Foliage spiders

12°C, brisk W. Sunny.
Took a tour of the garden this evening. There is plenty going on, digitalis, laburnum and lupins in flower. One of the lupins is broken, so I staked the others. Recent wind will have caught them.
Animal life: my neighbour tells me he found newts which can only have come from my garden. There are no other ponds nearby. For this, I am thrilled!
Fennel is growing faster this year, and one is especially interesting.
Foliage spiders have formed a nursery

They panic and rush apart if you prod them. It takes ten minutes for calm to return and they regroup. Delightful.

Leaf litter.

6°C, grey cloud, dry so far.
Gardening is easy. Two winters ago, I collected bags of leaves from work. The caretaker collects them in the autumn and fills a skip. I then, bag up warm handfuls of slowly decaying leaf litter. I can drive about five bags each time.
Now I have rich, nutty smelling compost to scatter into my top soil. The plants will be grateful.

This is a clump of Spanish bluebells. I don’t even remember planting them, so perhaps they have taken care of themselves.
May is the best month.