The daily act to keep the colour or feed the pollinators: it’s just the same & you can both gain … 🌸🐝🌸

The air is beginning to smell of change, you can smell the fruits & berries of harvest, especially after the heavy downpours & thunder & lightening storms we’ve had over the last few days.

I have started to collect a few seeds, a couple of plants did go to seed when I was unable to get out the other week due to my health & I didn’t manage to deadhead as regularly as I usually would; so they did set seed - we did have some sun to allow me to collect them as well.

But my main aim at the minute between doing my larger changes of my new raised bed; moving soil, gravel & planters before I start really planting all of that up & my spring bulbs arrive in force is to deadhead, deadhead & deadhead. (Yes… it is off with their heads in true Queen of Hearts style, except I don’t have lots of playing cards helping me & the inch of rain we’ve had today would have surely washed all the paint off the roses if I had any in my Yorkshire garden - Roald was a known gardener!)

Plus, I would like to think I am doing it for a kinder, more altruistic beneficial reason & not a selfish reason of purely wanting colour to last as long as possible; as I do enjoy the seasons & the changes they bring. The heat means I still have so many pollinators in the garden looking for nectar & the longer I can keep the nectar rich flowers in their season, the longer I can provide the food in this ever changing climate.

I’ve had lots of damselflies & dragonflies; hummingbird hawk moths & bees amongst my more usual insects & invertebrates this week. It’s coming up to a busy migration time for birds near my garden too, being near the East Yorkshire Coast & lots of my planting is to attract birds & feed them on their long migration journeys as well as all of those birds who live in & close to the garden. The Tawny Owls are doing long hours at the moment, you can hear them before 8:30 on an evening & they were still busy calling at 5:40 this morning!

I love deadheading, I find it such a mindful routine, listening to the birds, being present in the moment, following from the bud, down the stem as low as I can. I love the reward, for the wildlife & me.

So I suppose it isn’t altruistic, I’m benefitting far too much: the self care, the mindfulness, the reward of the colour, the reward of seeing the wildlife benefit, the reward of sharing the garden with the wildlife, the reward of seeing another bud forming & the vibrancy of life bursting open again - just like this dahlia - all these heads were removed & more or less replaced & bloomed just this week on 2 plants that I had sown from seed I bought from Thompson & Morgan UK

@just.me.in.my.garden