The holly and the ivy

This is the season of evergreens - nothing else is doing much in the garden at the moment.  There are still a few flowers on the chrysanthemums, but they are sprawling on the ground mostly, and viburnum 'Dawn' and its evergreen relations are in flower - oh, and there's one single flower on the winter honeysuckle, at last.  At the front the winter jasmine is doing its thing.  Otherwise the interest is from the evergreens (and evergreys), and the red stems of the dogwood.  The Christmas greenery has started to make its way indoors; this week's photo offering is the decorated mantlepiece, using ivy (mostly) and a little holly, all from the garden.  The neighbours' efforts to eradicate the coloured-leaved ivy from the boundary wall means that there's less variegated stuff than usual, but enough to make a good contrast. (I don't blame the neighbours, by the way; ivy looks lovely but it does terrible things to old drystone walls.)

This weekend's work included weeding around the chrysanthemums, the aster and the helianthemum to allow me to plant the small red tulips (T. linifolia) that were the most recent bargain acquisition.  I hope I remember where I've put them.  I've also started to reclaim the path leading off the patio, where the rose has encroached on one side and a self-sown honeysuckle had taken root on the other.  The resulting digging was tidings of great joy to the robin, who took every opportunity to check for worms when I wasn't too close.  He's becoming quite trusting, and even a little cheeky - flying on to one of the pots near the window when he sees me and thinks I might bring out food.

I did put out quite a lot of food during last week, when we had several severe frosts; the robin was waiting most mornings when I opened the curtains.  The blackbirds, sparrows and starlings also came.  By the end of the week the weather had turned milder, with a little more rain and wind, though the weekend was mostly dry; this week has started clear and chilly, with sunny days, but rain on the way again.  Probably a wet Christmas rather than a white one.

Other wildlife hasn't been very visible.  The marsh tit was around at the weekend (and probably during the week too), and a nuthatch was whistling to itself (or maybe to another nuthatch, though I couldn't see one) as it looked for food in the trees on Sunday.  Mr Mole hasn't been doing much in the garden; he seems to be intermittently active down by the compost heaps at the moment, and as long as he stays down there that's fine by me.

Under cover

A drier week, but several frosty nights, so a decision had to be made about the more tender plants.  The blue-leaved succulent (echeveria?) that spent the summer in the big pot was potted on into something smaller some weeks ago, and put into the cold frame, but the frost prompted me to bring it indoors.  Until I get a greenhouse it'll have to overwinter indoors, so it's currently on the kitchen windowsill (taking up most of the space).  Today I removed the purple spiky thing (phormium? cordyline?) which has been forming a very effective backdrop in the pot by the patio doors, potted it up and brought it indoors too.  I've no idea how hardy it is, and it was in a very sheltered place, but it has grown well this year since I got it at the plant sale and I'd be sorry to lose it.  It has gone into the top bathroom.  While I was at it, I also removed the purple osteospermum from the same pot, potted that up too and put it in the cold frame; it spent last winter in there, so I hope it'll be ok this winter too.

The frost has seen off the last of the nerines, and the marigolds.  The only flowers now are the real winter ones - winter jasmine, viburnums and the hellebores under the dining room window.  Still nothing on the winter honeysuckle; the plant probably needs pruning as the wood is mostly quite old.  A cutting or two might be good insurance, unless I can find another layering where a branch has rooted into the ground.  A good sign on the viburnum that is dying back, though - it has produced a well-grown shoot from the base.

A few more bargain bulbs potted up today.  Some Super Parrot tulips (white with yellow-green backs), with a couple of cuttings of yellow ivy on top; the ivy came over the wall from next door, and since the neighbours have dug it out on their side I've tried to root a couple of pieces.  They seem ok so far.  Also a pot of paperwhite narcissi (Ziva), in the hope that they won't flower while we're away from home.  The third bargain hasn't gone in yet: red species tulips (linifolia), which will go around the aster, chrysanthemums and red helianthemum once I've finished weeding round them.  There's still time to plant them, as long as it isn't too frosty next weekend.

All the apples have gone from the tree, so the fieldfare and green woodpecker will have to move on elsewhere.  There are still some apples indoors, and the damaged ones go out on the patio for the blackbirds, who are becoming quite trusting.  Besides the robin, dunnocks and sparrows, a couple of chaffinches came down yesterday and a wren was about today.  We used to get flocks of finches, but not for a few years now; today there was a flock of what looked like finches up in the field maple next door, but I couldn't make out their markings.  It would be good to see more of them around.  There was a single goldfinch in the garden today, and the marsh tit was on the seed feeder - like the nuthatch, throwing seeds out until it found its favourite ones.  Must get better seed next time.

Splitting sedums

A drier and sunnier week, but the wind has turned to the north and we've had frosty nights - enough to freeze the pond and require scraping of the car windscreen.  There's still some water about, particularly when it rains but also just run-off from the fields; it's got to go somewhere, and back into the waterlogged soil isn't an option at the moment.  In the garden, the soil is a bit sticky but it never gets completely sodden.  The winter sunshine isn't enough to dry it out, but it's welcome when it comes.

The weekend's work was a mixture of clearing up, some cutting back, a little weeding - and doing a job I'd been keeping for the back end of the year, splitting the two 'Autumn Joy' sedums.  They hadn't been divided since they went in (a good many years ago), and were flagging. Now that their flowers are over, it's a good time to get at them.  The one by the summer house had all sorts of weeds in its roots - ground elder, nettles, buttercup and more - so badly needed sorting out.  Three offshoots have been planted out under the big ash tree, three in front of the honeysuckle and a few more potted up as spares or for the spring plant sale.

Sunday was a bumper bird-spotting day.  Over breakfast, in addition to the usual sparrows, robin, blackbirds and pigeons we had a pair of chaffinches, the fieldfare, a male bullfinch, a wren and a treecreeper.  The fieldfare was busy keeping the blackbirds off the remaining apples, and even chasing away a blue tit that got too close.  The green woodpecker is still about, and on Saturday we had a dozen partridges hiding in the garden to stay out of the way of the shoot.  Even more remarkably, yesterday's sunshine saw a dozen woodpigeons all together, quite amicably, enjoying the sun under the plum tree.  We seem to have plenty of robins this winter, which is nice (unless you're a territorially-minded robin); one of them was very appreciative of my digging up of the sedums, where the freshly turned soil provided a feast for him.

Stormy weather

Another wet week - very wet, with gales on Tuesday and again last night.  There are floods across the south-west; the ground is saturated after the wet summer and there's nowhere for the rain to go. It's not so bad up here in the Cotswolds (though the river in Cirencester is up across the park). This garden is well-drained, being at the top of the village, so we're relatively little affected, and the house is virtually flood-proof for the same reason, but a lot of people are less fortunate.  The only sign of the wet ground in our garden is the mole activity; it's presumably the reason for the mole trying to come up to the house, which is slightly higher and therefore on drier ground.  I've stamped down the mole runs near the house and there has been no further digging, so presumably he has gone back down the garden.

At least I haven't had to fill up the pond this year.

This morning started bright and sunny, and the daylight hours were mostly dry and often bright, so a good opportunity to get out and collect all the fallen twigs for kindling (2 bagfuls).  I also potted up another lot of tulips (half-price bargains from the garden centre): a mix of Pole Position (purple with white edges) and Flaming Flag (white with purple flaming), with the white anthemis on top.  Some of last year's anemones, still in their pots, are pushing up leaves, so I top-dressed them too.

Virtually all of the trees, and the cotoneasters, have dropped their leaves now, though the other shrubs (buddleia etc) are hanging on to most of theirs, even after the gales.  The winter honeysuckle is still in full leaf, though there are few signs of flowers; on the lower branches this could be because the pheasant has eaten them (he was pecking at them one morning) but there are few flowers further up out of his reach.

The green woodpecker was at the apples yesterday morning, and around in the background today; the greater spotted woodpecker was at the peanuts yesterday too.  There has been little activity on the seed container.  I've just opened a new bag of seed, from a new supplier, and I'm wondering if it is bulked out with seeds the birds don't like.  Last weekend two nuthatches were at the seeds, and one of them was throwing seeds out until it found ones it liked (the others couldn't have been too bad because the pheasant was picking them up).  I've bought some sunflower seeds to mix in at the next fill to see if that helps.  There are a number of blackbirds around, visiting the patio especially when I throw out half-rotten apples; there were some skirmishes today when the usual blackbird found an interloper there!  The weather has been milder, though, so they shouldn't be too anxious for food just yet.

Autumn colour

The autumn colours are now just passing their peak.  Out and about, the beech trees have been a lovely burnished orange-brown, with smaller trees green-gold.  In our garden, the colour is mostly from the cotoneasters, both the red leaves (which are looking a bit pink in these pictures, I don't know why) and the berries.  The berries are left by the birds until fairly late, although a female blackbird has been in the big cotoneaster regularly.  I've swept up the fallen leaves and tried not to get too many berries in there; they self-seed dreadfully.

Every time the big ash tree drops a few twigs I can't help wondering if it's ash blight; but it has had dead bits for as long as we've been here, and ash trees are notorious for dropping sometimes quite big branches.  Let's wait until spring and see.  Maybe it'll turn out to be one of the immune ones.  However I can't help hoping that its many progeny around the garden aren't immune.  Ash is another bad seeder; you oftne don't notice until suddenly you spot a five-footer coming up through another shrub.

Still on the tree front, the hazels have catkins already; isn't this a bit early?  But they add to indoor flower arrangements.  Not that there's much to arrange: winter jasmine, winter viburnums, the yellow chrysanths.  The cyclamen have given up, and there are only odd single blooms around the place (including a 'Mousseline' rose).

Rather damp Saturday, lovely bright Sunday but a very frosty night in between.  Milder this week.

Bits of the holly tree, with berries, have been cut for Christmas, before the frosty night and the inevitable bird influx.  Sure enough, chilly Sunday morning saw a fieldfare in the apple tree, where he spent all morning demolishing a large apple, in the sun.  The green woodpecker, still around from time to time, will not be pleased - the apple tree is his haunt.  A pheasant spent the morning on the summerhouse roof; two females were inspecting the veg garden on Saturday.  The smaller birds are showing more interest in food put out for them, and my weeding in the garden on Sunday was much appreciated by the robin.

Spring pots

A fine, sunny, not-too-chilly weekend, and the tulip order has arrived, so time to pot up the pots for spring.  I always forget what I've put in them, so, for the record (and this will be more for my use than for your interest!)
- the big pot at the bottom of the garden: Heuchera 'Prince' (a bit dark, but heucheras do furnish a pot), a (very pot-bound) seedling hebe and two euphorbia myrsinites, with some violas that never got planted out this summer (and which may never do anything at all now!).  Underneath, are a few crocus 'Blue Pearl', some 'Tete-a-tete' daffodils and three double tulips - Angelique, Black Hero and Uncle Tom.  I hope the east winds are kind to them.
- two pots on the patio: in the tulip pot is Tulip 'Professor Roentgen', a whopping big parrot tulip, and in the slightly smaller pot is 'Orange Princess'.  Both have a bronze sedge (another good pot-furnisher, the product of a parent plant self-seeding) and some orange pansies.
- two long-tom pots on the patio with alliums: one has A caeruleum, the other A amplectens 'Graceful', both with crocus 'Blue Pearl' on top.

There.  No excuse for forgetting next year.

Flowers still very sparse in the garden, but the marigolds are hanging on in there, and the yellow chrysanthemums are showing good buds (some of which are opening indoors as I type).  The winter jasmine is starting up, and the cyclamen (which I keep forgetting to mention because they're a bit out of sight) are still in bloom.  Apart from the winter viburnums there's not much else of note.  Leaves continue to fall, with the apples mostly still holding on to theirs, and the buddleia and winter honeysuckle still to drop. 

The bird picture hasn't changed much either; tits around when I put seeds out for them (and a big scrap between two small tits - coal and/or marsh tits - this morning), partridges skulking in corners and panicking if you get too close.  A possible sighting of a fieldfare flying over today, but none seen in the garden.  Both sorts of woodpecker too.

Weather is due to turn wet again - but it is mid-November so can't complain too much.

Ashes to ashes?

Much despondency about the news concerning the fungal disease killing ash trees across Europe, and now being found in the UK.  Ash is the predominant tree around here, and the loss of them would be huge.  There are three mature ashes on the boundaries of our garden, although only one is actually ours.  That one, at the side of the drive, I would miss but we could live without it (and it's not a particularly strong grower).  The one in the neighbours' garden that overshadows the vegetable garden can be a nuisance and doesn't provide much shelter, so I wouldn't be too sorry to see it go.  The major loss would be the big one across the fence in the field; it dominates the garden, where it's the main feature.  Birds love it and it protects us from the worst of the east wind.  There has been talk of not sweeping up fallen leaves, but it's really a necessity (there are a lot of them!) and, as they're pretty sodden, I don't expect that spores will be disturbed too much.  Anyway it might be the last time I'll be able to make leafmould in this quantity ....

A damp and murky weekend turned into a bright and cold start to the week, with a couple of quite cold nights (ice on the pond), but the past couple of days have been a little milder.  Still few flowers, other than the winter viburnums and the last couple of nerines; there are the last of the marigolds and some flowers on the big hellebore, but the winter honeysuckle and winter jasmine are not in bloom yet.  The dogwood stems are showing red now that the leaves have fallen from them.  The main plant has layered itself a foot or so away, which is actually a better position, so last winter I cut back the main part of the plant quite drastically, leaving the new part to take a starring role; I wouldn't much mind if it took over from the original plant, which is crowding out one of the roses.

Despite the cold, the birds aren't clamouring for food.  The robin, dunnock and some sparrows come to feed, with the occasional blackbird, but crumbs can lie there for most of the day untouched, and the seeds aren't being eaten as quickly as formerly.  There's obviously a reasonable amount of food around.  We're keeping an eye on the holly tree; there aren't as many berries as usual, and starlings are taking the top ones, so we will cut some of the lower branches for Christmas as soon as there are signs of birds feeding on them (and certainly if the redwings show up as they can clear the tree in a weekend).  I still haven't seen a fieldfare or redwing, although there's cold weather in Scandinavia so they must be here by now.

14 partridges on the lawn one morning! - with a pheasant lording it over them all.

Mr Mole seems to have been deterred by me stamping on the lawn where he had been digging (no molehills there, but you could feel the loose earth under the grass).  Still haven't worked out how to put the bedding sand back under the flagstones.

Sun elsewhere

Definitely not the Cotswolds

Back home after a week away in warmer climes, with a backdrop of some very different plants for a change - definitely not the Cotswolds, but I'm including a couple of photos here as they'll be the last summery colour for a while!


The weather here at home was murky when we left, and apparently remained so for a few days before the cold snap set in.  It brought early snow to parts of Europe (the Alps, when we flew over them on the homeward journey yesterday, had a good covering of snow) but only one frost here.  The weather is now chilly and damp, and windy, and likely to remain so for a couple of days at least.

 

The ash trees have now shed all their leaves - it looks as if every ash tree at this end of the village dumped its leaves in our driveway! so that was today's clearing-up job.  The apple trees and the shrubs are still hanging on to theirs.  The flowers are in late-autumn changeover: little left of the summer/autumn display but with the winter flowers not yet out (although the winter jasmine is nearly there).

 

Today's leaf-clearing was accompanied by the clacking of a fieldfare somewhere near.  If late autumn comes, can fieldfares be far behind? but none seen on the apple tree yet.  The green woodpecker was seen making a hasty exit from the apple tree, though.  The apples are small this year, though the cooker did manage one that was over a pound in weight (and would have been more if the woodpecker hadn't been at it!).  A couple of rotten ones left out on the patio were much appreciated by a blackbird today, and a couple of hen pheasants were skulking in the shrubs (apparently hiding from today's shoot) but otherwise there weren't many birds about.

 

A mole has been busy.  Normally we don't get any beyond the bottom of the garden, but one has reached the house; the back-door paving has obviously obstructed his excavations, but he has worked his way along the line of the gap between paving stones, throwing up a lot of bedding sand.  I'm not sure how I'm going to get that back into place!

Falling leaves

Well, the next day was indeed brighter, with a warmer sun.  Applying my usual test - it was warm enough to have lunch outside on the bench.  Since then, there has been a little rain, some wind and some cool sunshine.  The wind brought down a reasonable amount of twigs from the ash trees, and toppled the hazel wigwam supporting Tutankhamun, so he has been pulled up (since the cooling weather would mean he'd be on the way out anyway) and composted.  Next year I must pinch out the young plants properly so that they don't get top-heavy - there was a lot of growth up beyond the top of the wigwam.

The wind has also brought down more leaves, especially today.  Yesterday was completely calm, and so quiet that you could hear the fall of a leaf; but this morning a lot of ash leaves had come down and they continued to fall all day.  There will be good leafmould for next year.  However, as the big ash tree gradually turns bare, it's clear how few seeds there are; this is good in terms of fewer unwanted seedlings all over the garden, but a sign of the bad summer.  Apparently horse chestnuts are also in short supply.

Not much change as far as flowers are concerned; just a few final ones on various plants, although the new Michaelmas daisy has a nice bright lavender-purple flower on it, with maybe more to come.

The blackbirds, who haven't been much in evidence lately, have started reappearing (or maybe they're migrant incomers).  Robins (at least two), dunnocks, a wren and lots of sparrows also around, and today a pair of nuthatches were on the seed container, and a gt spotted woodpecker on the nuts.  Also the marsh tits, which is nice.  The green woodpecker continues his interest in the cooking apples.  I keep listening for the sound of fieldfares, but none yet ...

October Chill

Plum tree, first weekend in October

Mid-October, and the leaves are falling.  The plum tree, whose leaves normally start to turn as soon as the fruit is finished, has only started shedding leaves properly in the past couple of weeks; there are still quite a lot of leaves on the tree even now. 

Nights have continued to be mostly chilly, with a couple of air frosts in the past week, and the other trees have started to shed leaves too: the hawthorn has lost nearly all its leaves, and the big ash tree is dropping quite a lot.  The other ash trees are further behind (as usual - I wonder why?).



Double rainbow this afternoon

The weather picture has mostly been sunshine and showers, the sun often pleasant when it's out but definitely autumnal, and noticeably cooler in shade.  Today, after a cold night, the sun was bright but not warm and, when the showers kicked in, it was quite nippy - in fact we had a hailshower in the afternoon.  A lovely double rainbow though.  Last weekend I managed a quick lunch outside; today I can't say I was tempted.  Tomorrow is supposed to be brighter.

Despite the chill, there are still a few flowers out: the phlox is still in bloom, the perennial cornflower and Japanese anemones have flowers, as does the rose 'Blush Noisette', and sweet pea 'Tutankhamun' is only now slowing down.  Sedum 'Autumn Joy' of course is still at its peak.  There are a couple of self-sown marigolds in the vegetable patch, and the cyclamen under the holly tree.  The nerines are still doing well, and the schizostylus, which I had given up on as it is almost entirely swamped by the euphorbia 'Fens Ruby', has put out a flower spike.  The chrysanthemums are sitting stubbornly in bud, but the Michaelmas daisy is showing a touch of purple.  There are even a few flowers on the big hellebore, and one or two cowslip flowers in the lawn.

A couple of new additions: a new, dark pink, camellia in a pot in the front garden, and an end-of-season bargain chrysanthemum, a huge russet red one, in another pot on the patio.  The latter is seriously potbound, but I took some root cuttings which seem to be flourishing, so I think I've done well there.  Note for next year's planting: it will need to be paired with red/orange/yellow flowers, and/or possibly dark heucheras as long as they don't have too pink stems.  Don't put it near the sedum.  In the pot by the window, the heuchera/dark purple osteospermum/penstemon 'Sour Grapes' combination is working well (now that the orange dahlias are long gone!) but needs some brighter pink in the mix.  And down at the bottom of the garden, I'm very pleased with the bacopa - two plants have almost covered the surface of the big pot, flowered all summer and are still going.  (Pot plantings are on my mind because the order for next year's tulips has just gone in.)

The weather isn't yet cold enough for the birds to feed with great urgency.  The blackbirds are taking berries

Maybe brighter tomorrow

(although it has been a bad year for berrying shrubs), and the bread put out on the patio is mostly attracting sparrows, the robin and the dunnocks (and, from time to time, the fieldmouse).  The green woodpecker is around occasionally, mostly after the cooking apples, and I've seen a nuthatch on the ash tree.  Tits continue to come to the feeders, and the long-tailed tits have been about - the other morning they were in the plum tree and on the peanuts.  We seem to have a little group of three partridges who come in regularly, and pheasants have started to return - probably because the shooting started last weekend and it's safer in here!

One red admiral butterfly today - probably the last of the season.

Mistaken identity

Where did August go, not to mention September?  Quite a lot to catch up on.  Rather a mixed August, weather-wise: not particularly cold, not particularly hot, occasionally wet, overall a bit mixed.  September started well, with a pleasantly warm and sunny week, but has turned autumnal: chilly nights, some lovely sun with intermittent showers and getting windy.  It’s the early mornings that remind you that the year is drawing on, with condensation on the outside of windows at breakfast-time from late August and a bit of a nip in the air.  Amid the showery weather recently there have been a couple of lovely days (like yesterday), with some quite warm sun, but more October-sun than September-sun.

I’m feeling rather foolish about one of my plants.  It was given to me years ago by a colleague who was a keen, if not specially knowledgeable, gardener, and I’m sure she told me it was a pink-flowered pulmonaria.  Not being particularly familiar with pulmonarias I never thought to question this, although the leaves were plain green and rather coarse – I took this to be the price one had to pay for pink flowers (although frankly I would have preferred a blue one, but this was a present and I couldn’t say no).  It’s attractive enough and has flourished, to the point of being a bit invasive.   Then a few weeks ago I got an email from a gardening website which I’ve used in the past, offering end-of-season bargains – and there was a picture of my pulmonaria.  Unmistakeably the same plant.  Except it’s a comfrey.  Symphytum ‘Hidcote Pink’ to be precise.  Ooops.


Not a pulmonaria

In my defence, I should say that it's on the compact side for a comfrey - only 9ins or so high. Actually, comfrey was on my wishlist when I first planned the garden, and I can’t think of a better place for it in the garden, so at least some of it will stay.  It’s effective ground-cover and the flowers are pleasant.  I will make room for a proper pulmonaria, though!

There have been a few more flowers in the garden this August.  Partly this is because the phlox and Lilium henryii flowered so late and partly because of new plantings such as the echinacea and clematis.  The chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies haven’t done anything yet; maybe they need more sun?   There are still a couple of late foxgloves and, remarkably, one of the posh aquilegias had a couple of flowers into September.  And now the nerines are coming out; they’ve been a bit shy in recent years, but the extra feeding seems to have done the trick as there are over a dozen flower spikes this year.

Cheerful but unfashionable

The chilly nights have done for the planting in the window-box.  For the second summer running I had put in Livingstone daisies (Mesembryanthemum); cheerful, colourful and undemanding, if rather unfashionable.  I like them.  Cold autumn weather finishes them off, though, so today they went in the compost bin and pansies, with ‘Tete-a-tete’ narcissi underneath and a couple of undersized seedling bronze sedges, went in instead.

I’ve also finally pulled up most of the self-seeded oregano in the vegetable patch to flower (I hope I got it out before it seeds further); there has been concern about bees not having enough to feed on, and they’ve been enjoying the oregano hugely, so I left it in as long as I dared.  For a while the vegetable patch looked very attractive in a wild, cottage-garden way, with oregano, foxgloves, linaria and deschampsia.  The buddleia has done well, and attracted a lot of butterflies; apparently they hatch in the second week in August and, bang on time, along came lots of peacocks and red admirals, with a couple of tortoiseshells and a painted lady as well.  Other buglife has been affected by the weather, though – hardly any ladybirds this year and virtually no wasps.

Peacock butterfly on the buddleia



Birdlife, though, has continued to be good.  The house martins seem to have gone a couple of weeks ago, and the swallows too (although I saw a lot of them on the phone lines in a neighbouring village today).  We had also had visits from a warbler, though he has probably gone too now.  Lots of sparrows (they were still feeding at least one youngster at the start of the month), a good number of blackbirds, at least a couple or robins and the same for dunnocks.  Blue and great tits are about, and occasionally a family of long-tailed tits; a pair of marsh tits have also been on the seed container, as has a nuthatch.  We’ve had a solitary partridge hanging around, although small groups of them are now appearing from time to time.  And a green woodpecker has been hoovering up ants from the lawn.  Other wildlife has been around too: a grass snake in the pond and a fieldmouse on the patio, both last weekend.  The mouse - perhaps the one that appeared at hay-cutting time? - was stealing the crumbs put out for the birds.  As long as he leaves my bulbs alone ...



Summer sometimes

We finally had a nice summery week, warm and sunny, before things went downhill again with heavy showers and cooler temperatures.  This evening is chilly, misty and wet, though we're told that it will get warmer for a few days (and then what?).  Everyone is saying that they don't have anything to enter in the village flower show this year - bad news.

The sun seemed to perk up the roses, which got second wind and kept flowering just when I thought they were going over.  Most of them really are finished now.  The crocosmia 'Lucifer' has been out for a week or two now, making a good display down the bottom of the garden; still waiting for Lilium henryi, and the purple rudbeckia (new last year) is showing buds.  The francoa is in flower, and the plant with the white conical flower spikes, whose name I can never remember, is coming out.  The rest of the garden colour is a bit random: a lot of linaria, which I must pull up before it self-seeds, the last of the first flush of poppies, and the pink geranium which is trying to take over the whole place.  And of course the Big Yellow Thing, which is hard to ignore.  The lavender is mostly past it, and the wild blue geraniums, foxgloves and ladies mantle are being pulled up before they can seed.

In the pots, I have two Lilium regale flowers.  Of the three bulbs I planted, one hasn't appeared at all and one has produced a strangely damaged stem with no flowers.  I found two fat lily beetles on there, which may be the problem.  The two dahlias, in the next-door pot, are defoliated (by the beetles?), as is the iberis sempervivum, though the penstemon (which has finished flowering) and rosemary in the same pot are fine.

Not a good year for edibles.  The raspberries are a bit mouldy, and the plants have collapsed on top of each other which hasn't done much for the fruit; there are still a few gooseberries, though the birds have got to them before I could.  Apples and plums are small, and in the case of the plums, few.  Some of the broad beans have fruited, and the potatoes seem to be doing well, but the peas have done nothing at all.  I have some brassica seedlings ready to plant out - just need to clear some ground for them.

The buddleia is showing the first flowers, but butterflies remain elusive.  There were a couple of orange-tips around at the weekend, and a meadow brown, but that's all.  Usually we get a lot of meadow browns on the lavender, but none showed this year.  The birds are also starting to go quiet, although there are plenty of sparrows still around, including youngsters still being fed, and a couple of young blackbirds.  The adult male blackbirds are getting shy, probably because they're very much in need of a good moult.  A robin has appeared from time to time, and dunnocks; the linnets have been around too.  One day I accidentally disturbed a couple of baby linnets in the undergrowth; in their panic one of them briefly landed on my arm before flopping into the plants below (I left them to sort themselves out).  A pair of nuthatches have also been around in the ash tree; now I know the sound they make when tapping the bark for food, and have heard them a few times since.

The warm weather prompted the farmers to make hay literally while the sun shone, including in the big field behind us.  That attracted a number of seagulls, a big buzzard and a female kestrel with her youngster, the latter two using the electricity pole in the field as a perch.  They obviously missed one of the displaced rodents; we've had a fieldmouse in the garden a couple of times, coming to the patio for an evening drink when the weather was dry.  Some more dry weather would be nice ....

Sour Grapes

I used to be very careless about labelling pots when I took cuttings or planted up seedlings.  It may be obvious what the plant is at the point of potting up, but in early spring when most things have died back I was left with no real idea of whether the thing was dead or not yet in growth.  Last year I labelled my pots, but not as well as I had thought.  So while I knew that certain pots were penstemon cuttings, I hadn't recorded which penstemon they were cuttings of - and I have two, the dark red 'Garnet' and the lavender-blue 'Sour Grapes'.  Seeing one about to flower, I planted it up in one of the big pots with some heuchera 'Palace Purple', dark purple osteospermums, a dark-leaved phormium (I think it's a phormium - it was a village plant sale bargain, unlabelled (!)) and - big mistake - a couple of orange dahlias.  It might have worked if it had been 'Garnet' as I thought it was, but it was 'Sour Grapes' - and it hasn't been a happy colour combination.  Actually it was the dahlias that were the mistake; they're certainly cheerful, and with the weather as it has been we need all the cheer we can get, but they don't sit particularly well with other flowers visible as part of the same picture.

They might have done better in the other big pot that I planted up, which is down at the bottom of the garden and where they could have made a big colour splash.  The colours down there have worked better, but the flowers are too small and don't make enough impact at that distance.  Memo for next year: go for big and bold down there. There's another 'Sour Grapes', a blue-leaved succulent (another plant sale bargain), a couple of blue and white bacopas and some sweet pea 'Tutankhamun'.  It's the first time I've grown the latter, and it's a striking colour - Himalayan poppy-blue - but it's not-quite-a-match for the penstemon, so they're not plants I would put together again.  The penstemon matches the bacopa very well, though; that's worth remembering for the future.

The plant picture is changing quite slowly at the moment.  The roses are mostly finishing, except for gallica officinalis which always seems to go on for longer, as are the foxgloves (and I've pulled up most of the purple ones, leaving the whites to seed).  The Big Yellow Thing (the seed it was grown from was labelled bupthalmum, which may or may not be what it's called these days), a monster with huge leaves and tall stems of untidy yellow daisies, is out, and the day lilies are about to flower too.  The senecio (is it still called that?) and cotton lavender are in flower, though really I prefer their grey foliage to the yellow flowers, which isn't a colour combination I care for much.  The real lavender is also out, and the pink poppies are everywhere; I'm weeding out the singles in the hope of keeping them double.  The peony has done nothing at all (some buds formed but never opened).  The crocosmia 'Lucifer' is showing buds, as is lilium henryii, but I'm not expecting either of them to flower immediately.  And the philadelphus may suspect that I'm planning to dig it out; it has produced one big, white, scented flower on a branch arching down to where I can see and smell it, just as if it's trying to show what it can do.  I won't be swayed.  It's going.

I don't think this is going to be a good fruit year; apples and plums are shaping up to be a small crop.

We're being told that the weather is about to change for the better.  It certainly can't get much worse.  There has continued to be little sun, much chill, some wind and a great deal of rain.  On Friday evening there was a tremendous downpour (we were driving home in it) which created some flooding on the roads; we used the least hilly of the routes into the village to avoid the riskiest areas but the water was still sluicing around like a river.  The common was flooded; the next day the long grass was still lying flat where the stream had burst its banks and flowed over it.  The roads are still full of patches of gravel and small (and not so small) stones washed out of the roadsides and driveways.

One of the male blackbirds was still taking food away at the weekend, and there are still some young sparrows being fed (and some adults still mating).  Other birds haven't been much in evidence, although at least one of the wrens is still around (heard rather than seen).  The partridges come from time to time, and the two male pheasants.  There was a dark-coloured butterfly around at the weekend (I couldn't get a good enough view to identify it); I've seen very few butterflies this year.  I hope some appear when the buddleia comes out, although they've declined in numbers here over the years and I suspect that this is going to be a particularly bad year for them.  On the positive side, however, we've had at least a couple of visits from a hedgehog, seen crossing the patio and disappearing into the very overgrown border in search of his supper.  I expect he has been enjoying the rain.

Bowsaw Massacre (conceptual stage)

As the plants are in full leaf and start flopping around with the weight of flowers and fruit (and get blown around by the wind), it brings home to me that the garden really needs thinning out.  I rather overplanted it with shrubs, which are now quite mature and in several cases rather larger than I anticipated.  Something has to go.  The viburnum carlcephalum, which as I've already mentioned is losing a large branch every year and is obviously diseased at the base, is an obvious candidate.  My initial idea was to take cuttings; but they couldn't be planted in the same place, and anyway, let's be realistic, it doesn't pull its weight as a plant.  It has a nice spreading shape, and the flowers (waxy white and scented) are lovely, but the blooms don't last long, either on the plant or as cut flowers, and the plant doesn't have much else to commend it for the rest of the year.  Right - it can go.  The mahonia 'Charity' next to it is looking dead, too; that makes a nice big space to do something else with.

The philadelphus has been a problem for a while.  Again, the flowers are lovely (I like scented flowers) but it hardly ever produces any, it's crowding out the winter honeysuckle and there's too much else competing for space in that bed.  If I can get at its base, it can go too.

Last weekend I decided, a little reluctantly, that 'Mary Queen of Scots' can also have her head chopped off (and the base too, again if I can get at it).  It's my earliest rose, hardy and a good do-er, but it has got much bigger than I envisaged, to the extent that it's taking over the side of the patio, and it's also suckering under the flagstones, which is not good.  I've also spotted a large ash seedling that is growing through it and I absolutely must get that out.  The birds will miss the rose; they use it as a perch while they check whether there's any food put out for them, or while waiting their turn for the birdbath, but removing it will make space for the choisya ternata behind, which should do them just as well.

Just need to find time to do all of that ....

The raspberries and gooseberries have been discovered by a couple of young blackbirds.  I don't begrudge them too many, but need to get in there and do some picking, weather permitting.  Most of the time, the weather does not permit.  It hasn't got any better, and there's no sign of improvement.  The lawn hasn't been cut for 3 weeks because it has been too wet; it's full of clover and daisies.  And a couple of trays of pansies which I haven't got round to planting out are starting to grow toadstools!

The blackbirds and sparrows are still feeding youngsters.  We've seen a few tits, but not too many; no sign of young ones.  And house martins and swifts, while still around, aren't in their usual numbers - it may be too wet for them.  Unusually, there was a skylark singing above the garden last weekend; they don't usually come so close to the village.  An encouraging sign the other day was three thrushes (there was a bit of a fight); they haven't been much in evidence since the magpies raided their nest.

Depressingly, the robins have started their autumnal 'tick-tick'ing.  We haven't had summer yet.

Leaning Towers

It's official, apparently - it has been the wettest April-June period since records began.  We've been spared the really heavy rain that has caused floods elsewhere in the past few days, but the weather here continues very mixed at best, with blustery spells and only occasional sunshine.  The sun, when it does appear, is mostly quite warm, but apart from a couple of days early this week the temperatures are low for the time of year.

The wind has knocked the taller plants around.  The sweet rocket and verbascums are almost horizontal, as are the remaining aquilegias, and the foxgloves at the bottom of the garden are leaning at all sorts of angles.  (Interestingly, the wild foxgloves at the gate, which are actually more exposed, are ok - possibly because they're slightly smaller and have fewer flowers?)  The big foxgloves were grown from seed a couple of years ago, in the vegetable garden, and never got planted out; some of those remaining are originals, but I think a number of them are seedlings because there are a lot of ordinary purple ones instead of the white-pink-purple mix of the original batch.  They're a good garden variety - tall, and mostly flowering all round the spike instead of just at one side, so they have much more presence than the wild ones.  I still have some seed; must grow more of them.

Leaning towers

Some of them were moved to the new bed under the ash tree, where they're doing quite well (but too many purples - I need to put some whites there so that they show up better).  The verbascums are down there too, but it's not a good place for them; they have dark purple flowers which aren't visible enough, and they're not beefy enough to make a statement.  They look quite insignificant alongside the phlomis, for example.

The old roses are in full bloom, as are the English roses, with Gertrude Jekyll the star performer as usual.  The buddleia alternifolia is also out, making a good partnership with rose 'Mme Hardy'.  The lavender is about to flower, and in the pond, the first waterlily bloom is out too.


Gertrude Jekyll

It's also prime time for the weeds, so I've been ripping up the worst ones before they can seed.  I'm determined to get the willowherb out this year, and as much of the grass seedheads as I can.

On the edibles front, the first raspberries were ready today, and the gooseberries are also there or thereabouts.  Need to get at them before the birds do!

At least one of the blackbirds is still feeding young, and a couple of independent juveniles have been around.  One of them was sunbathing on the patio one day in the company of a juvenile dunnock - the two of them sitting there enjoying the sunshine together.  The wren family is still around; I disturbed a couple of them when weeding by the hedge, causing a bit of a panic.  A young robin has been down, and a harassed sparrow pursued by his three demanding fledgelings.  The starlings in the gable end are also feeding youngsters (and it was good to see a couple of dozen starlings on the wires at the end of the village, so they're breeding quite well this year).  A couple of male pheasants have been in, but not my old friend; I hope he comes back, even though he is a stroppy old thing.  The squirrel returns every so often to check that the peanuts are still out of bounds, but hasn't been hanging around.

We haven't seen the red kite again; a neighbour tells me that there's actually a pair of them.

Not quite red, white and blue

I'm afraid the garden wasn't really red, white and blue for the Diamond Jubilee.  It was more pink, purple and yellow.  There was some white, the cow parsley and white camassias, and some blue, from the last of the brunnera and forget-me-nots (and the perennial cornflower and first of the veronica flowers).  Red, however, was only represented by a single sodden and battered poppy flower, barely visible among the leaves; and, less desirably, by the first of the year's lily beetles on the lily nearby (they were duly squashed).  The poppies are now flowering (when the weather will let them), while the brunneras have been cut back to prevent self-seeding and the cow parsley and forget-me-nots pulled up.  I've lived with cow parsley in the past as it really is quite pretty, but now that we've cleared the view down into the field beyond the bottom of the garden (which is full of the stuff) I don't feel the need to host it in my own space in the same way.

The weather for the Jubilee weekend was miserable.  The Monday was dry (though chilly), which was good for the village celebrations, but the Tuesday was very wet and windy, and cold - we put the central heating back on (and it has been on all the way through to this week, when we finally had a couple of sunny and warmish days).  The sun has been pleasant when it has shone, but otherwise it has been rather unpleasant, with some high winds which produced a whole bagful of kindling brought down from the ash trees, and knocked some of the flower stems around.  At least I haven't needed to refill the pond with all the rain.

The aquilegias - the old-fashioned ones - are mostly past now, but my two posh ones (a purchase from the village plant sale a couple of years ago) are still going strong, though they've had to be propped up against the wind.  The foxgloves are doing well, as is the sweet rocket, and the old roses are just starting to come into flower.  More rain and wind is forecast, so they are all going to take a battering, sadly.

On the wildlife front, we have been trying to outwit the squirrel.  He hadn't been much in evidence, so I decided to risk removing the squirrel-guard from the peanut container.  Although most of the birds have worked out how to use it, they seemed to consider it too much trouble to get inside the guard, and were ignoring it.  All went well for a week or so, with the tits, finches and woodpeckers (adults and at least two youngsters) coming to feed, until our furry friend returned.  The guard went back on (and interestingly the birds continue to come to it, even the woodpeckers, who can get their heads inside).  The squirrel made several determined, but fruitless, attempts to get inside the guard; his lack of success obviously put him in a very bad mood, and he tried to chase any bird that came near (including an attempt to pounce on a pheasant that was passing underneath) before transferring his attention to the seed feeder.  After a few tries, we've hit on hanging the seeds from a wire which is too long for him to stretch down, and he has gone away again.

One thing we wish would go away is magpies.  We haven't had them for years, but now that the local farm is in new hands they don't seem to control them so effectively.  A pair have raided at least one nest - a thrush's, we think, as we saw a magpie with a brown fledgeling of thrush size, and certainly the thrushes haven't been around nearly so much.  The blackbirds are continuing to breed, however, with at least two youngsters around, and we've seen a baby robin and baby goldfinch as well as the usual young sparrows.  A pair of linnets have been in the garden, and a bullfinch (which is fine as long as he leaves the plums alone!).  There's also a family of wrens down at the bottom of the garden, which is lovely.

D's sightings while out running in the lanes include a record of 6 hares in one day, and a near-collision with a deer which was coming out of a field entrance.  Fortunately that's one animal we don't get in the garden!

Our Chelsea Lawn

Away for a week on holiday in the Lake District - and at last summer weather arrived, very warm and sunny.  Back home to a rather dry garden, and a very overgrown lawn full of daisies, buttercups and speedwell.  It looked very pretty, at least until we got the mower out ...

Apparently wild flowers have been to the fore in the show gardens at Chelsea this year, so our lawn was bang on trend for once!  A bit too wild to be practicable though (and the birds much prefer it cut).  As I was pulling up weeds ahead of the mower (the things I really didn't want to seed around in the grass pile), I suddenly realised that the one I'd just picked was not in fact the weed I thought it was.  Closer inspection (very close inspection - it was a very small flower spike) showed that the bottom flower had already opened.  It was tiny and plain green, but unmistakably an orchid flower.  I found a couple more, all of them in the shade of the plum tree - two roundish leaves, not unlike those of a plantain, and a small spike of tiny green flowers.  Both promptly had a domestic preservation order slapped on them and they were carefully mowed around!  Fortuntately - given that I had inadvertently picked one - it turns out that they're not rare.  My flower book suggests it's Common Twayblade (Twayblade because it has two leaves, Common because it is, apparently; I suppose it's so inconspicuous that it's easy to miss).  I wonder how long it has been in the lawn?


I've also found a plant of yellow rattle in a weedy spot in front of the house.  A useful plant to have around if we want to encourage wild flowers in the lawn! (It's a semi-parasite on grasses and reduces their vigour.)


The wisteria is in full scented bloom, in spite of my rather harsh treatment of it in the winter.  I hope it fills out a bit to cover up the gaps where I removed old branches (and to cover up the old tights I used to tie it to the wires - effective but not very sightly!).  The aquilegias are also in flower, as are the Welsh poppies, poached egg plant and cistus; the white camassias are coming out (why are they so much later than the blue ones?), with the allium cristophii (which has self-seeded very satisfactorily in various places) not far behind.  The cow parsley is also at its peak; although a lot of it has been removed there are still quite a few remaining.  Fortunately there's little left in the new border at the bottom of the garden, although I expect more seeds will germinate with the increase in light levels now that the undergrowth has been removed. That border is looking rather bare (I've left it lightly planted so that I can get remaining weeds out easily), but the purple verbascum is looking good and the foxgloves are starting to flower; the clumps of deschampsia are filling out as is the new phlomis I planted to accompany them.  Surprisingly the wallflowers also still have some flowers.  Elsewhere the roses are also coming into flower (Gertrude Jekyll and Old Blush China), and the reliable combo of "Mary Queen of Scots" and the choisia is going full speed ahead.

The blackbirds are feeding another brood, and the thrushes and robins are also busy.  Goldfinches are around too, and the two partridges continue to trundle about the place from time to time.  A baby wren has also been about, which is lovely; it's very small but quite independent. 


Sadly the warm weather has not lasted; the past week has been very mixed and this weekend, being a public holiday, is pretty miserable!  Yesterday was back to November, though the afternoon wasn't too bad.

A brief record of holiday sightings: a lovely view of a dipper feeding its fledgling near Rosthwaite; a pair of raptors (probably peregrines) on Haystacks, catching their lunch (we heard the squeal); a heron and some goosanders on Buttermere; a pair of ravens doing flying rolls over Catbells.  Lots of cuckoos (heard but not seen) and wheatears.  Their flowers were slightly ahead of ours, despite being further north (but lower level): aquilegias and Welsh poppies well out when we arrived, and lots of lovely rhodos and azeleas.  (I have just discovered the Digital Macro setting on my camera which should improve my flower close-ups a bit!)

First rose of summer

And this year's winner is: "Mary Queen of Scots", whose first flowers opened last weekend.  She's usually the first rose to get going.  Other late spring flowers are coming along: the lily of the valley is  mostly past now, the wisteria just starting, the aquilegias on the point of coming out.  The first Welsh poppy flowered yesterday.  The path alongside the hedge is looking bright, with the last of the doronicums, the honesty and the pulmonaria all in flower, with the smilacina (I think that's what it is) just coming out too.  (I've been looking for a replacement for the pulmonaria, a rather wishy-washy and far too rampant thing which I tolerate because it's good ground cover; a nice blue one has self-seeded alongside the garage and I've managed to pot it up.  Now to rip out some of the boring one to make room for it!)

The little orange species tulips at the bottom of the garden - I can never remember their proper name - are up and quite prolific this year.  Must plant more tulips for next year.  The ones in pots haven't done too well this year; "Tres Chic" was indeed chic but only three blooms came out (the rest killed by the cold?).  I did like "Sherwood Gardens", a sturdy but graceful tulip with a nice oval shape and a colour just the lilac side of pink.

Some of the best colour combinations are the accidental ones.  The pale orange geum with the dark-leaved bugle is a good, if unplanned, pairing; it would look good with "Queen of Night" tulips, I think.  On the other hand, I'm wondering if the new peach-coloured chaenomeles is going to look good with the honeysuckle (which has bounced back amazingly after I butchered it earlier this year).  The good news down there is that the clematis (a white viticella) is now sprouting; I hope there's something for it to climb on as I don't want to have to disentangle it from the honeysuckle!

Everything seems to be growing well in spite of the miserable weather.  It has continued cold, with temperatures rarely getting far into double figures and all too often in single figures.  Last weekend was warmer - a quick lunch outside, though you wouldn't want to linger too long out of the sun - but windy, and today has finished misty and damp - more November than May.  The forecast is for this to last the rest of the month.  It's bad for butterflies, apparently, and certainly I haven't seen many: an orange-tip last week, and a peacock and a little blue butterfly last weekend, though it's still early up here in the hills for them.

The swallows are here, and the house martins too; no swifts seen yet, though a group of them went screaming overhead in Cirencester last weekend.  The baby blackbirds have scattered, although at least one of them succumbed (a window strike, we think).  The littlest one hung around until the middle of this week, when it disappeared; I hope it just decided to move on, though it was still quite immature and I'm not hopeful.  The sparrows and starlings are taking food into their nests in the various parts of the roof, but no fledgelings have appeared yet.  The thrushes and greenfinches are still about, also dunnocks; and we think we've seen blue tits going to and from the nestbox at the bottom of the garden.  The two partridges are still around a lot and getting fairly trusting, but the pheasant has been about very little; I assume he's now off doing whatever it is he does in summer.

The most interesting bird sightings have been little and large.  A very small, acrobatic bird with a sharp pointed beak was hanging around the ash tree on the drive last weekend; I could only see a silhouette, but it looked very much like a goldcrest.  And the weekend before last we had a visit from the red kite (the same one we saw in February?) over the field behind us - quite an impressive sighting!

Meanwhile, down in the cellar, the mouse has been dealt with.  Not by the humane trap - which failed completely (though it is a very small trap and quite a large mouse so maybe it simply couldn't get in).  In the end we just opened the outside door through which it originally came in - and it went out.  Simple really.

April showers

Well, we certainly got the rain.  It's supposed to have been the wettest April on record, although it didn't feel quite that bad here.  Early April saw showers and chilly sunshine; last week it turned distinctly wet and it has been much like that since.  Still rather cold; the T-shirts have stayed firmly in the drawer and are only allowed out in the company of a cardi.  We had a few frosts overnight earlier in the month; fingers crossed for the plum tree, although the blossom seemed to last well enough.  More night frosts are forecast for the coming weekend.  Last weekend was also very windy and there are still ash twigs all over the garden.

The daffodils are now past (must get round to deadheading them), and the last of the tulips in flower.  The blue camassias are also out.  The new chaenomeles is blooming well; I was a bit doubtful about the colour (peach) but it's quite pretty.  The clematis I planted with it as a companion doesn't seem to be doing anything, though. That may not be a bad thing as the chaenomeles is still very small!  The deciduous viburnum (carlcephalum) is coming out, or at least the back part of it is; I had to cut off a branch last year as it was diseased, and another branch is going the same way this year.  The disease, whatever it is, seems to be based right at the bottom, so the whole thing is probably not long for this world.  Must take cuttings once it has flowered.  On the plus side, the apple cordons are flowering well; the freestanding trees, having been rather hard-pruned rather late, are still thinking about it.

Coming along nicely are the wisteria, which will be in flower soon, and the aquilegias.  Still waiting for the lily of the valley to flower - can't be long now.

The veg plot is well behind schedule - it has been either too dry or too cold and wet to do much.  Last year's broccoli plants have been mostly eaten by the birds; I thought it was the pheasant until I spotted a pair of wood pigeons balanced precariously on top of two of the remaining plants.  Obviously strong stems aren't necessarily a good thing!

The wildlife interest lately has been the antics of the baby blackbirds (3) and thrushes (2).  One baby thrush was spotted chasing a male blackbird in the hope of being fed, until its parents took it in hand. There are still a few of last year's apples in the garage and the damaged ones have been much appreciated by the harrassed parents as a quick snack to keep the youngsters quiet, and the rain has helped them a lot too - much easier to find worms and snails. 

The pheasant has been less in evidence in the past week or so; he has been gradually becoming less agressive as his ladies have peeled off to nest or whatever they do, although he still tries to show off to me from time to time.  The two partridges are still around; no sign of her going off to nest yet.

Who's a pretty boy then? - The pheasant trying to impress me

Otherwise it's the usual birds, though the goldfinches have been more in evidence this month.  The first sightings of a couple of swallows at the end of the month; they must be finding it a bit chilly.

The other wildlife event is indoors; a mouse has got into the cellar, probably while the cellar door was open for ventilation.  A humane trap has been put down, although it isn't having any effect yet!

Hot and cold

The warm weather lasted until Friday; on Saturday the T-shirts were replaced by jumpers again as a chilly breeze kicked in, and the central heating, which had been switched off all week, was put back on.  Still no rain though.  However there's a forecast of a snowfall on Wednesday ....

Growth continues apace in the garden.  The plum tree is just starting to flower (just in time to be caught by the snow ...).  The early daffs are fading and the late, scented ones are coming out.  The yellow tulips came out at the start of the week, but are smaller this year - perhaps because it's so dry? - they do look good with the brunnera.  The new tulips in the pots suddenly appeared almost from nowhere - probably because it suddenly occurred to me to water them!  There are some nice pink ones, and a single "Tres Chic" all by itself (they were supposed to flower with the forget-me-nots, but they haven't managed to coordinate their timescales properly.  Maybe the other TCs will come later?).  Some white fritillaries which I bought last year as end-of-season bargains are doing nicely in their shallow pot, and one of the epimediums is giving a burst of yellow over near the hedge.  Of the shrubs, the osmanthus - both of them (osmanthuses?) - are in full flow.  In the lawn, the cowslips have been joined by a couple of other primulas, one bright yellow, one red - don't know where they came from!

Other plants are stirring, too - the first hosta shoots poking out of their compost, and the lily-of-the-valley is already showing spikes of buds.

The blackbird has been collecting food for nestlings; we seem to have a number of blackbirds around, which results in a few scraps.  The thrushes are still about, though no signs yet of them feeding young.  We also have greenfinches around again, after a couple of years without them.  Some of the sparrows have worked out the new peanut feeder, though they prefer the seed container as it's easier for them; the peanuts have been lasting a lot longer than in the old container!  The woodpecker came, took one look at the new feeder and flew off again, but the ever-resourceful squirrel has transferred his attentions to the seeds on at least one occasion.  Meanwhile, down below, the pheasant, one or more of his ladies and the pair of partridges who are still around scratch about picking up the bits that the smaller birds drop.  We also had a pair of ducks one morning, probably on an outing from the Big House's pond.  I'm sure they'd like some rain, too.

Another sunny weekend

March is supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, but this March feels more like May.  It has been a dry and mostly pleasant week, and this weekend has been sunny and warm.  Although we had some rain last Sunday, there hasn't been much this month, and hosepipe bans are in the offing (though I don't use a hose except to top up the pond).  The cold snap that often comes round here in mid-March didn't materialise, and - remarkably - there have been no strong winds since New Year.  While the warm weather is very welcome, especially as it allows me to get outside and do some of the many jobs that need doing, it all feels very odd; and a bit of rain in this dry garden would be very useful.

The mid-season daffodils are in full bloom and look very cheerful.  The first of the tulips are in bud; they're a clump of lovely creamy yellow tulips near the house windows, and I always look forward to them.  The brunnera is coming out and the erythroniums are also in bud.  The big damson at the bottom of the garden is showing its first flowers, while the buds on the plum tree are just starting to show green.  More widely out and about, the blackthorn is in bloom and I spotted clumps of white violets alongside the back road out of the village.

One thing mostly missing in the garden this year is crocuses.  I think they must have been swamped by the weeds, and I miss them.  Memo to self: must plant more, especially my favourites Blue Pearl and Cream Beauty.  The Whitewell Purples, planted last autumn, have done quite well, or would have if the pheasant weren't so fond of eating the flowers.  The anemone blanda, planted at the same time, are also in bud; I hope he leaves them alone!

The birds' peanut container has been emptying rather quickly recently, and one morning I realised why.  The squirrel is back.  He was spotted one breakfast-time, hanging upside-down along the container and having his fill.  Having just bought a new box of peanuts and having gulped at the price - when did they get so expensive? -, I decided it would be a good economy to buy a squirrel-proof container to replace the old (chewed) one.  The blue tits have got the hang of it, but I haven't yet seen any great tits, sparrows or finches on there - perhaps the mesh is too small for them.  The woodpecker won't be pleased, but maybe I'll put the old container out from time to time for him!

February, and March so far ...

February continued as January had ended, with very cold - but mostly dry - weather.  There were a couple of snowfalls, but in these parts at least they weren't very significant - an inch or two at most - though ice towards the end of the cold spell did restrict travel for a day.  Temperatures down to minus 6C in the daytime saw off the last of the flowers that had lingered on from autumn, and brought the birds into the garden in force.  Things started to turn milder by the middle of the month.

We were away from home for the second half of February, and returned on 1 March to a much more springlike garden; the first impression on stepping out of the car was the thrush singing.  His mate turned out to be busy nesting in the hedge.  The snowdrops were past their best, but the daffodils started coming out after a few days (they're late up here on the windy Wolds), the hellebores were doing well and the bergenia was out. The cowslips are also back in flower.  It also means that the weeds are growing! 

The first warm(-ish) days came with the second weekend of the month; warm enough for lunch outside on the bench.  There's a lot of weeding to be done, but also the winter pruning that was delayed by the cold before we went away.  So much to do, so little time ....

The partridges are still around, though now in a smaller group of 8 or so.  The pheasant has decided that he owns the garden and I am an interloper that needs to be seen off, so he's being given short shrift when he appears; he has started bringing three lady pheasants with him and clearly doesn't want me around.  The warmer weather has brought other signs of spring: the first butterfly of the year (a peacock), and the first bat seen one evening in the village.  The most remarkable sighting, though, was up on the main road, where a red kite was hunting along the verge - we've never seen one in Gloucestershire before!

January, belatedly ....

As a New Year resolution, I thought it would be a good idea to re-start the diary I used to keep of what goes on in the garden - plants, wildlife, weather etc.  An even better idea would be to do it online, so that friends and family can read it too.  If anybody else out there is interested enough to read on: welcome!

It's taken a little while to get started.  I have two-and-a-half months to catch up, so this is the January instalment.

We came back from our New Year travels to find the garden's half-tame pheasant waiting for us at the gate, very put out that no one had been feeding him during our absence.  He hadn't much cause for complaint; it had been relatively mild, if windy.  In fact the mild autumn meant that there was still quite a lot going on in the garden. The usual suspects were in flower - winter viburnums, winter jasmine, winter honeysuckle - as were the plants that flower sporadically in mild winters such as violas and wallflowers.  The earliest snowdrops were already out; not only Galanthus atkinsii, which is always the first to flower, but also G. elwesii.  So too was the biggest hellebore (is it H. argutifolius? I can never remember).  But there were also other things in unseasonable bloom: some rosebuds (which were realistically never going to open), a few tatty borage flowers, and the cowslips in the lawn, which have been going since October.  The wildlife was also thinking it was spring, with a blackbird singing quietly and a little huddle of four ladybirds enjoying the sun.

A few chilly nights saw off the borage and dampened the enthusiasm of the cowslips.  The later snowdrops (the doubles, then the singles), and the winter aconites, were out by the middle of the month, but otherwise things were slowed down by the colder weather.  The birds came more frequently to the feeders, and the windfall apples attracted not only the blackbirds and fieldfares but regular visits by a green woodpecker.  The Garden Birdwatch count this year was good - both the green and gt spotted woodpeckers, and four types of tit including the marsh tit.  And the red-legged partridges (common around here, they're bred for shooting) turned up regularly too; one morning we had 22 on the lawn!

 It was the last week of the month before we had a real cold spell, with light snowfall on 26 Jan and temperatures below zero in the daytime as well.  Much feeding of birds - particularly the pheasant, who considers my only function in life is to supply him with peanuts.  Winter at last!