The Garden - Wild and Tamed

It's only a small suburban garden but it does contain a tree - a sycamore. My father owned some bushes and a few young ash trees and his father owned a few apple trees and some wind stunted Ox Mountain thorn trees. I own a fully grown sycamore tree. It was here long before the estate was built in the early 1970s.

A sycamore is not the best tree to have in the garden. It attracts an enormous number of insects and it's impossible to walk under it in high summer without being coated with flies. No cucumber sandwiches under this tree's shade in summer. Is does result in swallows continually flying around it feeding. At the moment the buds are just opening and the early leaves are coming out.

Under the tree is my wilderness. A good idea in every garden. Nettles and briars grow here though in the height of summer the sycamore canopy stunts the growth and the wilderness dies back.

The tulips won't last very much longer. Some heavy showers will result in the petals being strewn all over the grass. The bluebells patch under the tree should soon be in full bloom though.