Skyhill bluebells

Laissez-faire Gardening?

Saturday 30th May 2015

I have been trying to think of a way to describe my style of gardening.  The most accurate description would probably just be “messy gardening” but that isn’t completely accurate because I do try to keep the grass mowed and to prevent it from spreading into the areas reserved for other plants.   Calling those areas flower beds might be an offence under the trades description act (whatever that is) because they just contain a jumble of plants . . . conventional garden flowers mixed with pretty weeds and anything else interesting that just happens to come up spontaneously.  It is a case of survival of the fittest - so I think I will call it laissez-faire gardening.  This is the “area reserved for plants other than grass” under the big beech tree.

Saturday

There has been curiouser and curiouser behaviour around the bird box.  Activity had all but ceased, yet last week a great tit was seen taking a beakful of moss into the box.  Then all activity ceased again for a few days.  This morning some prospective tenants, a pair of blue tits, were examining the box.  Almost immediately a great tit arrived and chased them away.  The great tit had something white in his beak but he didn’t take it into the box and he left the area as soon as he had dispatched the intruders.

We went for a short walk up the glen to the end of the tarred road.  We wanted to have a look at some building work that appeared to be going on up there.  We had seen equipment and materials being transported past our house and guessed that work had started on a decrepit old barn/garage which used to be on part of Far End’s garden.  When we moved to the glen, the barn was still in use as a garage although  the roof timbers were already sagging.  A few years ago the property changed hands and was subdivided.  The old house was completely altered and modernised and is now for sale but the barn was left to deteriorate.  

On the way up the road we passed two beehives in a field.  This explains why there have been so many more  honey bees on the flowers in our garden recently.  I felt like muttering about immigrant bees moving in and stealing all our bumblebees pollen - but it seemed a bit xenophobic.

It turned out that we were right.   Work has commenced on the barn.  The roof has been taken down and the walls have almost disappeared behind scaffolding and blue plastic mesh.

This is what it looked like in January.

Sunday

After shopping and feeding the herring gulls, I spent some time weeding the gravel on the turning circle.  I am taking out the pesky annual grass, which is almost impossible to eradicate, and the taller “weeds” (apart from a few Welsh poppies by the wall which I must remember to dead head so that they don’t spread seed everywhere).   But I am leaving the violets and some patches of Soleirolia soleirolii also known as baby's tears, angel's tears, mind-your-own-business, peace-in-the-home, pollyanna vine, polly prim, mother of thousands, and the Corsican curse!   A lot of names for a very small plant.

Monday

A milestone was passed.  Phase one of the path project (removing the strips of grass and stacking them at the top of the garden) was completed - at last..  It took me three months from the time I started but work stopped for weeks after I got a twingy pain in my back while I was cleaning leaves out of the ditch.  The next step is to go up to the top of the garden with the crowbar and retrieve some paving slabs which were laid outside the top gate during the Schipperke era.  Our dogs used to race up and down inside the fence shouting abuse at the riding school dogs which came down to bark at them when they were walking in the plantation.  During wet weather all the thundering dog paws churned up the mud and Tim laid some paving slabs in the muddiest places so that we could walk up to the forestry tracks without getting stuck in the mud. Now the days of stampeding packs of dogs are over and the paving slabs can be recycled for my new path.

The niger seed was going down so fast that I had to refill the feeder.    Then I looked out of the window and saw three siskins on the feeder so I went to fetch my camera.  When I returned there were four - a full house - one on each of the perches.

Tuesday

The  morning was devoted to home maintenance - buying spares and then fixing a broken toilet handle and replacing the starter for the strip light in the kitchen.  Then I mowed in the afternoon.  The grass wasn’t very long but rain was forecast for Wednesday afternoon, we have to drive to Douglas on Thursday for a medical appointment, and showers are predicted for Friday.  

Wednesday

In the morning I did a second session of beech hedge trimming down by the road before the wind strengthened and the rain started.  It is very slow because I prune the hedge instead of clipping it.

The first flowers are just starting to open on the wisteria.  They are about two weeks later than last year which isn’t surprising because it has been a cool spring.

Thursday

A cool, sunny morning for our drive to Douglas.  It is always a pleasure to drive around the Island in spring when there are new leaves on the trees and everything looks fresh and bright.  But we don’t have to leave home to enjoy the spring foliage because we are surrounded by trees in the glen and have a good view of the broadleaf trees which were planted below the conifers in Brookdale plantation on the far side of the glen.

Friday

It was very damp  outside in the early morning.  The sun was hiding behind the hill fog, which had settled on North Barrule after overnight showers, and there was no wind.  I took a couple of photos from the patio.  The wet front garden . . .

. . . and the flowers on our lilac.  

I sent a friend a photo of the proper lilac-coloured lilac in our neighbours’ garden and she wrote back asking about the scent.  I had always been disappointed in the scent of our lilac so I stole a sprig off our neighbours’ plant to check whether it was different.  It was far stronger.  Now I know why people rave about the scent of lilac. This is the sprig of "real" lilac.

After morning tea we walked up through the plantation behind the house.  I picked up my camera before we left and then wondered why I was bothering to take it.  We have done this walk hundreds of times before and I have photographed it from every angle.  But it pays to have a camera handy - just in case..  The path was wet but the birds were singing and there were bluebells under the deciduous trees near the streams . . .

.  . . but they paled into insignificance compared with the view from the top.  A wonderful combination of bluebells, golden gorse and bright green grass.  The wind had strengthened, the clouds were racing across the sky, and the light was changing every few minutes. I couldn't choose my favourite - so here is a selection . . .

May garden

And this week’s stars are . . . . . the siskin family!

Saturday 23rd May 2015

Sunday

It was unfair of me to criticise our birds’ lack of intelligence last week.  Their apparent aversion to the new niger feeder must have just been due to a natural suspicion of anything unfamiliar.  I can sympathise.  It always takes me a while to relax about using any new bit of household equipment - and new computer stuff always gives me nightmares and usually stays in its box for a few days until I get up the courage to unpack it.  On Sunday the first brave male siskin took the plunge!

The bird feeder has been attracting lots of customers.  The greenfinch was back . . . eating sunflower seeds with a friend.  But nothing much is happening in the bird box although Tim saw the great tits there again briefly so they don’t seem to have abandoned the nest yet.  Without opening the box, it is hard to tell whether there is a problem - or whether the eggs were laid later than usual and they are still brooding.  We don’t want to risk disturbing them so we will have to curb our curiosity.  They definitely aren’t feeding babies yet.

In the evening I took a photo of the clematis after light shower of rain.  I sent it to my daughter and commented “ Pity I can't email the perfume.”

Monday

Two Wood pigeons landed on front lawn and strolled around  in the rain pecking at something. They appeared to be eating weed leaves - possibly sorrel. 

 They have been nesting in the conifer in the next door garden again this year but I haven’t been wasting time trying to photograph them landing on the tree.  I still remember how frustrating that was last spring.  We see them flying around frequently, and there is constant cooing in the glen, but they seldom land in our garden.  

When the rain stopped I got up the courage to “liberate” a small blackthorn bush at the edge of the plantation.  I have wanted one for years but haven’t seen any for sale in the garden centres.   I hope I got enough root for it to survive the ordeal.  It has been planted up by the new bit of fence at the top of the garden (in the “sandpit”).  It wasn’t the best possible place as it is too close to the climbing roses - but it is windy up there and the blackthorn needed to be supported by a good stake or to be tied to the fence.  I didn’t have a suitable stake so the position by the fence seemed to be the next best option.

The male siskin was back on the niger feeder for a second day in succession and was becoming quite possessive.  A  female  chaffinch tried to join in and was threatened. 

I believe the collective noun for goldfinches is a charm of goldfinches.  I wonder whether siskins and chaffinches have collective nouns.  I would suggest an aggression of siskins and a squabble of chaffinches!

Later a female siskin arrived.  She dithered around for a while but she eventually worked out how to extract the seed.

And then a goldfinch got up the courage to join her and try the niger seed.

Tuesday

I did another session on the path.  I may even finish removing the grass by the end of the week.  Removing grass paths is part of my plan to make the garden more manageable.  I am approaching my mid-seventies and it is becoming increasingly obvious that I am not getting any younger.  The easier the garden is to maintain - the longer I will be able to manage it.  So I need to do some hard work now to save work in future.

The plants up in the sandpit are looking all right - so far.  On my way back from a tour of inspection, I noticed something odd on the new leaves on our small oak near the gate into the plantation.  At first glance I thought the small round objects might be ladybirds but on closer inspection I realised that they must be small wasp galls.  I removed the leaves and brought them inside to photograph with the old galls  (oak nuts)  that I picked up a few weeks ago.

The first rhododendron is flowering.

It isn’t my favourite - which is just as well because the plant doesn’t look very healthy and may not last long.  A couple of branches have already died back and been removed.  I tried putting a thick mulch of leaf mould under the shrub but the cats from over the road used it as a toilet and I don’t think the plant enjoyed the cat manure.  So now it has a layer of stones on top of the leaf mould to deter the cats.  Unfortunately my garden seems to be a cat magnet.  They used to frequent the front garden only - when the back garden was zoned for free-range dogs.  But now they wander everywhere although I chase them out if I see them.

My favourite of the rhododendron family has to be the azalea mollis.  This is partly because we can enjoy it from the comfort of the living room. It is right outside the window.  I can even see the top of the shrub from my computer desk on the far side of the room.

But the main reason must be the incredible colour of the flowers.

There has been very little butterfly activity again this week.  The little green veined white butterfly is still around and is occasionally joined by a second one.

Wednesday

I came inside after weeding buttercups in daffodil bed and saw the first baby bird of the year.  It was a  baby siskin begging for food from its parents.  It was quivering its wings frantically . . .

. . . but the parents were busy eating niger seed and ignored it.

At times it quivered so violently that it nearly took off!

If it hadn’t been begging for food, I might not have realised that it was a baby.  It  looked almost exactly like the female - just slightly yellower and a bit plumper.  That may be because it had its feathers fluffed out - or possibly it was was fatter because it had been sitting in the nest being waited on hand and foot by the parents.

The first hawthorn flowers opened.

On the subject of hawthorns, I found an interesting photo of two traditional Manx “hawthorn tables” in George Quayle’s book.  He says they were usually about three feet high and from six to twelve feet in circumference and were used for drying milk buckets and dish cloths.  My rather amateurish attempt at a hawthorn table is probably a bit too tall and not flat enough - in need of trimming.  This is a tricky task as the tree is growing on a bank and it is hard to reach across the top.  I don’t have any milk buckets that need drying but the hawthorn may fulfil another more fanciful purpose  as  protection “against all kinds of evil.”

There is a good clump of bluebells up behind the hawthorn table.

Thursday.

I got down to some serious garden work.  First mowing and then trimming edges.  Tim loaded all the garden refuse and other recycling into the old car for a trip to the tip.  But the car wouldn’t start.  The battery was dead.  So we had to take it to Ramsey to see whether it could be recharged.  

The first oriental poppy opened near the front steps.  It isn’t the bud which I photographed three weeks ago.  That one was affected by the cold, wet weather and didn’t manage to open fully.

Friday.

I finished trimming the edges of the lawns.  That is not quite true because it is never finished.  By the time it is all done the bits which were done first are growing again.  Then I had another session of digging out grass before we did the shopping in Ramsey.  We bought a new battery for the red Golf because the old one turned out to be terminally dead.

The wildflower bank is changing with the seasons.  The primroses, violets bugle and barren strawberries which attracted the bees earlier in spring are now overshadowed by taller plants.  There are drifts of the delicate white pignut flowers and the first meadow buttercups have opened.  Soon they will have had their turn and the even taller meadowsweet, wild oregano and knapweed will will taking over.

The garden is bursting at the seams with self-seeded yellow poppies, bluebells and aquilegia.  They are quite useful because they hide the ugly dying leaves of the snowdrops and daffodils.

Saturday  

The second oriental poppy opened and is rather a fine specimen.

These “granny’s bonnets” have actually burst out of the garden and seeded themselves outside our gate.

And finally, I am rather good at taking “if only” photos.  Photos which would be great if only I had taken them a fraction of a second earlier or later . . . if only the subject hadn’t moved . . . if only I had held the camera steady, etc. etc.  Here is an if only photo of a male siskin feeding his two babies this morning.  If only the camera had focussed on the birds instead of the flowers in the foreground . . .

More garden

Some unexpected visitors.

Saturday 16th May, 2015.

The week started with a stiff breeze and showers of cherry petals . . . like pink and white snowflakes wafting across the front lawn.  There is nothing quite like falling cherry blossom to bring on an attack of the poeticals.  Perhaps it is due to the sense of sadness at the loss of the glorious transient beauty.

But that happens every year and this week will be remembered for a much more unusual sight.  You may remember (or, more likely, may not remember) that I wrote about seeing possible hedgehog droppings in the back garden in the post of April 18.  I also wrote that I didn’t expect to see a hedgehog.  Well, I was wrong, very wrong.

On Saturday evening I came inside after working in the front garden and was amazed to see a prickly bottom in the flower bed under the kowhai tree.

I called Tim, grabbed my camera, and forgot all about cooking supper.  The visitor spent ages fossicking amongst the violets, bugle and wood sorrel  but I got rather frustrated because it didn’t lift its head and all I got was one photo after another of a prickly back and maybe one eye if I was lucky.

I gave up and started cooking and then Tim said that the hedgehog had left the flower bed and was walking across the lawn.  I rushed outside.  It didn’t get frightened and roll up into a spiky ball but it did stop and examined me suspiciously before walking on towards the daffodils under the hawthorns.  

Hedgehogs were probably deliberately introduced to the Isle of Man fairly recently.   In a book by Thomas Quayle, esq. General View of the Agriculture of the Isle of Man published in 1812 he states  “. .  .there are no toads nor snakes of any description.  Nor have foxes, hedgehogs, or moles yet found admittance.”

There is a rather nice story about a crate of hedgehogs being rescued from a shipwreck. It may be true but it could be an early version of an urban myth.  The story was recounted in an article in the October 1885 edition of the magazine THE MANX NOTE BOOK: Containing Matters Past and Present connected with the Isle of Man. Edited by A.W Moore, M. A., and illustrated throughout by John Miller Nicholson.  This is the link to the article - Some Remarks on the Mammals of the Isle of Mann - http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/manxnb/v04p119.htm

I think our little resident pest control expert is working overtime to catch up on work after taking time off over winter - or he hasn’t been told that hedgehogs are nocturnal animals.  He was back on Sunday in the early afternoon.  We saw him in the same place but he decided to move down onto the lower terrace, behind the pheasant trap, and spent some time plucking up enough courage to launch himself off the wall.  It wasn’t a very long drop as the wall is only about two or three bricks high at that point.  

After that he went back into “nose on the ground/snuffling through the plants” mode.  We couldn’t see what he was finding to eat but we could see that he stopped frequently to chew on a tasty morsel.  The wind was too cold to stay outside with the camera for long so we left him in peace and came inside to do a bit more hedgehog research.  I found out the they can walk up to 2 kms at night in search of food and that they have poor eyesight.  When we returned later he had disappeared.

Work in the garden continues in fits and starts.  I dither around doing odd bits of general maintenance like weeding, trimming the edges of the lawns, mowing and hedging. I go from one thing to another - never finishing any particular task except the mowing.   And I also try to fit in a few sessions on the “projects”.  The “sandpit” is almost finished.  On Monday Tim hammered in a split pole fence post and I tied up the short section of recycled fencing.

I am not efficient enough to have proper before and after photos of the “sandpit”.  The “before” one was only taken after I had already removed most of the old fence and cut back some of the small trees . . .

. . . and the after one was taken from a different angle before the project was completed.  About half of the compacted earth has been loosened and two rooted climbing rose cuttings planted by the fence but I need another session or two (or three) before I am ready for a proper “after” photo.

The weather wasn’t suitable for feeding gulls on Sunday so we took a packet of thawed bread crusts to the harbour before our Tuesday visit to the shops.  There were some fishing boats tied up at the quay and they wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.  It was low tide and there was almost no water in the harbour.

There wasn’t even enough water for the only pair of swans that we saw to swim up to the quay.  One was asleep.

The other one had been preening. It swam a bit  closer to see what was happening but didn’t seem particularly interested.  So we gave the bread to the herring gulls instead.  They always appreciate our offerings.  Tim made sure that one unfortunate bird with a broken leg got a fair share.  It didn’t seem to be too badly handicapped by having only one functioning leg.

We called in at the pet shop to buy a new feeder for the niger seed.  I don’t think it will turn out to be a worthwhile investment.  The birds seem to be scared of it.  It is made of plastic and has very small holes just above the perches - far too high tech for our country bumpkin birds.  I thought the siskins might be clever enough to use it but they prefer the sunflower seeds or  the more familiar peanut feeders.  

When we returned from Ramsey we saw that our hedgehog was back and was taking a nap in the sun up on the back lawn near a large chunk of slate that we put there for the butterflies.  They like to rest on the sun warmed rock.

I was worried when the hedgehog didn’t move for ages and had a close look using the binoculars.  It was a relief to see that he was breathing. 

 After a while he woke up and walked across the grass.

We lost sight of him behind some shrubs and he hasn’t been seen since.  

There hasn’t been much butterfly activity this week.  I saw an unidentified small white butterfly fluttering up by the wild flower bank on Tuesday afternoon.  Then a robin pounced, missed his prey, and the butterfly disappeared quickly into the neighbouring garden.  On Thursday there were two butterflies in the same part of the garden while I was mowing  - a male orange tip and a green veined white.  

I have finally resumed work on digging out strips of grass for the new path near the plum tree.  I gave up on this project when I had a few twinges of back pain months ago.  Before digging out turfs, I weeded out bits of grass that had come up around the paving slabs and loosened the soil.  I won’t put the paving slabs in their final position or plant anything until I have eradicated all the bits of grass root.  I don’t like bare earth but I shall have to be patient.  Unfortunately the cats from across the road do like the bare soil and think it is an excellent toilet area.  

I have been wandering around as usual - taking photos of the flowers as they open.  The azaleas are providing a splash of colour down in the shrubbery . .  .

and the crabapple blossom is lovely.

I have also been trying to get a good photo of an unusual coloured Welsh poppy down by the gate.  Most of the flowers are a plain yellow (like those in the group photo) but sometimes there is one with darker edges to the petals and occasionally there is one which is almost orange.  It is hard to capture the true colour in sunlight, so I went down in the late afternoon only to find that the flower I wanted to photograph had closed for the night.  Eventually I managed to get an early morning photo when it was partly in the shade and almost open.

On Friday the blogging week ended with another rare sighting - this time a green finch.  They used to visit the garden fairly often but this is the first one that we have seen for many years.  According to the British Trust for Ornithology  “ . . .  their populations took a tumble in the mid-to late-1990s following the emergence of a disease that was new to them.”