet despite the Niger seed, mealworms, suet pellets, cheese, raisins....it's an all day buffet but still they don't come (yet!).

I love my orange day Lillies and my climbing roses, they make me so happy. I also adore my Sedum 'Autumn Joy' which turns the most fabulous dark red when summer draws to a close. I love the bees buzzing around and the happy twitters from next door's tree full of birds. Most of all I love wandering slowly around the garden in a quiet, child free moment and examining everything, seeing what has grown and is flowering and finding surprises I.e. We lost a couple of plants and dug them out, but it seems a year on they havr produced new shoots for us and we can have the plant back again!

[agoodbook]

Susan - if you have Niger seed, just be patient, goldfinches will find them ! I put up a new feeding station at the front of my house so I could watch them, it took about a week, and now they are queuing up :)