Another pigeon, another gooseberry bush

One of the recurring themes in my gardening is the task that can only be completed once something else has been done, and very often that something else is dependent on yet another job being done first.  Usually it's not being able to plant something until its new home has been cleared of weeds or otherwise prepared.  Today it was the burial of yet another dead woodpigeon, which - given the lack of suitably deep soil in a place where the corpse wouldn't be dug up accidentally - meant first clearing another bit of the overgrown gooseberry row and selecting a reasonably young bit of plant with roots to replant there.  A very mature gooseberry plant was eventually dug up; it had enormous roots and digging out took some effort, but in the end I managed to create an appropriately sized grave for the pigeon, with the new gooseberry plant alongside (with lots of homemade compost and Rootgrow to help compensate for putting it near where the old plant had been).  It was quite a satisfying job in fact, as I was able to get some couch grass roots out at the same time.  The robin was also very satisfied with my digging; it checked over the area very thoroughly when I came in for some tea.

The pigeon was found tucked in between one of the compost bins and one of the leafmould containers, in a confined and very sheltered spot.  I don't think a predator could have taken it in there (although there were a few small feathers about, which might have been pulled out of the corpse by a secondary predator such as a rat); I suspect it was a sick bird (it may have been another juvenile, I couldn't tell for sure given the state it was in) just looking for a sheltered place to lie down, as sick pigeons do.  (Perhaps other birds do that too? I don't know.)  I rather wish they wouldn't do it in this garden; I'm running out of places to bury them!

The dahlias have been cut down and dug up.  'David Howard' had rotted completely, while 'Jescot Julie' is still one enormous tuber, which looks partly eaten away and had a lot of little worm things and larvae on it when I dug it up.  I decided to leave it lying there overnight - the weather is still very mild for the time of year - in the hope that the local biological control (robin, wren) would deal with the pests.  Certainly they seemed to have gone by the next morning (though they may have retreated into the tuber, I suppose!).  All the tubers are now drying out in the greenhouse, where I've also started potting up the half-hardies from the summer pots - argyranthemums, osteospermums, nepeta variegata etc.  It's still mild enough for that not to be a desperately urgent job; the weather has been damp and very windy and there's no real cold in sight.  The birds are still coming to feed on the fallen apples (the green woodpecker was there today) but without much sense of urgency.

Hellebore in flower

Colour in the garden is mostly from the chrysanthemums and the winter shrubs, but the big hellebore (argutifolius?) under the dining room window has started to flower, and the orange Iris foetidissima seed pods are showing.  The Lonicera purpusii is hanging on to its leaves as usual, and flowering nicely.  There are also a few last roses but I doubt if they are going to open properly, and the dianthus plants are producing sporadic blooms (being cut for the kitchen windowsill).