Blog

Spring must be on its way.    As I leave the garden early each morning to walk the dogs the sound of bird song is getting louder.    The garden is full of Blackbirds, Thrushes, Robins (yes several – 3 or 4 often spotted at one time), Dunnocks, Long Tailed Tits, Blue and Great Tits to name just a few of the residents.  There is often a Wren spotted hopping around under the box topiary and a Spotted Woodpecker and Nuthatch visit on a regular basis.   As I carry on along the lane I can hear the sound of Woodpeckers drumming in nearby woodland.      This morning a great treat was to look up and see a solitary swan slowly flying overhead, I hope it’s  mate was somewhere nearby.   Swans can often be seen flying along the line of the nearby River Severn and a pair have in the past nested at the nearby fishing lakes.    The hedgerow was alive with the sound of unseen birds this morning and when I finally reached a field where the dogs could run Skylarks could be heard.   I didn’t actually see any this morning but they are a regular sight, and sound.  Many has been the morning when a Skylark has flown up from right by my feet, although close inspection has always revealed that I wasn’t in danger of treading on a nest.   I assume they have the sense to nest away from the paths that people walk their dogs along.   However it’s not just birds – bees too.    Just a few honey bees flying today and not so pleased with me for getting in close to the Mahonia.   Keep calm as they say and hopefully the bees will do likewise and not sting! Good to hear them again in the garden though.

A walk around the garden with the camera has yielded more encouraging signs of spring and here are just a few.  Lovely scent from Mahonia, Lonicera purpusii, and Hamamelis with a large Sacoccoca covered in buds, not yet out.  Colour to be had too from Iris reticulata around the garden and in pots, Hellebores in many colours from the white of the Christmas Rose through to deep red with everything in between!

 

 

Thursday

A bit of a frost this morning just to remind us that we are halfway through December, there may be buds on many shrubs but time to get braced for colder days.    Dahlia tubers were lifted weeks ago and are now wrapped in newspaper and stored under the greenhouse bench.   Perfectly safe until the dog wanders in and decides to nibble on the newspaper.        An incredible sunrise this morning, the sun a huge orange ball low down on the horizon and the sky absolutely on fire (my photo does not do it justice at all). Within minutes the show was over, the sun had risen and we are now left with a lovely warm light enveloping the garden.    Chilly though and my plan to be outside all morning cutting back herbaceous plants and mulching with compost is on hold for a while!

Friday

A day later and the thermometer shows minus 6C.    Scented leaf pelargoniums and other tender plants in the greenhouse were covered in a cosy layer of fleece yesterday afternoon.   Won’t open the door for a while but fingers crossed everything is ok.   The benefit of the really cold night though is glorious sunshine, and although I may not work in the garden today – too many other things to do – a few minutes walk around provides some photo opportunities.

 

 

What a glorious autumn we are experiencing, the leaf colour seems better than ever this year and is lasting for weeks.    Admittedly some trees in the garden have dropped all their leaves, notably three large oaks, but leaves on many of the other trees and shrubs are hanging on.   We’ve had a few frosty mornings and high winds but generally the weather is milder than usual and when the sun is out (even if only for an hour or two) it casts a lovely golden light over the whole garden.   Looking out of the window now the over-riding leaf colour is yellow going through to shades of brown (and who knew brown could be so beautiful), although there is still plenty of green in the form of lilac, forsythia and wisteria leaves apart from the evergreen yew and box.  Various acers have provided splashes of brilliant red along with deep red leaves of Viburnum plicatum.    I have just raked up a ‘builder’s sack’ of dark muddy brown leaves from underneath the dogwoods in the orchard,  partly to give the grass underneath chance to grow and also to allow the beautiful red stems of Cornus alba Westonbirt to stand out in the autumn sunshine.  Many sackfuls of leaves from the oak trees have been raked up from the lawn and put into the leaf bin to rot down into leafmould.   Those from the dogwoods will follow – when someone stronger than me can help pull the sack out of the orchard!  The beech hedge along the boundary between the garden and the lane is turning yellowy/brown and perfectly sets off the holly trees on the other side of the lane that are absolutely laden with glossy red berries.   Luckily I enjoy gently raking leaves for an hour or so, I think I will be occupied for a while yet.    I have the benefit of a shiny new rake which seems to work well and unlike the old one isn’t too heavy to manhandle.    Power tools will be employed by others to chase leaves out from under shrubs and from tricky corners around outbuildings, but I am content to do the job the peaceful way!  Even better if there is a toasted teacake and cup of tea to look forward to at the end of it!

Aside from leaf raking this is a favourite time of year to embark on major changes to the garden.  One such change being the removal of a flower bed running parallel to the lane behind the beech hedge.   This flowerbed has been the bane of my life for the last couple of years.   I have now given up and conceded defeat to the bindweed and perennial helianthus that had taken over.    Everything has been dug out, apart from Prunus incisa Kojo-no-mai, a small tree beautiful in all seasons, the ground has been flattened, rolled and turf has been laid.    The gravel path that ran alongside the flowerbed and which I thought was a complete waste of time – no one ever walked on it – has also been turfed and the whole area looks much better.   The idea being that regular mowing will keep at bay the helianthus and the bindweed will be easier to spot and remove as it pushes through the beech hedge.   That’s one job completed, next major one is sorting out a flowerbed near the house that has some lovely plants growing and too much not so lovely couch grass.

Late flowers are also providing colour.   Asters are still flowering and I love them, but at this time of year my favourites are Chrysanthemums.   The Emperor of China has a lovely silvery pink flower that  comes out at the beginning of November.   It is really tall and the trick is to keep it well staked so that the flowers don’t drag on the ground.  Another looking good now is Dulwich Pink, which I have obtained from the Hardy Plant Society Conservation Scheme.   It is a lovely plant again flowering late and deserves to be more widely grown.   We’ve planted many and various ornamental grasses over the last few years and these will continue to look good into the winter.  Many herbaceous plants are now teetering on the edge of being acceptable.    Whilst they still bear seeds I will leave them, what a treat to see blue tits and longtailed tits balancing precariously on Solidago seed heads,  however once the seed heads are empty I will cut them down.   I’m not a huge fan of blackening foliage spreading over the flower beds.  Whilst we do get very severe frosts here we never seem to enjoy the frost encrusted seed heads that gardening books tell us about.   Of course the next job after cutting down the herbaceous foliage will be mulching the borders with garden compost.   And so the work continues……

There’s always something interesting to see from a wildlife point of view in the garden.  Squirrels are being very busy collecting up acorns and hazelnuts and meticulously burying them in the ground.    It’s funny to see them popping the acorns into a hole just the right size and them carefully patting down the soil to keep them safe.   It’s a complete mystery to me how they manage to find them again although judging by the number of hazel and oak saplings that I’ve recently spotted in flowerbeds they obviously don’t find them all.     Gardeners always seem to have a friendly robin by their side, we are no different and enjoyed seeing one such visitor at the end of August.   Every time any of us took a break in the garden there was the friendly robin hopping around closer and closer looking very bedraggled, presumbably either a young bird or an adult in the middle of moulting.   Just a few weeks later and now when I am in the garden I hear a distinctive chirping sound and there is a robin looking resplendent in his new red breast feathers.    This year I have hung up the bird feeders a little earlier than usual and have been treated to the sight of long tailed tits and great tits feasting on the fat balls.   These don’t last long,  I did wonder if after the heatwave they would be a little short on natural food.

Flocks of mistle thrushes always appear in the garden during August.   They arrive so quietly, maybe 20 or more at a time, and fly straight into the yew tree to eat the berries.  This year there appear to be fewer berries so the thrushes haven’t spent as long here as usual.   The big question is where are these birds the rest of the year?

Not quite in the garden but spotted in the lane as I walked the dogs today, a beautiful very prosperous looking stoat running towards me along the lane and then at the last minute seeing the dogs he dived into the verge.  Luckily they were looking the other way for a change and didn’t spot the stoat!

An unusual visitor appeared at the back door last week.   As I stepped outside I bent to pick up what I thought was a bit of bootlace.  Luckily it moved before I touched it – it was a young snake!     I have to admit that I did jump back inside fairly quickly initially but obviously photographs had to be taken.    With a bit of research we think and hope it is nothing more alarming than a grass snake.   The snake remained for a little while then disappeared quietly under the step.   The thought occurred to us later that there must be an adult snake somewhere around.    Not sure that I really want to encounter a fully grown snake in the undergrowth – wellington boots on when in the garden from now on I think!

Rabbits and moles live here – tolerated and the less said about them the better!

And now Cake – with a wildlife twist.

A hedgehog cake!    Requested by younger daughter as a 21st birthday cake.  Happy to oblige – this is the third hedgehog I have made over the years – and much easier to construct than the Ferrari F1 race car cake she wanted for her 18th birthday! (that was achieved  but colour was less Ferrari red more Force India pink!)

As ever there is plenty going on gardening wise with changes to a couple of flower beds to be made over the next couple of months.   Watch this space!!

There’s a real autumnal feel to the garden at the moment.   It’s a shame to lose the lovely long evenings but the light in the garden is now more golden and soft – and thankfully it’s a good deal cooler!      I love autumn so let’s hope the colours will be long lasting this year.

Yellow is a good colour in the flower beds at the moment with Rudbeckia goldsturm and Rudbeckia laciniata both in flower.    Perennial helianthus Lemon Queen is in a couple of borders and flowering but not as prolifically as in previous years – maybe a job later on will be to divide and replant.   Another perennial helianthus, whose name I don’t know, is looking very colourful and spreading through an entire flower bed but it’s days are numbered!   I’ve spent two winters digging out every bit of root I can find and burning them and still it returns.   This year the entire flower bed is going to be emptied, dug and turfed over!     All the ‘well behaved’ plants are going to find new homes throughout the garden and I can only hope that constant mowing of the new turf will finally get rid of the ‘nuisance’ plant.   There is a lesson to be learnt here.   This helianthus was bought at a plant sale in a 3″ pot, just a single stem, for £1 and with no variety name.   The lady on the stall looked very relieved as I bought it and took it away, now I know why!      I’m not even tempted to pot it up and sell it at my local Country Market.    I couldn’t inflict it on an unsuspecting customer!  I don’t think it can be a rare plant!    I must say though that at the same plant sale all those years ago I bought a very nice evening primrose which turns out to be Oenothera fruticosa Fireworks.   That spreads but in a more controlled fashion and so far hasn’t outstayed its welcome.

However harvesting of fruit has started and that is the most exciting job at the moment.  We’ve had the first ever crop of plums from the “Purple Pershore” tree.   It’s a very small tree and was absolutely laden with fruit and unbelievably there was no damage to fruit from either birds or wasps,  the fruit was absolutely perfect.    Tasted good too!   Most of that crop is now in the freezer so we can enjoy it through the winter.    We’ve now moved onto the apple trees.    It’s a bit early yet but the Worcester Pearmain tree has borne a heavy crop this year which are now ripe, picked and being eaten. (Photograph shows tree ‘half picked’ – forgot camera!) These apples are so tasty and have a lovely scent.  Even better as we are in Worcestershire to grow a ‘local’ apple.    We only have a few apple trees but have managed to  include Pitmaston Pine Apple which also has links to Worcester.   These fruits are quite small, again though there is a heavy crop and even if we don’t like the taste they will end up as juice or possibly go into the home made cider later on.