I love the smell of Tiger Balm in the morning OR The JOYS OF SUMMER

Oh, well that's a positive sign - we have lots of dunnocks around here - may yet get lucky

Yes thanks Butternut just unattractively scabby.

Throughout our drive to Campbeltown we were treated to seemingly endless ribbons of bluebells. We watched the lambs leaping up into the air with the sheer joy of living. The pink clover-like clusters of blooms are spreading between the rocks along the beach. Any day now, the wild yellow iris will come into bloom. A large cluster have made their way from the wild wood into the wetter area of our garden.
Came home to find a black cat, half asleep on the warm stones of the driveway. He opened an eye. Licked his lips. Stretched. Sauntered to the kitchen door. Waited and was duly rewarded with a bowl of Tesco's finest cat food. After which, he washed his whiskers [half heartedly] and left. We haven't see him for almost three days. Having filled his belly he's away on further walkabouts. Said it before - that cat treats this place like a hotel staffed by personal servants. And still we love care for him!

Have just looked out of the window to the north. There is new snow on the hills that were bare this morning. Oh well, it's only May.

B - Hope it stays on the hills (well, not for too long) and doesn't reach your burgeoning spring garden.

The sea is deep teal green and the waves are white-capped. Sea-Pinks cluster between silvered rocks. A pair of Oyster-Catchers rootle along the pebbled shore with spear-like orange bills. And the is welcome.

Lovely, soop! Hoping for some of that here before long. The NW wind is certainly shifting the clouds and giving my laundry a good blow!

Love the colourful picture, soop. Can just see the greens, orange and pink! . Fabulous.

Well we have hailstones, did someone say its May

Our white lanes, which crisscross the landscape
Give form and beauty, bordered with fields
Of barley, blown in ripple formation,
A soft bed, shadowed, sunlit.
And edging these flowing fields
Lies a wild country growth,
Full of a multitude of grasses, poppies,
Sweet cow-parsley,
Daisies,
Just there, every year.
So natural in their calm constancy.

Butter Your poem is BEAUTIFUL.

You're very kind soop. Both you and B do hear me, which I appreciate.

Well my wild flower meadow is just grassso far. I had oxeyes last year but now. Zilch, nada, rien. The fritillaries are nice, but am I going to have to revert to boring old lawn?
I've sent off for some plugs,but if they don't work, lawn it will have to be

If you just don't mow it things might turn up.

It gets mowed once a year inoct!

Are there wild flowers nearby on farmland or verges?

A flower friend of mine in Oxfordshire said plant 'plugs' work better than seeds.

I didn't think you were allowed to dig up wild flowers?

You're not, but you can collect wild seed, grow some plants in pots and then plug them in your lawn. There are also places you can legitimately buy wild flower plugs.

You could also sow your legitimately bought wild flower seed in pots and do the same as above.

I've scattered sees, no result! Have now ordered plugs, watch this space ( lawn)

Doesn't it depend at what time of year it is mowed. I seem to remember that being crucial. Don't know when though.

October!

Summer is shorter here so September is fine for ours. It's just a case of letting the seed ripen and drop from the flowers that are already there. Depending what species you have, you can mow in early spring too.