February already

Pulmonaria in flower

Already into February; the garden is moving slowly forward, and the birds are thinking of nesting.  They may get a shock later this week as we are forecast to have frosty nights, but there have been a few sunny days and things are looking up!

The snowdrops are now joined by the first winter aconites, and the pulmonaria, in its sheltered spot under the apple cordons and against the stone wall, is starting to flower too.  I managed to cut back the clematis down by the dump corner, a great tangled mass of stems around the honeysuckle; it actually came away fairly easily, and there were nice shoots low down that it could be cut back to.  The honeysuckle had a pruning while I was at it.  Underneath, the sedum (what is now called hylotelephium) has been tidied up; it's not in a good place there, much too shady, and some of it might better be moved to the old herb bed.

The sparrows are refurbishing their nest in what we call the Penthouse, the space under the eaves above our bedroom (we sometimes hear them hopping around when things are quiet in the early morning).  Bits of grass and the odd feather have been taken in there, and there has been some squabbling that looks like early mating.  A couple of pigeons have definitely been seen in flagrante, and a woodpecker was drumming for a mate one day.  The robins have been feeding on the patio at the same time, if not exactly 'together', maintaining a respectful distance, but it's only a matter of time before they pair up properly. 

The family of long-tailed tits comes regularly to the fatball feeder, and a nuthatch appeared there today.  The song thrush is still coming to the garden, enjoying baths in the pond, and it or its mate has been heard quietly singing in the lane.

A busy week

 

First hellebore flowers!

Some days spent working in the garden don’t seem to result in very much.  You go round the plot, doing a bit of cutting back here, a spot of weeding there, a few seeds sown somewhere else and maybe another little job too, and at the end of the day nothing much seems to have been achieved.  But most days last week were dry and not too cold, and I managed several tasks that have been hanging over me for some time, and getting them done makes me feel satisfied that I’ve actually achieved something in the garden.

In my last post I mentioned that I’d put some sweet pea seeds to soak.  They were duly sown in pots in the cold frame, with a good sprinkling of chilli powder to deter any mice that might get in there.  (Note to self: add more chilli powder to the supermarket shopping list!)

The old herb bed, which had been mostly cleared in the autumn, was top of the list for some work.  When the self-sown oregano was removed, I found a Stipa tenuissima plant that had sown itself there; I used to have one in the bottom bed but I think I’ve lost it, so I was glad to find its offspring and let it stay.  Otherwise the bed contains the rose ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ and some chives that needed cleaning up (some nasty creeping grass and creeping potentilla had got in there), and I managed to weed the row of chives along the path edge (still some on the other side needing to be tackled).  This bed is an ideal home for some tulips; apart from a few random survivors planted in odd corners, all my tulips in recent years have been in containers, and I wanted a few more permanent flowers.  I had kept last year’s potful of T. ‘Ballerina’, which is a bit more perennial than some, and I rather belatedly heaved them out of their pot and into the ground.  They already had some shoots, although I’m not sure these looked mature enough to flower this year.  ‘Ballerina’ is a bit of a risk, in colour terms; it’s orange, and Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ is pink.  I’m counting on timing preventing too much of a clash; ‘Ballerina’ should have exited stage left before ‘Gertrude’ makes her entrance.  If there’s an overlap, it ought to be brief.  I also planted a red tulip, T. ‘Pieter de Leur’, in the bed, and marked the location of all the tulips with a layer of wood ash, so that I'll know where to avoid when I put in further plants alongside!  They do now have the company of the anthemis which I moved from the ‘patio bed’ where it was too close, and too similar in colour, to the leucanthemum.  That has left a temporary hole in the patio bed planting, but the other plants will soon fill that.

Anthemis - and ash on the tulips!

The hole where the anthemis was

I also had some ‘World Friendship’ tulips, which I managed to add to the two old bulbs that I planted last year, along the terrace edge; they got a place-marker layer of wood ash too, although I don’t expect to be doing too much digging round there for a while.

On the subject of bulbs, I pulled up the (badly frosted) lobelia plants in the brown plastic tubs, and found that the miniature daffodils underneath were budding nicely; I hope the loss of the insulation provided by the lobelia won’t affect them too much.

Mini daffs shooting nicely

Thinking of bulbs in pots reminded me that I’d been meaning to repot the lilies (Lilium regale, mostly) that were sitting in too-small pots on the patio; they’re now housed in rather more spacious containers.

And before I left the patio, I got up a ladder and pruned the wisteria!  Another major job done.

Down in the veg patch, there were also things to do.  The two little alpine strawberry beds were looking in need of renovation; the plants start to fade after about three years, and it’s best to replace them.  Fortunately they seed themselves gently about the place, and there are usually replacements on hand.  I pulled up the old plants on one bed, put in some younger ones (thereby also weeding some of the veg bed paths) and mulched well with old compost saved from last year’s dahlia pots.  I’ll do the other bed when I can find the time.  Two rows of shallots were planted and covered with fleece to protect them from the birds, who seem to have been busy reorganising the garlic bulbs, which are coming up but not in the neat rows in which I planted them!

Renovated strawberry bed

The apple cordons have their annual prune in July, but I also like to go over them in winter, when the lack of leaves means I can see more clearly what needs to be removed.  I also decided to take steps to halt the onward march of the lily-of-the-valley, which is encroaching on the apples; so a good layer of cardboard was laid over that end of the lily-of-the-valley patch, with some organic matter (old grass clippings and a little old compost) on top and black plastic over that, well weighted down.  The latter is a necessary precaution, especially as the forecast was for more gales over the weekend; the gales did indeed materialise, although not as severe as further north, and the plastic is still in place!

Can spring be far behind?

Just past mid-January, and the weather is still reminding us that it’s winter, reasonably enough.  But there are already signs that the natural world is looking ahead to spring.

The past few days have had a definite chill about them, and today (forecast to be ‘thick cloud’) a late-morning mizzle developed into fairly steady light snow that was too light and too wet to lie, but was definitely wintry.  The birdlife came in search of food; a blackbird spent much of the day attending to the remains of an apple left out on the path, and the family of long-tailed tits came and went repeatedly on the fatball container, right up to supper-time.  The dropped scraps from the fatballs also went down well with the blackbird.

Blackbird and his apple

Fatball feeders in the snow

It wasn’t weather to be outside gardening.  I had spent time yesterday going through my seed stash, organising it into ‘dates to be sown’, and found some cabbage seed that can be started off now, as well as a few sweet pea seeds.  (The autumn-sown sweet peas have not done well, with only two seedlings appearing, so it will be up to the January sowing to make any display this year.)  The older sweet pea seeds have now been put in water to soak and plump up, in the hope that they’ll germinate, while the cabbage is still waiting for me to brave the temperatures in the greenhouse and get sowing.  Otherwise, gardening was limited to watering the (indoor) orchid.

Two trays of ‘Aquadulce Claudia’ broad beans have already been sown in module trays and left to germinate in the greenhouse propagator.  The propagator no longer works, but the lid will keep hungry mice off the seeds until they’ve sprouted.  I’m still in two minds about what to do with them when we go on our February holiday; much will depend on how far on they have grown by then.  Options will be to plant them in the ground (and risk mouse depredations) or leave them in the cold frame to grow on.

Despite the birds’ cold-weather feeding frenzy, they are now starting to turn their minds to spring.  A sparrow was toying with a dropped feather the other day, as if it was thinking that it might be useful in days to come, and today two robins were showing signs of a slightly uneasy friendship, at least feeding within a few feet of each other and not displaying aggression.  The real sign of spring will be when they can pair up to jointly chase off other robins.

Less welcome garden visitors have been a pair of magpies; they’ve been about in the background in past years, appearing from time to time, but this winter they’ve been here most days.  They’re bold birds and major predators of smaller birds’ nests, and we chase them away whenever we can.  Reasonably enough, they seem very wary, and fly into the trees at the first sign of our presence, but there’s a limit to how much chasing we can do.

Frozen fingers

After the murky weather leading up to New Year, 2025 started with a week or so of chilly weather, including some snow.  It didn’t last long in these parts, but there was a good deal of ice, and the bright, clear weather brought freezing temperatures at night.  The greenhouse temperature dropped to minus 2.9C.  Patchy snow on the ground and ice – not good gardening weather.  But there’s always plenty of other things needing doing, so I took the opportunity to defrost the freezer; another frozen fingers job.

Cold weather always means birds coming in search of food: Lefty, of course, as well as sparrows, dunnocks, blackbirds, fieldfares, chaffinches, bullfinches and tits of various sorts.  A wren managed to get into the porch, presumably looking for a warm roost for the night, and had to be extricated.  A song thrush also appeared, taking advantage of a sheltered (and therefore unfrozen) spot by the patio to root around for grubs.  I hope it stays around for the Big Garden Birdwatch later this month.

The New Year flower count was reasonable: winter jasmine, winter honeysuckle, mahonia ‘Winter Sun’, viburnums, rosemary, snowdrops, some campanula, the vinca in the front wall, meadow grass, and two ‘one-off’ flowers surviving from the autumn, a solitary wallflower and a stem of brunnera.  Fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’ just about made the count, but the flowers were really too far gone to get more than an honourable mention.

Backwards and forwards

Home-made Christmas wreath hanging on the gate

Nearly the end of 2024. 

Looking back, it’s been a soggy old year, with a lot of wet, much wind and only a few, all-too-brief, warm spells.  There have been successes in the garden, such as the new flower bed by the patio (although some editing is needed there), and some good crops in the veg plot (including eating apples, the store of which is only now running out); but some less successful things too, such as the salad and bean crops succumbing to slug damage (and autumn plantings succumbing to the mice), and the failure of seed-collecting because of the wet. 

Time now to look forward.  There’s the old herb bed, nearly all cleared and offering opportunities for more planting. The tulip bulbs are mostly planted to provide colour next spring – and, for the record (since I usually forget): the biggest patio pot contains ‘Prinses Irene’, ‘Doll’s Minuet’ and ‘Havran’, while the slightly smaller one has ‘Lady van Eyck’, ‘Mystic van Eyck’ and ‘Paul Scherer’.  Both have several forget-me-not plants, moved from the veg plot edges, bedded in on top, both as complementary planting and to discourage the squirrel from digging up the bulbs.  Other tulip bulbs (‘World Friendship’ and ‘Pieter de Leur’) are still to be planted, while I decide whether to put them in more pots or in the ground.  All I need to allow me to get on with things is some better weather; December has been mild, apart from a couple of light grass frosts overnight, but damp, and nearly all the past week has been foggy as well.  The forecast is for a very wet and windy New Year, followed by colder days and frosty nights. 

And two promising signs for 2025: Lefty, our elderly lame woodpigeon, who has been coming daily for his breakfast on the patio, has been tolerating the company of another pigeon; we assume it’s a female and that he’s contemplating mating next year.  And the first snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii) are already out.  Happy New Year! 

December snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii)

Midwinter flowers

There isn’t much colour in the garden in mid-winter, but it’s not a completely flower-free zone.  The mild (mostly wet and windy) weather has helped, of course, and having a few winter stalwarts in the planting also ensures some blooms. 

Mahonia 'Winter Sun'

Of the winter shrubs, the most floriferous is the Mahonia ‘Winter Sun’.  It’s much better than the later-flowering Mahonia aquifolium, which I inherited (from the previous owners) in the rubble-filled area round the gas tank.  I’d love to dig that out, but it’s impossible to get a spade or fork in there.  I’m thinking of letting it flower in the spring, and then cutting it down as far as possible.  But that’s another story.  ‘Winter Sun’ does what it says on the tin, and it’s an excellent garden plant for this time of year.  The winter jasmine and both the Viburnum tinus are also in flower, and the winter honeysuckle (Lonicera purpusii) is starting to put out little blooms, though there is a pair of male bullfinches that love to peck at it.

Self-sown primula flowering in December

There are fewer perennials in flower, but a couple of primulas in the little patch of border outside the front wall are doing quite well, and there are plenty of berries on the Iris foetidissima plants that appear around the place.  I took the leaves off the hellebores back in November, as they were suffering from hellebore leaf spot and didn’t look good; the new flowers are already in bud underneath, promising some colour in early spring.

Replanted window-box

Another job already done is to replant the window-box for winter.  Back in late spring I heaved out the whole contents – two rosemarys, a little gold-leaved euonymus plant, some crocus and ‘Tete-a-tete’ daffodil bulbs – compost and all, and left them over summer in a similar-sized plastic trough in a corner.  Now it was time to heave them back again, and top-dress with some fresh compost.  We’ll see if it works!  The rosemarys are a bit leggy, but already in bud so I don’t want to cut them back.  The plants that were in there for the summer were either expendable annuals, now composted, or potted up and put in the greenhouse to overwinter (a fuchsia and a couple of osteospermums).  A variegated ivy that spent the summer in the windowbox has been put back in place for winter.  For now, everything seems happy enough!

Out front

The front garden doesn’t get as much attention from me as it ought.  It’s a bit ‘out of sight and out of  mind’; in daylight hours we tend to spend our time in the back of the house, enjoying the view down the main part of the garden, only migrating to the front rooms after dark, when there isn’t much to see.

Vinca major

But today I ventured out to make some inroads into the Vinca major in the front garden wall.  This is one of the very few plants surviving from before we moved here, thirty-odd years ago.  It wasn’t the greatest planting idea on the part of our predecessors; while Vinca minor is a pretty little plant, its big brother Vinca major is a well-known thug.  The evergreen leaves are handsome and the purplish-blue flowers attractive, but its tendency to send out long arching stems that root at the tip make it a less than desirable garden plant.  Its ability to flower off and on pretty much all year is welcome, especially in December, but overall it’s not a plant to covet.  And in honesty, I haven’t been good at keeping it in check.  It originated in the front border, but has made its way through and under the dry-stone wall out into the grass verge in front of the house, where of course I can’t normally see it.

The last few days have been very windy and rather wet – Storm Darragh.  Not good gardening weather.  We pay the council for a green waste bin, but it has sat empty these past ten days, and I’m minded to fill it as much as possible before its next collection-day, on Friday.  In such circumstances I tend to cast around the garden for high-volume, easy-to-gather material that allows me to fill the bin quickly, and pulling up vinca stems fits the bill nicely.  I’m not sure that it will make a noticeable difference to the front verge – there’s a lot of the stuff – but it’s a start. 

While checking over the front garden (a biggish branch of the holly tree was brought down by the storm – no damage done, fortunately), I noticed that Camellia ‘Donation’ has a good number of fat flower buds on it, just waiting for spring.  Both it and the other camellia (less floriferous-looking) seem to have enjoyed the new compost added to their pots, as their leaves look healthy and glossy, though the effect is spoiled by the grass and other weeds on the compost surface; I washed the top-dressing gravel and put it back, but clearly some weed seeds had survived.  More weeding needed.

Camellia 'Donation' - in bud

Despite the wet and the wind, the temperatures this month have been above zero, sometimes considerably so, which probably explains the camellia buds (the wet summer would also have helped); nearby, Fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’ is rather optimistically producing new flower buds, and the lawn is growing green and shaggy.  The two tubs of miniature daffodils, which were top-dressed with compost from a failed sowing of lobelia and where the lobelia subsequently germinated and flowered very well, still has a good layer of lobelia with some flowers.  Not for much longer, I suspect, although the forecast isn’t showing much change in the weather.

Lobelia - still flowering in December

The hazel catkins put on a fine display on a sunny day!