Garden Border

I know, no posts for ages then 2 come along at once :)
Just to let you all know, I have a shop on Artfinder (Janice Ayers). I will be having a 48 hour sale tomorrow and Thursday. The shop will then be closed for a week while we go on holiday :)
This is one of the pictures on there showing the view of my garden border a couple of weeks ago. The forget-me-nots lasted for ages and are just going over now.

Bees in the Garden

It was lovely to have a long weekend and be able to slow down a bit :)

Bees are having a hard time at the moment so I like to keep a good range of flowers they like in my border. At the moment they are particularly keen on the pale Aquilegia (Columbine). I noticed some holes in the spur of the petals and suspected a pest of some sort. In this case however, it was the bumble bees. In the photograph you can see where the bee has punctured the petal to get at the nectaries designed for an insect with a longer tongue. It doesn't help pollinate the flower this way, but as these are such prolific seeders I think we will still get plenty of new plants.

In the garden - Mother Squirrel

On the conservatory window we have one of those stick on bird feeders. It's great for watching the robins pop in and out and the pigeons can't get at at it.
The other day we were surprised to see a squirrel shimmy up the drain and try to get at it from the roof. It didn't do very well so we took pity and put some food out at ground level. Sure enough it came back and spent quite a lot of time eating. Somehow it seemed desperate.

 After we looked closely at some of the pictures we took, we realised why. It was a nursing squirrel and probably very hungry. We have taken pity and put a little food out each day. She deserved it for the bravery she showed - I was sat inches away to take this photos with just a pane of glass between us.