Garden

A running commentary of my life in the garden!

Saturday 18th April, 2015.

I must start with an apology to anyone who is trying to wade through all the trivia on this blog.  I fear that I may be in danger of getting an anonymous letter like an over-enthusiastic Australian mother who posted too many photos of her baby on Facebook.  Her “friends” wrote to her and said 'We are all SO OVER your running commentary of your life,'.   I know there is far too much detail for any casual reader (not “too much information” which is a different matter!) but the blog doubles as a diary and I want to record daily sightings and work in the garden so that I can look back next spring and compare the state of play.  

By the time I started recording my week it was already Tuesday morning.  I was still battling with the top corner of the garden.  I usually prefer to use British English rather than American English but this task can only be described as opening up a can of worms.  To the disappointment of the robin, who is still supervising my efforts, the worms were figurative rather than literal.

I knew it would be tedious clearing the corner of ivy, brambles (both living and dead), bits of old larch lap fence which had been left there to rot, and the old dog-proof fencing, and sundry rubbish - but I didn’t realise that a dead holly trunk next to an old stump near the top of the steep bank needed to be taken down.  When I tugged at a bramble which was entwined with the ivy growing on the trunk, the whole trunk wobbled.  I was worried because it was close to a young holly that I wanted to use to support a new fence.  

I hoped that the trunk might topple over if I cut through the thick ivy roots but it didn’t cooperate.   So I attached a rope and pulled.  That didn’t work.  Then I got the long lopper and cut off the ivy which was getting tangled up in the damson tree below the bank.  Then I pulled on the rope again.  Still no luck.  So I climbed up the bank and pulled from a different angle.  I managed to detach the holly trunk from the damson and it sagged but the trunk was still hanging on.

Tim came up to help and cut through another thick ivy root with the saw attachment on the long lopper and then I did some mountaineering, managing to balance half way up the bank, and released the wire netting, which was entangled with the old stump.  After that I removed  the wire and most of the ivy from the trunk and manoeuvered it off the bank.  I was pleased that the old stump didn’t come down with the rotten trunk because that might have destabilised the bank.  The little live holly also survived unscathed.

It wasn’t a great start to the week for photography.  It was too cold for the butterflies to come out to play and I was too busy up in my black spot corner to spend much time watching for birds. The weather wasn’t great either.  It turned colder and windier on Saturday.  Sunday morning was very wet although it cleared up in the afternoon.  And Monday was a repetition of Saturday.  I thought of photographing some of our various primulas on Sunday afternoon but they weren’t looking very perky after the heavy rain in the morning.

Then things looked up.  Before we left for the shops, Tim called me to say that the great tits were busy taking bedding into the nest box.  I am sure they are later than usual this spring.  The tits have to time their babies to hatch at the same time that their main food source (moth caterpillars that feed on the new leaves on broadleaf trees like the oaks) is available.  It was interesting watching our pair of great tits working on their home.  The male bird was fetching the bedding, mainly moss . . .

. . . while the female waited inside the box and took the moss from him.

She must have been arranging the bedding and shaping the nest.  I took some old dog fur out and scattered it below the box and she came out to have a look but I didn’t see either bird take any fur into the box.

They finished furnishing their home very quickly.  We didn’t see the male bringing any more moss in the afternoon although they continued hanging around and going into the box occasionally.  Perhaps they have reached the egg laying phase.  

It rained most of the morning on Wednesday but cleared up in the afternoon and  I returned to my top corner to continue clearing the brambles and ivy - a tedious occupation and painful because of the thorns.  One of our previous neighbours dumped some old metal poles and trellis up there and it was quite a battle to liberate them.  There is also a pile of small stones which will have to be shifted if I decide to plant a hedge.  The process is also complicated by an enormous old ivy-covered sycamore trunk which blew over a few years ago and is resting on the plantation boundary fence.

It was a sunny afternoon and a peacock butterfly was back on the wild flower bank.  It was the first I have seen for a couple of days.  They are definitely fair weather friends.  We saw four goldfinches on the feeder . . .  a record!  (PS The record didn’t last long because there were five on Thursday morning.)

In the late afternoon I took some primula photos.  Our garden must be ideal for primulas because they thrive here even though they are neglected.  As you can see from the well-nibbled flowers, pests also thrive in this garden because I don’t use any spray.   There are masses of lovely native primroses.

But we also have some gaudy garden varieties which were here before we moved in.  The old plants must have died off but their descendants remain.  I should have been ruthless and weeded them out because they have cross-pollinated with the wild primroses and we now have quite a variation of colours.  

I tried moving any hybrid seedlings out of the back garden but the bees don’t recognise boundaries, didn’t cooperate, and continued their experiments in cross-pollination.  Eventually I gave up. but I still remove an occasional eyesore from the wild flower bank.

Another member of the primula family, which I bought a couple of years ago, is the cowslip.  I hoped it would self-seed but no babies have appeared.  The thick moss may be inhibiting seedlings.  Perhaps I should move it to a sunnier position.

On Thursday morning the five day forecast had another series of zero rainfall predictions - and news that the weather should warm up a bit too . . . with maximums of 14 C expected.

I think we may have a hedgehog visiting the garden again.  I haven’t seen one for years  but this week I have noticed some unusual droppings near the wildflower bank and they look exactly like hedgehog droppings.  I don’t expect to see the hedgehog because they are mainly nocturnal and we no longer have any dogs to warn us of weird trespassers in the garden.

I spotted one more butterfly flying past - fast..  Judging by the speed at which it was flying and glimpses of colour, it was probably a comma.

Work on the top corner continues. I used the electric saw to cut some smallish hollies down to hedge height and Tim came up to help me dispose of the branches.  It didn’t take long with two of us working at it.  

Friday was much like Thursday apart from a trip to Ramsey after lunch.  I spent part of the morning cutting down a medium-sized dead holly which I discovered under the living hollies and the ivy.

I have been enjoying the blossom on the damson trees below the bank while I am working.

And I have also been wandering  around the garden with my camera collecting pocketsful of small weeds which catch my eye, thinking about the flowers and taking some photos.

This is the time of year when the back garden is at its tidiest.  The sun hasn’t been hot enough for patches of grass to die back, the daffodil leaves are still green and healthy too, and the taller plants on the wildflower bank haven’t shot up to overshadow the primroses, violets, and wood sorrel.

There are still spring bulbs around including the tiny grape hyacinths and the snakeshead fritillary.  I planted a couple of fritillary bulbs in a pot a few years ago and they have self-seeded.  I was disappointed to see that so many are the alba variety.  I wouldn’t go as far as saying that they are “hideously white”, as someone famously described the BBC, but I don’t think they are as attractive as the chequered ones.

During a hike a few years ago, I saw a plant with pretty yellow flowers growing on a brambly verge and picked a spindly little twig to take home so that I could try to identify the plant.  It turned out to be Kerria japonica (the single type).  I can’t remember whether I put the twig in water on the windowsill - or whether I stuck it into some compost - but I was amazed when it decided to grow.

The birds on the feeder will soon have the company of a lot of bumblebees when the Kowhai buds open.  The smaller male and worker bees crawl into the tube shaped flowers but the queens miss out because they are too large.

And in the front garden . . .  a Skimmia japonica rubella.  It is an ideal shrub.  It needs no pruning, grows into a neat shape, has pretty flowers, a lovely delicate fragrance and provides pollen for the bees in early spring.  The dark pink buds open into starry white flowers

The only problem with our Skimmia rubella is that it has grown larger than I expected and is encroaching on the path.  I don’t want to prune the plant and spoil the shape and it would be too much work to move the path.  I suppose we shall just have to walk on the grass.

And another problem - the aftereffects of the mast year.  Unless we do  a lot of weeding out of tree seedlings we shall end up living in a dense forest.  The ash and sycamore seeds have long narrow cotyledons and are difficult to tell apart until the true leaves appear.  This is a beech seedling with its distinctive little green butterfly wings.  

Writing about problems reminds me of the dreaded pheasants.  I haven’t seen one in the garden all week!  They are still around though because I have heard a male nearby.  But now the mallard ducks are trying to move in instead - we have had to chase them out of the garden nearly every day.