Tuesday 30 January 2024

My son spotted a pair of robins at the courtyard feeding station but by the time I’d engaged my camera, one of them had moved to some birdseed on the ground.  Robins are aggressively territorial so these two are obviously a breeding pair.  I hope I see cute little speckledy chicks in the spring!  This one was photographed in June 2014.

More and more snowdrops are coming out in the bouldery and the woodland garden and in the cemetery (top left) where Lisa takes her little dog for a walk; she sent me another photo.  Meanwhile, indoors my bargain pink pelargonium is in flower in the French windows.

The cordyline by the frog pond has survived, after all, in the form of a basal shoot.  In the winter of 2022-3, all but the largest cordyline, by the goldfish pond, rotted away so this is an encouraging sign.  The courtyard cordyline sprouted a while back and is looking quite bushy now.

Things have calmed down a bit and I’ve returned the hanging chair to its place on the lawn: easy to see because the heavy, circular iron base had made a round rut in the grass.  Storm Jocelyn, which hadn’t seemed as fierce as Storm Isha, had blown the seat over, despite its weight.  It still seems too chilly for me to be out gardening and yesterday it rained all day.

The RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) held its annual Big Birdwatch at the weekend and I did my hour’s survey on Sunday, counting the largest number of each species of bird that I saw at any one time in my garden.  Gone are the days when David and I were hard-pressed to count the number of chaffinches on the lawn.  The amount of birdlife I see nowadays is vastly reduced, in part due to the chopping down of the trees in the adjoining school grounds over the years but particularly now that they are making way for new classrooms due to the safety problems with RAAC (reinforced aerated autoclaved concrete) that had been used to build many schools in Britain from the 1950s: the schoolchildren have been ejected from their classrooms and the birds from their trees.  On Sunday it was rather blustery for watching birds and though I saw gulls, jackdaws and various unidentified small birds flying overhead (they don’t count) I had a poor showing to submit: seven woodpigeons, in the pussy willow tree and a lone robin in the courtyard.  The feeding station remained unvisited, as though closed for business!

Tuesday 23 January 2024

After Monday’s snowfall I had hoped that it might have disappeared after a few days but I awoke on Thursday to find more snow had fallen in the night.  Not very deep, but a possible hazard and I didn’t want to risk falling and breaking anything.  The photo of the back garden was taken at about 8:30am and the view from the front of the house about an hour later.

There was plenty to do indoors.  The bay leaves I’d been drying were nice and crispy and ready to be stored in a recycled glass jar: perfect to flavour my soups and stews. My vegetables needed prepping and I soon had storage boxes, for the fridge, of carrots and parsnips peeled and cut up for roasting; a small piece of carrot for shaving into coleslaw; a bowl of wldorf salad made by mixing chopped apple, celery and walnuts bound together with a spoonful of mayo, and a batch of mushroom soup made in my electric soup maker.  The peelings will be used twice: they have been saved in a bowl in the fridge and will later be cooked up in the soup maker set on chunky so they are not ground up.  The resulting liquid makes vegetable stock and the peelings can then be tipped into the kitchen waste bucket headed for the compost heap.

As I moved to the fake conservatory with a cup of coffee after my labours, I saw long-tailed tits at the feeding station but they flew off, perhaps startled by my appearance in the window.  I sat patiently with my camera and was eventually rewarded when one of them returned to the fat balls.

At least the snow had cleared, thanks to all the wind and rain, later on Saturday and it was nice to get out, on Sunday morning, for my first walk in eight days.  I had an email from Jim & Christine with photographs.

Was amusing myself yesterday by taking photos of these tracks, prior to departing to Sainsburys (but my road very slippy).  These [above left, Jim thought possibly a badger, and he’d thoughtfully provided his footprint for scale] were about 2-3 ins long and have seen similar ones in mud patches on my foot path.  Thought this [above right] could be fox or cat.  Smaller prints approx 10-12ins apart in a line.

Watermark J WhatsApped me to thank Briony for the information on the ‘pearl cloud’ she’d seen and to tell me that she’d put Christmas box on her garden centre shopping list after I’d written about how strongly perfumed its flowers are.  The perfume has faded now, though it lasted for a week, so I’ve picked another stem.

As well as having to contend with slippery roads and pavements we’ve been beset by storms, one following hard on the heels of the other but I think Storm Isha which raged through the country on Sunday night to Monday morning must have been one of the worst.  I righted the wheelie bins (fortunately with lids bungeed shut)  and tansy pot in the kitchen garden before I went to bed and lay there listened to the roaring wind in the night and watching the sluicing rain streaming down the window like you only see on a film set, and wondering what scenes of devastation would greet me in the morning.

I couldn’t believe it when all I found was a fallen Hebe.  No smashed pots, no blown-over wisteria arch or hanging chair and no flooded garden or overflowing pond!  Storm Jocelyn is due next.

Don’t forget it’s the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend. Check out the RSPB website on rspb.org.uk I’ll be doing my hour’s bird counting.

Tuesday 16 January 2024

It was a grey week and the nearest I’d seen to a sunrise was on Friday, during a few-minutes’ break in the clouds but Sunday’s orange sunset made up for it. 

The garden hadn’t seemed quite so squelchy on Saturday when I went out to replenish the bird feeders (I did say bird feeders, not squirrel feeders!) and to tip the kitchen waste on to the compost heap, so when the sun came out on Sunday afternoon, I was inspired to venture into the garden again, this time for half an hour. 

It was very cold and my hands were perished but after donning gardening gloves and setting to work I soon warmed up.  The robin that sings to me every morning, before daybreak, followed me around, posing occasionally for my camera.  I swept up sodden autumn leaves and stored them in the bins at the bottom of the garden to turn themselves into leaf mould, a useful mulch for the beds and borders.  The large coppiced hazel branch that I’d left last month, was cut up with pruning saw and loppers, the largest piece tossed on to the log pile and the rest put into the garden waste bin.  The first snowdrop, spotted on 31 December, had gone over but there was a new one in the woodland garden and once I’d pulled out the shining cranesbill from a tub in the kitchen garden, I found dozens of shoots. I moved the pot to the patio steps so I can watch these snowdrops grow and bloom from the other side of the French windows. I just had time to tip out the three bird baths, their water clogged with more fallen leaves, and to refill them with fresh water, before my timer alerted me that my half hour was over.  My tools were put away and I went indoors for a cup of tea, feeling quite pleased with myself.  First session of the year and plenty more to come, I thought, until it snowed that night!  

By Monday morning there was a covering of snow in the garden and I was glad that I’d at least got one half hour’s gardening done the previous afternoon. it looked less chilly when the sun came out an hour later!

Three of my readers have contacted me with comments and photographs.  Trevor commented:

Yesterday 8th I was late getting to the farm due to an appointment only to be greeted by 8 robins in my recently created 80 foot pollinators and nesting hedge, adjacent to my “ snap cabin “.  All were mostly patiently waiting for the additions to where I feed my 2 geese.  They are curmudgeonly to put it mildly as both partners have passed away and this would be prime mating season prior to first eggs on Valentines Day.  So 8 robins on the 8th in my 80’ hedge were all willing to run the gauntlet of food competition with 2 grumpy geese.

I love hearing about Trevor’s wildlife adventures.  Wonderful!

“I saw the heron again!” texted Briony as she WhapsApped me a photo.  She also commented on the ‘pearl cloud’ seen by Watermark J and Lisa last week.  “A couple of friends up in Edinburgh saw it too!” she said, and sent a link with further information about such phenomena.   https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/67769934

Meanwhile, Bernard, at art group (his favourite thing is to photograph the skies) had shown me his photos of a nacreous sky and I knew, from all the crosswords I do, that nacre was another word for mother-of-pearl.

Lisa sent me photos taken of Peasholm Glen and the lake, while walking her dog.  Here are Canada geese, mute swans, a picturesque cascade and a large tree, uprooted in the recent storms and now being cut up. 

My house is full of the fragrance of Christmas Box (sarcococca confusa, if you’re looking for a plant at the garden centre.) I picked three stems from one of my shrubby plants and put them in a vase on the mantelpiece. If I leave the lounge door open I can even smell the perfume upstairs in the bedroom. Who’d have thought that such tiny little flowers could pack such a punch!

Tuesday 9 January 2024

This week I’ve often woken to the sound of the robin’s song before it has got light.  A gentle way to meet the day!  The light hadn’t been good enough for a photo when I tracked it down to the wild cherry tree so you will have to make do with a robin singing from one of my holly trees taken on a brighter January day in 2015.

I’ve been nipping out to pick rocket from the kitchen garden to spice up my bought lettuce, tomatoes and spring onions and when I ran out of dried bay leaves which I’d used to flavour mushroom soup and sausage casserole, I picked more sprigs to dry in the kitchen.

On Saturday morning I counted 24 woodpigeons in the trees at the bottom of my garden and the neighbours’, and took a photo from the bedroom window.   My neighbours and I could start a poultry farm! Because the birds are in silhouette I’ve inserted a close-up of a woodpigeon, that I took in August 2017.

I seem to have been doing a lot of looking out and snapping! The other day I thought Hazel, over the road, had some exotic yellow blooms spilling over her cotoneaster hedge but on further investigation they were found to be the sun shining on some variegated periwinkle foliage. Later, the cat, who includes my garden in his territory, took up his usual position in front of Hazel’s wall staring wistfully at the same cotoneaster hedge, probably hearing the rustlings and chirpings of house sparrows. The periwinkle leaves can be see to the right of the photo.

Watermark J had been out with her camera, too, sending me this strangely-coloured swirl that she’d seen in the sky on 21 December.  Lisa had also shown me a snap of the sky, probably taken on the same day, saying it reminded her of the northern lights, which have been seen here on occasion but not yet by me.   

Finally, Twelfth Night this year fell on Saturday so, as tradition dictates, I took down all the trimmings of my zero-waste Christmas! 

Decorations and fairy lights were stored in the attic for next year; the ‘tree’, made from two hazel prunings, and the holly, ivy and pine sprigs from the Christmas wreath were all put into the garden waste bin to be recycled as bags of council compost; the wreath’s wooden ring saved with the other decorations; the tree’s anchoring bucket of grit was returned to the garage for use in the garden (if it ever dries enough for me to work out there!) and the greetings cards were made into gift tags with the addition of recycled pieces of ribbons and threads, the remaining bits of card disposed of in the recycling bin.

As I went to put the twigs and greenery into the garden waste bin it suddenly started to rain (again!).  Earlier I’d heard a weather warning on Classic FM for the coming week.  We seemed to have got away with it as regards Storm Henk, which ravaged the south, but the week ahead will be very cold, apparently, and we’ve been advised to keep our thermostats to at least 18^oC.

Tuesday 2 January 2024

Happy New Year!  How welcome a bit of blue sky and sunshine was, glimpsed through the branches of the beech tree on that first morning of 2024!

With Storm Pia being replaced by Storm Gerrit this week, all the gardening I’ve done, if you can call it gardening, has been the emptying of kitchen waste on to the compost heap, scattering bird seed into the courtyard from the French windows and picking up litter that has blown in and which I can’t abide!  The paths are somewhat flooded and David’s alpine garden looks like a water feature!  The level of the frog pond is much higher than usual and it won’t be long before the frogs arrive to breed.

However, the first snowdrops appeared to Lisa and me on the last day of 2023.  Lisa had been out walking the dog: “. . . seen my first snowdrops in the same place as always in the cemetery and a cheeky squirrel scurrying off to the left.”  I‘d been checking my garden for snowdrops, too, every so often, but squelched down the flooded paths for another look and, sure enough, found one in the long border by the fence and towards the woodland end of the garden.

The witch hazel is out!  It can always be relied upon, in the depths of winter, to brighten the courtyard with its spidery orange flowers, instead of the usual yellow ones.  This variety is hamamelis intermedia Jelena.  It is perfumed but in the cold weather and not en masse like it is in the garden centres, you have to go right up to it and take a good sniff!

Helen sent me a photo of a wood mouse in her Scottish garden: “. . . a little moose loose aboot the hoose . . .” as she puts it! 

I watered the house plants, snapping the ones in flower: the coral cactus, a present from Jim and Chris, many years ago, is once again full of yellow blossoms, on the spare room windowsill.  I’d increased my stock of pinky-orange-flowered echeverias with cuttings and now have more pots of them than of the greyer-leaved, yellow-flowered ones, which are due to bloom this month, according to the photo I have, taken in January 2017. It is my only photo, probably because the pinky-orange ones are my favourite.  I must try not to be so selective!  In the French windows the climbing pelargonium’s flower is almost over and though the plant is growing tall I can see no more buds at the moment.  It was a present from Watermark J. The echeverias left out on the other side of the window have survived the worst of the weather so far.