The Phantom Tweekers

The Phantom Tweekers

Over the years the numbers of primroses and their brethren have built up in our garden to give quite a show. Fifty years ago there were just a few wild one. We added cowslips grown from seed sent by a friend from Hertfordshire. There they grew on chalk, but here they seem to thrive in our acid soil. Then true Oxlips were added, the occasional blowsy Polyanthus, and little magenta  Primula ‘Wanda’. They are a promiscuous lot and we have steadily got a multitude of hybrids of all colours and forms.

                As they come to the peak of their display in the middle of March, and I think we have got away with it unscathed, the Phantom Tweekers begin, nipping off an occasional flower and discarding it beside the plant. Over the next couple of weeks, more and more plants are stripped of their flowers. I never see the culprit. Funnily enough, the multi-headed ones are less interfered-with.

                I think it’s birds rather than mice or voles as those growing in the fruit cage, which is proof against birds but not mice, are never touched.

Before the Tweekers

PS to The Spring Walk.  Those of you living in the real world may have noticed that the walk was in contravention of the instructions only to walk from home, and Luckett is a two mile drive from home. In fact the walk described was on 29^th March LAST YEAR. 

Tweeked!