Last week I ordered a solar powered water fountain for a bird bath, apparently the sound of the water attracts the birds. As soon as I pressed ‘buy now’ the sun went in and as soon as it arrived and I sorted out the bird bath it started raining!!! It’s forecast rain for at least another week!

The fountain is in the blue ceramic bowl which I’ve unsuccessfully had as a little water feature for years. I decided to fill it with pebbles so it’s fairly shallow and float the water fountain. If anyone is considering using a ceramic planter as a water feature, one word of advice, the instructions all said to use plumbers sealant to plug the drainage holes, I tried that, left it to dry, but as soon as I filled it with water it disappeared. After several attempts I resorted to blutack, I made a large plug of blutack and pushed it into the holes. That must be about 15 years ago and it’s never leaked!!

Anyway, to my surprise the fountain does work even when it’s raining and gloomy, but it just gurgles at the moment, I think I need sunshine for a proper fountain! You can see it in the background here with Luna in her new dress (more of that later in the week) but so far we haven’t seen any birds bathing.

I’ve planted up a couple more of the pots too, the stalls on Otley market keep tempting me, so the large shallow one on the left has a campanula, an aquilegia and some pinks. The little violas are new too.

In the bed opposite the pots the camassia is starting to flower, it looks lovely through the conservatory window, just not so easy to photograph. However I have a few clumps of camassia and this one by the pond is just coming out too. It looks lovely with the Solomon’s Seal and the fresh iris leaves behind.

The beds are filling rapidly now, especially after a few days rain. This bed is in the Amber and Amethyst garden, otherwise known by my OH as the beer garden! The Lady Emma Hamilton rose has gorgeous reddish new leaves, the peony is shooting up with it’s dark purple leaves. The pulmonaria is still flowering in front and you can also see another camassia just starting to flower.

The pond garden is filling fast too, with brunnera still flowering, Solomon’s seal shooting up together with hostas and iris. I’ve just bought a fishing rod to try and clean out the fish pond as it’s overrun with duck weed.

I was pleasantly surprised when I took a photo of the garden in the rain, it’s actually looking quite colourful!