The May phenomenon

06:25  Tuesday 30 May 2017

It’s the season of abundance, or “the May phenomenon,” as my son calls it – he’s been out weeding his over-exuberant plot so the birds can peck about and have dust baths. Here the wisteria and laburnum are dripping with flowers, the bougainvillea on the landing is full of Mediterranean colour . . .

. . . and the rose harvest has begun:

a fragrant Deep Secret flanked by slightly scented Queen Elizabeths.   The bud is rosa Joey, picked for the guest room: my granddaughter was staying the night on Friday, and, walking round the garden the following morning, she spotted the strange flowers of the arum italicum pictum growing by the woodland bird bath.

I would have missed them but for her sharp eyes!  Wonderful!  The small green & cream leaves at the bottom of the photo belong to a variegated periwinkle.  The arum’s leaves (at the back) are large, arrow-shaped and glossy green with pale markings.  The plants seed around the woodland garden from the original, bought in March 1999 from a Boy Scouts’ coffee morning and growing in the bouldery.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my armchair view of the Chelsea Flower Show 2017.  Some of this year’s trends, I noticed, were lupins, purple spires of salvia, foxgloves, orange geums, pine trees and rough-hewn edges to concrete slabs.   I feel quite fashionable: I have orange geums in a courtyard pot, the patio steps have rough-hewn edges and in David’s alpine garden there is a dwarf mountain pine, pinus mugo.

No lupins this year or purple salvia spires, just salvia officinalis, the common sage for culinary use, not yet in flower amongst my herbs, but for purple spires I have the old faithful purple toadflax (linaria purpurea) which grows like a weed in this garden and will start to flower any day now.  Here is a photo I took a few years ago:

Foxgloves are another self-seeder so I see purple and white ones, and so far some white foxgloves in bud but I’ve grown more from a free-with-Amateur Gardening-magazine packet of seeds including a pot of three for my friend, Margaret.  These will flower next year.

My other friend Margaret, who lives down south, texted me on Friday:

Have you been watching the Chelsea Flower Show? It’s really inspired me.  Up to now I haven’t been able to work up any energy for gardening but today I have bought some geranium plants so tomorrow !!!

There’s nothing like geraniums (or pelargoniums) to make a splash of holiday colour!

The painter spotted seven frogs at the edge of the courtyard pond.  It was so sunny I couldn’t see what I was snapping but when I downloaded the camera I could see 6 frogs.  Can you?

He had finished painting next door’s extension wall which gives us our courtyard garden so said I could put back David’s lion fountain.  I got it going with a refreshingly splashy sound.

There’s always a huge tangle of flex from the electric pump so I used a broken clay pot to make a tidy and planted up another clay pot with assorted pelargoniums to mask the open end.  I was influenced by Margaret and her geraniums!

Handygran strikes again!

Russian doll gardening again!

08:22  Tuesday 23 May 2017

Every day from early morning we are serenaded by the song thrush – possibly a different one because its phrases are not quite the same but it gets an answering call from further afield so that is encouraging!  I managed to track it down on Saturday to the top of next door-but-one’s sycamore then it sang from the top of our thuja.

“Russian doll” gardening is what I call not being able to get on with one job before having to do something else, which can’t be done before another task and so on.  I had two quandaries: the blue bearded irises would not be flowering this year.  In a good year they look like this in May.

Iris rhizomes need to be baked by the sun for successful flowering and the border where they are planted is too shady and any sun they do get is shaded out by the encroaching ground elder.  That was the first problem and the second was that I was looking for a space to plant the double-flowered rosa rugosa, still in its temporary builder’s bucket.

I set to work – I’ve increased my half-hour sessions to hour-long ones now – digging up the irises, planting two divisions on the sunny side of the laburnum and the rest in a courtyard tub;  the leaves have been cut back to prevent wind-rock and the cobbles are to stop birds from flicking out the divisions: keeping the rhizomes exposed means they are vulnerable to both these problems until the roots have taken hold.

The latter four will be planted in the extension border when the decorator has finished painting the house.

I shall have to beef up the soil a bit but if I keep the space in front of the border clear the iris rhizomes will get plenty of sunshine.  The whole area is nice and clear now because I had to create a gangway ready for painting the wall.  Here are the before and after photos: lots of clipping back of olive and weigela as well as weeding and sweeping.  The buddleia foliage will be pulled forward with string whilst painting is in progress.

The trimmings weren’t wasted either: with the addition of a stem or two of aquilegia they made a large flower arrangement for the house.

All the aquilegias are flowering, just as well in sun as in shade; this year’s offerings are: Margaret’s purple (from my friend Margaret’s garden), dusky pink from my son’s garden, Magpie, a tall “black” & white version whose seeds were free with Gardenlife magazine (now defunct) in 2005, also mauve, purple with green tips and reddish – aquilegias tend to seed around and hybridize.

Back to the border.  Having moved the irises, I dug over the patch between the variegated holly and the apple tree (grown from a pip by one of my grandsons), clearing as much as I could of the ground elder.  From a sunnier part of the border I transferred two plants that will cope with shade: a purple-leaved heuchera and a dusky pink aquilegia.

The patch was soaked – plenty of rainwater from all my bailings out of the butt ready for the back of the garage to be painted – and a mulch of half-rotted autumn leaves was added.

Once I’ve cleared the weeds from the sunnier patch I’ll have the ideal spot for the rosa rugosa!  I’m pleased with that and the frog seems contented too!

The azalea by the front door is at its best now and abuzz with bees.

This week I shall be watching the TV coverage of Chelsea Flower Show and, if the weather allows the decorator to finish painting the house, I shall be putting all the pots etc back into position.

Creatures and crops

08:04  Tuesday 16 May 2017

We hadn’t seen a chaffinch for a while so I was pleased to catch a streak of white wing bars by the frog pond.  Grabbing the binoculars I watched a chaffinch chick emerge and cross the potager to the courtyard.  It preened its feathers for a while and I got a decent shot.  There have been signs of nesting elsewhere in the garden: the discarded shells of a dunnock’s egg on the lawn and possibly a collared dove’s in the woodland garden.

Here’s a cosy pair in a neighbour’s conifer.

A great tit appeared to be interested in next door’s nest box but it faces the sun all day so it was more likely to be looking for insects in the crevices of the wood.

David photographed a tiny bird’s nest that Tina had found in her front garden under the rowan tree.

On Saturday morning a herring gull was stalking about our lawn with its beak full of mulch pinched from the base of the laburnum tree.  No photo, I’m afraid: too slow getting camera out of pocket; must be quicker on the draw!

The day before, I had weeded round the bases of laburnum, prunus purpurea and amelanchier, watering and then topping with a generous mulch of home-made compost.

The goldfinch pair (below left) were back at the niger seeds and we’ve been hearing the song thrush again but only a distant echo from some other lucky person’s garden.  The dunnocks, robins, house sparrows  and tree sparrows (below right) have been wolfing down the mixed seeds so I ordered another big (12.75kg) bag from haiths.com and it was delivered the very next day!

I’d spent the week waiting for rain to water my azalea and camellia properly (they don’t like tap water) and to top up the courtyard pond (tap water encourages algal growth) and finally it arrived: a good solid few hours on Sunday morning, on and off all day yesterday and more coming today.

Meanwhile the tadpoles in the frog pond have been getting bigger: I sometimes catch them in my sieve as I’m scooping out duckweed and have to throw them back in.  We’ve been make the most of any warm, sunny days by sitting out of the chill wind with our cuppas, either in the sheltered courtyard or the arbour, watching the butterflies.

This week the speckled woods have joined the cavortings of the odd cabbage white.

I continue to harden off the seedlings started off indoors, giving them a week in the cold frame and then moving them to the open shelving of the former mini greenhouse, except in the case of the runner beans which were too tall for the cold frame so they were put against the house wall and taken in at night.  They are now planted in potager bed 4 along with the sweet peas.

I have used the wrought iron panels (that used to be against the garage wall) as climbing frames and cut up some plastic drinks bottles to guard the runner bean stems against slug damage (I hope!).

I shall begin to harden off the tomatoes (Red Cherry) when it’s a bit warmer.  They are still on the bedroom windowsill but I have baskets, liners and gro-bag compost in readiness.

The miniature roses that I planted at the front of the long border have put on new growth.  They had been flowering in a pretty white wooden trough which I have recycled for my pelargonium cuttings.

As time goes on I am able to pick more and more home-grown salad to spice up the bought lettuce; the radishes are a success this year!  The bowl also holds Salad Bowl lettuce (red & green), baby celery, spring onion, beetroot leaves, red-veined sorrel, sage, bronze fennel & parsley – and we’re going to get a crop of apricots this summer!

Clearing the decks

06:18  Tuesday 9 May 2017

We’re having the outside of our house painted later this month so I’ve been gradually moving things in readiness for the decorator – not easy in May when the plantlife goes mad!

I’ve sorted out the courtyard pond: the whole area was hidden under a blanket of grass and Japanese sweet rush (as can be seen in the top photo just beyond the cordyline) but it is now safe to walk behind the pond and you can actually see that there is a pond; it needs to be topped up with rain water but we haven’t had any rain for a while and none forecast to arrive until Thursday!  Two frogs popped up while I was working!

The overgrown plants in the faux lead tank under the outdoor tap have been composted.  I just saved a pot of water forget-me-nots for the corner of the courtyard pond and some hornwort for the water lily tub.

There were some bricks in the bottom of the tank and a lot of sediment but I found that easy to scoop up using a plastic dust pan.  Now it can be used as a watering tub and once emptied again will be easily moved for the decorator.

Arachnophobes, avert your gaze from the next bit; arachnologists, read on!  As I was in the kitchen garden, pulling out weeds (wild flowers) growing along the house wall, I disturbed a spider and as it scuttled into the front garden I was able to get a good shot of it.  I had to look it up on the web,  never having seen one before, and found it to be a woodlouse spider.

Scientific name:  Dysdera crocata.

The woodlouse spider has a body which can vary in colour from creamy-grey to red-brown, legs usually a reddish-brown or orange colour, abdomen the size and appearance of a baked bean [I particularly like this description!].  Head and body 10 to 15mm long. 

More common in the southern half of Britain but found throughout the UK all year round. Lives under logs, stones and sometimes in damp buildings – where woodlice as well as other small creatures which it feeds on, might be found.

The jaws and fangs of woodlouse spiders are quite large in proportion to their bodies, and are specially developed for catching and killing woodlice.  They have six eyes, and catch their prey by running it down at night.  During the day, woodlouse spiders hide in a small silk cell beneath rocks and logs. [edited from uksafari.com]

It seemed a shame to waste the flowers as I was pulling up the plants so I saved them: Welsh poppies and forget-me-nots. Jardin Jan had the same idea when refurbishing her troughs: she picked the last remaining tulips and teamed them with bluebells and gardeners’ garters.

Gorgeous!

The siskins seem to have disappeared though the formerly exotic tree sparrow visits the feeding station (now moved from the courtyard to the meadow arch) every day and the song thrush sang all last week but has now gone quiet.

We’re seeing a pair of robins, though I’ve yet to photograph them both together.  They are obviously a breeding pair.  The odd cabbage white butterfly has fluttered into the courtyard and once a peacock butterfly came to feed on the perennial wallflower, erysimum Bowles’ Mauve.

This is a cutting but the master plant, growing in the long border, is looking splendid and with the blue camassia flowers makes the most striking splash of colour in the garden at the moment.

A song thrush, seagulls & pheasants

06:56  Tuesday 2 May 2017

What a thrill, on Sunday morning, to hear the song thrush singing its loud echoey repetitive song: joey joey joey joey, repeat repeat repeat repeat, chirrup chirrup chirrup chirrup, and then to see it in a neighbour’s conifer!  I managed a quick snap before I lost it in our thuja tree but it was still singing and stayed for quite a while.

Yesterday it sang for most of the day and I tracked it down in the afternoon to the ash tree in the school grounds.  I haven’t located it yet today but it’s still singing its joyous beak off!  I hope it takes up residence and brings it mates to sort out our snail problem!  A song thrush used to be a daily visitor here, then became rather rare and I hadn’t seen one since February 2013.

The seagulls are getting more and more brazen. This week a herring gull landed on the lawn where I’d spilt bird seed while filling one of the feeders and yesterday afternoon this one came to drink from the bird bath in the front garden.  I heard on the radio that people who feed seagulls will be fined: it encourages the birds to attack people with food in their hands, particularly children at the seaside.  These birds are big and can be quite menacing.  This is in Devon but no doubt these fines will become a nationwide deterrent.

Jill emailed me these lovely, colourful photos of her garden and, she writes, a pic of a morning visitor at my front door this week!    

Cock pheasants look so exotic; well, I suppose they are: these game birds originate from Asia.  I used to see plenty of them as a child in Lincolnshire and nowadays they can sometimes be glimpsed from the train or on car journeys through the countryside but I haven’t seen one in the garden since 2009.  The few sightings were recorded in my garden diary:

Wednesday 22 June 1988      A cock pheasant came into our garden.  (I remember the cat we had at the time went bounding up to him whereupon the pheasant flew up to the low wall round the barbecue, shrieked KERTOOK!! and the cat fled!)

Tuesday 28th October 2008     David spotted a game bird on the lawn; it was eating the bird seed then ran down the lawn behind the bouldery.  We didn’t go outside for a closer look because of a sudden sleet shower but we think it was a juvenile pheasant.

Saturday 15th November 2008     At about 3pm this afternoon a pheasant came right up to the patio doors and peered in at me but by the time I had grabbed my camera it had got to the edge of the lawn!

Monday 9th March 2009     Saw a cock pheasant on the patio steps – it flew off when it saw me!

Saturday 9th May 2009     While my daughter was helping me put the table away at lunchtime she spotted a beautiful cock pheasant in the potager and as luck would have it I had my camera in my pocket.

These days it is the Pheasant’s eye narcissus that I look forward to every May. It is a later daffodil than my others, delicate and fragrant.