A pair of Spotted Flycatchers have set up home at our neighbours house and produced this brood of 5 chicks. They are 13 days old now and will fledge in the next few days.
At Prospect Cottage we feed the birds all year, mainly with peanuts. Usually we don’t get too many takers in Summer, but this year, because of bad summer I presume, we have more visitors than usual.
The long border is looking good right now, everything looking lush and healthy. Really like this Buddleia globosa with it’s balls of yellow flowers. The Carex, grown from a division given from my friend Colette, has really done well. I will be able to make divisions from this next Spring and pass it on to someone else and increase the plantings here. So the circle goes, round and round.
Now is a good time to take semi-ripe cuttings of perennials. Choose a sturdy side shoot, soft and green at the top, stiff at the base. Plants like Buddleia, Escallonia, Pieris and Hebe to name but a few take root easily at this time.
Feverfew is in flower now, this is the double flowered form. Culpeper said that Feverfew is good for “melancholy and aches and pains in the head.” Most people who suffer from migranes find significant improvement after eating a number of Fererfew leaves every day. This is best taken with other foods, maybe in a sandwich, as Feverfew is very bitter. Three to five leaves a day is generally recommended. An infusion can also be used as a mouth rinse after tooth extraction. Be careful though as it also acts as a mild laxative.
arignagardener 
Feverfew looks really lush this year! Soon time to scatter the seeds along the gravel driveway! I wonder what a Monsanto world will look like when all seeds are ‘dead zone,’ seeds…doesn’t bear contemplating!
Love the pic of the chicks they look sort of squashed don’t they – their mouths seem bigger than their heads.
We too put our bird feed all year round – sunflower hearts, which all the birds seem to love, mixed seed which they will eat if there is nothing else – fat balls which disappear in seconds and peanuts which the Greater Spotted Woodpecker comes down for as well as the tit family. My favourite bird to see on the feeders is the long tailed tit, but we also get great flocks of goldfinches coming in.
The feeder is placed in the garden so I can watch it from the kitchen whilst I’m doing my chores.
Feverfew is such a pretty little thing … not a familiar plant to me at all, but if I ever come across it I’ll make sure not to eat too much if it acts like a laxative!! The Flycatcher chicks are just gorgeous. Will they stay around the area or do they move on?
They Winter in Africa. Not sure how much Feverfew you would need to eat for the laxative effect!