Duck or grouse

The entrance to the corner of the garden known as The Dump (where reside the compost bins and other things that are better not seen) is between the thicket of young damson trees - probably suckers from the plum tree rootstock - and a stout post which once supported a trellis.  The post is a bit redundant now - the trellis is long gone and the necessary cover is now provided by a rampant honeysuckle - but for a while it was also supporting the trunk of one of the damsons that was leaning across the entrance.  Recently the trunk has slipped down off this support, however, and it seems to be getting lower and lower; I now have to duck to be sure of getting through without hitting my head on it.  A saw will be called for in the New Year; and I can do some coppicing of the hazels in that corner while I'm at it.

The weather has reverted to type for this time of year, although milder than usual: much cloud, some fog, mostly dank.  There have been too many non-gardening things to do recently anyway for me to do a lot out there.  The holly berries have all gone from the tree; there are still some cotoneaster berries for the birds, and they are still enjoying the windfall apples (lots still on the tree, attracting two mistle thrushes as well as the fieldfares, and the pheasants are quite partial to them too).  The fat balls have been visited by a number of blue and great tits, and a family of long-tailed tits stopped by one day too.  A song thrush has been about as well.

Autumn leaves, winter jasmine, spring primroses!

The winter shrubs are mostly doing well, although there's not much sign of flowers on the winter honeysuckle this year.  The young Mahonia 'Winter Sun' is looking good; it's the first year it has done much.  The winter jasmine is still providing cut stems for the house; and the primroses underneath are also in flower, a promise of spring to come!

Mahonia x media 'Winter Sun'

And some colour for the porch

Welcome winter

Another lovely sunset

It has to be said that November is not usually the best month, weather-wise, round here.  All too often it is either wet and windy, or unremittingly damp, foggy and dreary, or a mix of both.  This year it has been mostly dry, clear and cold with only short spells of rain and remarkably little wind.  The start of this past week saw stormy and wet weather for a couple of days, followed by three days and nights of perfect winter weather: cold, bright and sunny (during the day) and frosty at night.  Today was the start of another cloudier, milder spell; I hope the settled weather returns for a nice wintry December!

Sun on autumn leaves

The clear weather has given us some lovely sunsets, and warm-coloured late afternoon sun on the last of the autumn leaves.  The cold, though, has brought the blackbirds and fieldfares into the holly tree in search of the berries.  There are still quite a few on the lower branches, although their numbers are dwindling, so a good bucketful has been cut and put safely in the greenhouse for Christmas.  The greenhouse is also filling up with the half-hardies, the doubtfully-hardy and anything else that I think needs a bit of protection; the dahlias have been lifted and are drying off in there, and the grow-bags are (slowly) germinating some salad leaves for the late winter.  To make room for all of this, the sweet peas, which have started to germinate, have been put in the cold frame with pots of herbs.

Still some berries on the holly tree ...

... and some in the greenhouse

Most of the tulips have now been potted up.  The biggest pot on the patio has four varieties - 'Burnt Sugar', 'Ronaldo', 'Belle Epoque' and 'Bruine Wimpel'; I dug up the big purple Heuchera 'The Prince' (to the delight of our friendliest robin), split it, and planted three of its offshoots on the top with some Crocus 'Blue Pearl'.  Unfortunately I ran out of compost towards the end of this process and had to cover the roots of the Heuchera with some fleece for three frosty days until I could get some more, wait for the pot to thaw out and put the fresh compost on top.  I hope the plants will survive the experience.  Four more offshoots have been potted on and put in the cold frame to recover.  That should give me enough plants to keep going if the vine weevil strike again!

Flowering perennials are now very few and far between in the garden, and indoor colour is now from the winter shrubs.  The winter jasmine is this week's vaseful; but it's good to see the rosemary in full flower too.  And down at the bottom of the garden, the first snowdrop bulbs are nosing up through the ground.

Jasminum nudiflorum (Winter Jasmine)

Rosemary 'Miss Jessopp's Upright'

We don't always have Paris

Heuchera 'Paris' in happier times, with tulip 'Silver Parrot'

Heuchera 'Paris' has been one of my favourite plants in the garden for the past couple of years, with neat and tastefully variegated leaves and bright pink flowers (a more elegant plant than some coloured-leaf heucheras).  It is - or was - in a pot on the patio, with tulips ('Silver Parrot') underneath.  For the last few weeks it has been looking very sad, and I thought it was time to split it and discard the old bits.  It was only when I turned it out of its pot and saw the first vine weevil grub that the truth dawned - we no longer have 'Paris'.  It went in the green recycling bin; the remarkably healthy population of vine weevil grubs were picked out and put on the patio, where the robin was only too pleased to deal with them, and the tulips were replanted in fresh compost.  Another pot also turned out to have grubs in, so the same treatment was applied.  I really need to crack on with working through the pots, checking for grubs and dealing with the bulbs; fortunately the grubs don't seem interested in the tulips, crocus or alliums, so they should be ok.  I also need another heuchera!

Chrysanths, penstemon, sweet rocket and spindleberries

We are now into properly autumnal, and occasionally wintry, weather: some chilly, sunny days but more rain and some strong winds.  The dahlias are turning black so it will soon be time to cut them down and bring the tubers into the greenhouse.  There are still a few flowers in the garden, though, if you look closely: this week's posy is red and yellow chrysanthemums, a couple of blue penstemon and purple sweet rocket flowers, one or two spindly bits of sweet william and a few sprigs of spindleberry.  The autumn leaves are mostly all fallen, but the cotoneaster and berberis at the gate are making a striking final display of their leaves.

Autumn leaves on the big cotoneaster

The cotoneaster berries are attracting blackbirds and pigeons; the berries on the hawthorn at the bottom of the garden seem to be the preserve of the various thrushes.  We had a song thrush and a mistle thrush joining forces to chase off a fieldfare down there; they might all be migrants, I suppose, but it looked very much like a case of British berries for British birds!

Clack-clack, grunt-grunt

Red sky at night

Clack-clack-clack, the fieldfares are back, and active in the garden again, particularly in the cooking apple tree.  Now that we've had a few frosty nights - more December than November - the apples are attracting a lot more bird interest, including the blackbirds and the green woodpecker, but I've picked quite a few big ones and put them into store.  The eating apples have all been picked before the birds can get at them.  Let's hope that the redwings can stay away from the holly berries for a few more weeks so that we can save some for Christmas.  A couple of sharp frosts have brought other birds to the garden, too, including a song thrush and a goldfinch; the goldcrests are also still about.  The clear cold weather has given us some lovely sunsets to enjoy, though we had the first significant rain for some time last night.

Clearing up in the garden is still underway.  A large amount of clutter, generated by home improvements and stacked by the garage, has been disposed of in a skip, and one of the big piles of firewood, which has been sitting on the drive covered for a couple of years by a tarpaulin, has been dismantled and stacked in its proper place in the logstore.  I was concerned that we might disturb the mice that had been living in there, but there was no sign of them, only the dessicated corpse of a long-dead rat (ah the joys of country living).  Our tidying up of the logstore area delighted the front-garden robin, who helped us by inspecting our work at close quarters and disposing of any buglife he could find; he's even confident enough to turn his back on us while we work quite close by.  Not all of the garden's residents were so pleased.  I was bagging up the ash kindling that had been piled randomly in the log store when I became aware of some bad-tempered rhythmic wheezy grunting from close by; it turned out to be coming from the angle between the logstore and the greenhouse, where some garden furniture is stacked on a pallet under another tarpaulin.  A peek under the tarpaulin didn't reveal much, but under the pallet was a pile of old leaves; they couldn't have blown in there by themselves, and my guess is that a hedgehog has made a bedroom in there.  He obviously didn't take kindly to being woken up, so I left him to it.  I hope he stays around; I haven't seen one for some time, but we do get droppings in the garden that I take to be signs of hedgehog activity.  There are plenty of fallen leaves in the garden so I may push a few more into his corner to help him hibernate.  I left him a few of the birds' suet pellets as a peace-offering.

I'm still trying to deal with all the fallen leaves.  This autumn has been unusual in that there hasn't been the normal amount of wind, which has meant that the leaves have dropped from the trees straight into the garden instead of being blown down into the field.  The leaves are too valuable a resource just to dump in the wheelie bin, but for the moment I'm having to sweep them into big piles wherever I can accommodate them.

Some late flowers

Down in the ash-leaf-covered vegetable garden, the broad beans are continuing to do well, except for three that rotted in the ground.  This worked out very well; I had had three beans left in the packet after sowing the two rows, and I planted these in home-made roottrainers (toilet roll inner tubes) in the cold frame.  They have now plugged the gaps in the rows.  There's garlic waiting to be planted out; for once there's a bed prepared for them already.  In the greenhouse, the bubblewrap is up and the heater on (my new thermometer tells me that the temperature dropped to 3.9C one night, but that's just about ok, although the houseplants should really come indoors now).  I've brought into the greenhouse some pots of freesia bulbs that I'd more or less discarded outside as they didn't seem to be doing anything, but they have promising-looking leaves so I'll give them another chance.  Out in the garden, the dahlias are still flowering; they, and a few yellow chrysanthemum flowers, are still providing a few blooms for the house (and a few last Centaurea montana flowers made it in there too).  We'll soon be down to the winter-flowering shrubs, though; it won't be long before winter is here properly.

Clearing up

Spindle 'Red Sentinel'

I don't 'put the garden to bed' for the winter, but some clearing up is necessary around this time of year.  Mainly it's autumn leaves, which is a continuous job at the moment.  Yesterday I raked them all off the lawn, but overnight it was particularly chilly and by this morning there was a thick carpet of yellow ash leaves from the two trees at the side of the garden (the big ash at the bottom had already dropped nearly all its leaves), so there's a lot more work to do.  The two leafmould containers are full and there are bags of leaves waiting for the levels to drop so that I can add them too.  Other shrubs have also started to shed leaves since yesterday - the rose by the patio, the dogwood, the spindle (Euonymus europaeus 'Red Sentinel'), even the buddleja.  Only the apple trees are resolutely staying green.  The spindle has had lovely colours this year, and its pink and orange fruit really add to the display, but they won't last much longer I fear.

The weather has continued mostly dry, in that it hasn't rained much, although we've had some fog and low cloud which means damp air if not actually drizzle.  There have also been some lovely autumn days too, with surprisingly warm sunshine and blue skies - but cold out of the sun.  Nights are now starting to turn very chilly, with frost forecast for tonight; all the half-hardies have been taken into the greenhouse and the heater turned on.  I'm starting to look out the bubblewrap to get the greenhouse ready for the winter.

Spiders' webs on the plum tree

The low sun yesterday highlighted the spiders' webs beautifully, especially on the plum tree, which turned out to be festooned like a Christmas tree with webs - it was quite spectacular.  It probably explains why we've had visitations of several goldcrests picking over the trees, clearing up in their own way; a pair were working their way around the purple-leaved prunus by the pond the other day.  A pair of bullfinches also passed through, and there are fieldfares and redwings around, although I haven't seen any actually stopping by the garden.  The sparrowhawk also came by, flashing across the patio just at the height of the fat ball feeder, using the birdbath as cover for its approach (fortunately there were no birds on the feeder at the time); I've bought a taller pole to hang the feeder from, so that birds will have better sight of any danger (it also raises the feeder above the level at which the occasional wandering dog can access it!).  The sparrows are the main users of the fat ball feeder, although all sorts of tits (blue, great, coal and long-tailed) have also been there recently, and the robin and dunnocks pick up what gets dropped.  The front-garden robin has been carefully watching any activity on his patch, including flying into the garage when the door is opened up; I expect there are a lot of spiders in there too.

If spiders are proliferating, butterflies are on the wane.  There was a lone red admiral enjoying the sun on some ivy a week or so ago, and yesterday a male brimstone fluttered by - probably the last butterfly of the year, as it was the first of the year back in the spring.

Still lots of apples

The summer vegetable plants have gone to the compost heap, including the courgettes and tomatoes.  The focus is now on the winter and spring crops: broad beans sown two or three weeks back are nearly all up.  My faith in the old pea seeds has been rewarded; they're germinating nicely in their seed tray in the greenhouse, so there should be some pea shoots before long (if the mould doesn't get them first).  The winter green manure is also coming up, despite the age of the seeds.  Don't dismiss the oldies too readily!

Larder

Mouse's larder

The big cotoneaster by the gate is full of bright shiny red berries as usual.  It seeds itself rather too prolifically and I had considered removing it, but it's a fine plant and the blackbirds appreciate the berries later in the winter.  Weeding round the base of the trunk, I found that the berries have other fans too; this looks like a mouse's stash of food.  The presence of the mice might explain why we had a tawny owl hooting in the nearby ash tree one evening; the owl regards our plot as its larder too!

Human food is scarcer right now, other than apples (of which there are lots, eaters and cookers).  There's lettuce and smallish leeks, and still a very few small tomatoes in the greenhouse.  The courgettes are nearly over, although I should get a few more little ones.  Plenty of parsley, chives and rosemary.  I've made a resolution to do better with crops next year, and have been sorting the leftover seeds before putting in my seed order for next year.  There are a lot of peas that didn't get sown, some from a few years back, so I've sown them in a seed tray to see if they will produce any pea shoots for salads; if not, nothing lost.  I'll get fresh seed for next year, and get myself better organised to sow it!

Today was rather showery, so a good day to start clearing up the greenhouse.  Most of the aubergine plants have been sent to the compost heap, but I reprieved one which turned out to have one teeny little fruit on it; I don't see it coming to anything but I'll give it a go.  The aubergine plants had been left in their 15cm pots and placed into the growbag, the idea being that the roots would go through the bottom of the pot into the compost below; but in fact hardly any roots made it down that far.  Maybe next year I'll just leave them in pots, and feed them more effectively (something I haven't been good at, which probably explains my lack of success with them).  The now-empty space in that growbag will be sown with salad leaves, in the hope of some greens for the winter - but I must remember to feed them!

Apart from autumn leaf colour there isn't a lot of visual interest in the garden at the moment, but it's surprising what you can find if you scavenge carefully enough.  I managed to put together eight little posies for the Harvest Supper tables and was pleasantly surprised by the results.  Choisya ternata and Viburnum tinus, both in flower, provided some basis, with a smattering of pinks, asters, dahlias, astrantia, Centaurea montana, argyranthemum, dwarf persicaria, parsley flowers and even a few scraps of sweet william, penstemon and Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve' - sometimes only two or three small flowers of each, but they made quite a colourful mix.

Leaves on the lawn

Leaves on the lawn, like leaves on the line, cause delays - in this case, delays to other gardening work while the big sweep-up gets underway.  We had a couple of windy days this week, and unusually the wind came from the east, so the leaves ended up all across the lawn instead of blowing down into the field.  It's not my favourite job, but they are now all nicely in the leafmould pile - last year's leafmould having been bagged up for spreading on the flowerbeds - with layers of newspaper and grass clippings.  The lawn is all tidy again, but only for the moment; there are a lot more leaves to come!

The weather has been unusually dry for this time of year; there has been some pleasant sun (I even managed lunch outside on the bench one day, though I must admit that it was only the thought that it's probably the last chance this year that made me do it), but the wind has been cool and it has been decidedly chilly at night.  Still, it has been good for getting things done in the garden.  The prospect of having to empty out last year's leafmould at least prompted me to sort out the compost bins.  A load of newly-made compost has been dug into some of the veg beds in readiness for next year, and into the broad bean bed where the 'Aquadulce Claudia' beans were sown yesterday.  I've also sown some overwintering green manure for the first time; the seed is quite old so it may not come up, and in truth I'm not quite sure I want it to - deliberately sowing vetch, which I'm trying to eradicate from other parts of the garden, seems like asking for trouble - but let's see what happens.  The still-cooking compost has been mixed up with grass clippings and some free compost accelerator - there are horses in the field just behind us at the moment so fresh manure is available! - and put to mature over the winter. 

I have been ruthless, for once, and pulled up the bean plants that were doing nothing; they are now in the compost bin, along with the dried-up remains of the sweet peas.  The aubergines, which are trying to flower, bless them, will follow soon because there really is no chance of their fruiting now.  There are still courgettes swelling and ripening, so they can stay for the moment, as can the tomatoes at least until the larger fruit have ripened.

The Comice pears

Other jobs that need doing include sowing next year's sweet peas, in the hope of repeating this year's success; clipping the hedge; emptying the pots so that the spring bulbs (just ordered) can go in; cleaning out the greenhouse (another of my not-favourite jobs) and of course dealing with all the weeds.

The apples have fruited well; the Discovery ones have all been eaten but there are still plenty of others on the cordons.  Even the Comice pear has produced four tolerably-sized fruit! (Only three in the photo; I only found the fourth later.)  I think that's a first.

Sunflower 'Velvet Queen'

Choisya ternata

Cyclamen hederifolium

The autumn flowers are doing their thing: besides the nerines and cyclamen, there are now a few aster flowers, and the Choisya ternata is doing a final flush.  There's also one sunflower, which I will leave to seed for the birds.  Given the chilly nights I've cleared the ground under the fat ball container and started putting a few fat balls out for the sparrows, who have been enthusiastically grateful! The coal tit has also found them, and the robin hangs about to pick up anything that gets dropped.  The seed container is being largely ignored at the moment.  There has only been one blackbird about, and infrequently at that; he seems to be still moulting and even the fallen apples don't appear to be tempting him (where are the other blackbirds?).  The swallows and house martins have been gone for a couple of weeks now, but the willow warbler is still around; it must be time for him to head south soon.  We've also had the male sparrowhawk stopping by, sitting hopefully in the tree by the pond until I chased him off.  A buzzard and red kite have also flown over, but they are more interested in four-legged life in the long grass of the field.

Nest in the elder tree!

The leaves dropping from the elder tree have revealed that something has nested in there!  Unfortunately for them, the elder is on the list of Things To Be Removed (sometime ....).

Problem, challenge, opportunity ...

Looks dead to me

Problem: most of the pyracantha (Firethorn) on the north wall of the house is on the way out.  It has been here longer than we have, and has three thick stems, rooted in hardly any depth of (very poor) soil in an unloved corner by the electricity meter; in theory it is supposed to be tied into wires on the wall, but both wires and vine eyes need replacing and it's all out of shape.  Large parts of it had to be cut back to accommodate some building work in that area, which didn't help.  And now all the growth from two of the three stems, virtually all of the top growth, has gone brown with shrivelled berries; the growth on the third one, meanwhile, is in the wrong place, all at the top of its stem, and needs removing.  The pruning saw beckons.  The good news is that there is fresh green growth from the bottom; so it's an opportunity to clear the wall, get new supports in place and start training the new growth into better shape.  I think some feeding wouldn't go amiss either.

Nerine

The weather is turning autumnal; there has been some warm sunshine but evenings and nights are cool (the heating is on) and overall it's quite unsettled with a lot of damp (and rain today).  The sweet peas are virtually over (can't complain, they've done very well) and the phlox and Japanese anemones are slowing down.  There are still a few flowers on the pinks, the occasional rose ('Blush Noisette' is still doing well and will go on into December unless the weather turns really bad) and the Sedum 'Herbstfreude' is coming into bloom; the dahlias are still fine, with flowers on 'Bishop of Auckland', 'Ambition' and 'Blue Bayou'.  (I'm still not very keen on the latter, but it does produce striking blooms.)  The nerine is starting to flower too, though there are only five flower stems as far as I can see; I may need to try to thin it out (and again some feeding is called for!).  And a sure sign that autumn is on the way - there are flowers on the Viburnum 'Dawn'.

The first tomatoes have finally turned red (and been eaten, with relish).  The aubergine plants are still there but none have set fruit so I might as well get them out; must sow them much earlier next year.  I also have one tiny pepper on one tiny pepper plant!

There are few flowers left on the buddleja so fewer butterflies have been in evidence, though there are some Red Admirals still around and the Comma was feeding on a rotten apple one day.  The robins are sorting out territories, singing loudly at one another; the one that rules the roost on the drive and front garden has been very friendly (or cheeky depending on how you look at it).  I gave him a present of some vine weevil grubs found in one of the blue echeveria pots (the top growth had all died off and the lack of roots betrayed the grubs' presence), which were gratefully received; I got rid of the grubs and he got a meal.  Win-win.

A rose in the fridge

'Late summer garden'

A rose was in the fridge, and a cut lily in the warmth of the greenhouse in the hope that it would open.  It could only be the run-up to the Garden Society Show.  The rose - the only single bloom in the garden even remotely presentable for a show - made it, just, surviving in good enough state to win first prize (but not lasting very long after I brought it home!).  My rose 'Blush Noisette' supplied a good enough spray for the cluster-flowered class to come second.  The courgettes, having fruited prolifically all summer, threw a sudden sulk last week and I could only come up with three pathetic tiddlers; but the 'Discovery' apple cordon produced enough good fruits to win D an Award of Merit.  I didn't have enough good dahlias to enter them, but some of the 'Bishop of Auckland' blooms featured in my 'Late summer garden' flower arrangement, along with a spray of cotoneaster leaves and berries, some persicaria, parsley flowers and a few supermarket chrysanthemums, and it won 'best in section' to my surprise!

The lily - too late!

Hedychium

The lily, which I had hoped might be one of my Six Garden Flowers, didn't open until two days later (I should have cut it earlier).  It's still in the greenhouse, as it and the hedychium (also now in flower) are providing enough scent to mask the stench of the comfrey tea that I've been using to dose the tomato plants.  The tomatoes aren't a great success; only a very few fruits, of which the first are only now beginning to show signs of turning red.  Sadly the Show doesn't have a class for green tomatoes.  As for the aubergines, there have been a couple of flowers but no sign of fruits; I really need to start them off earlier, I think.

In the veg plot, the courgettes are picking up again (typical!); the yellow ones are more prolific but the fruits are small and very prone to discoloration and rotting off at the flower end, so I may give them a miss next time.  The French beans (planted out very late) are producing a few very small beans, but the runners aren't going to do anything at all.  They are even refusing to climb their supports, which isn't a good sign!  However the leeks have - very belatedly - been bedded out, and I'm giving thought to where to sow the autumn broad beans.  There's also a nice little row of lettuces, protected from the pigeons by a layer of fleece.

Comma - at last

Male brimstone

The butterfly count is improving, with plenty of red admirals and small tortoiseshells, and at last one single comma has appeared.  There has also been a male brimstone and a speckled wood.  A large dragonfly has been about (moving too fast for identification), and I found a grasshopper one day.  There have also been a lot of craneflies, which apparently are abundant this year.  Something has been attracting the swallows and housemartins, which have been feeding over the garden a lot lately.  The garden birds are becoming slightly less interested in food put out for them; presumably there's a lot of natural food available at the moment.  The sparrows have been eating the elderberries (from a self-sown tree by the house that really isn't meant to be there; I need to get it out!) and the robins seem to be finding minibeasts on the lawn.  The willow warbler and juvenile bullfinch have both been here again, and the nuthatch has been tapping away in the trees.

The weather has been up and down, with some warm and sunny weather over the past two days making up for a couple of quite depressingly wet days on the last two weekends.  Overall it has been very humid, just the thing to bring on an attack of mildew ....

Summer's lease

September is officially autumn, and, although the daytime temperatures are still mostly good, summer does feel as if it's winding down - dew on the lawn in the mornings, spiders' webs around, leaves starting to lose their greenness; cooler at night, the greenhouse closed up in the evening.  The plum tree, always the first to drop its foliage, is regularly surrounded by a sprinkling of leaves, and the flowers on the sweet peas are coming less thick and fast.  They've been providing a posy for the table regularly all summer, and there are still enough to do that (just), but I've also starting cutting dahlias and other blooms: this week a few 'Bishop of Auckland' and 'Ambition' (the only two to flower so far), with Astrantia 'Hadspen Blood', Cosmos 'White Knight' and a few sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis).

Sweet peas for the table

Dahlias, astrantia, cosmos, sweet rocket

Ipomoea 'Carnival of Venice' (with bee)

One floral success this year has been the striped Morning Glory 'Carnival of Venice'.  I planted a few to climb through rose 'Gertrude Jekyll', and while the rose hasn't particularly benefitted from being swamped by its neighbour, 'C of V' is doing very well indeed.  I hope I'll be able to save some seed from it.

Apples have just started to ripen enough to deal with any windfalls; a few apple tart slices went into the freezer today.

The mystery of last week's feathers seems to have been solved: some of the feathers further down the garden were darker coloured and I suspect the victim was a woodpigeon - perhaps a youngster, as there was a single juvenile around the other day and there are usually two in a brood.  Might explain why so many of the feathers were white.

Another sign of summer's end is the arrival of a couple of our usual autumn visitors - a squirrel, after the hazelnuts, and a green woodpecker.  This year's Woodie is in full adult plumage - usually it's a juvenile - and, as usual, he pretends to be after the ants in the lawn, but these are only a starter before the main course, which is apples in the cooking apple tree.  There are plenty there, so I can't complain too much,  Usuallly the surplus apples are kept to feed the blackbirds in the winter anyway,

Having said last week that I hadn't seen a meadow brown butterfly this summer, this week one - but only one - turned up on the borage.  Or maybe it was a gatekeeper (they're very hard to tell apart).  There's a good comparison of the two on this week's RSPB 'Homes for Wildlife' blog, so if I see it again I must take a closer look.

Late to the party

Last week: a party without any punters

This post was almost called 'A party but nobody came'; but eventually a few did show up, though later and in much smaller numbers than usual.  The buddleja in our garden has been here longer than we have, and is both very mature (that's the polite description) and very large.  There are varieties with better-coloured flowers, but I'm not complaining too much, as it's very floriferous and usually attracts large numbers of butterflies.  This year, however, it was in flower for about three weeks before there was much butterfly activity; whereas in past years I could count a dozen or more peacocks and red admirals at peak times on its flowers, until this week there was no more than one of each, plus a few small whites, around.  I've now seen at least two peacocks and at least five red admirals, plus one tortoiseshell, one painted lady and one elegantly shaped female brimstone; but that's paltry compared to past years.  No commas or meadow browns at all this year, although a speckled wood did flit past me in another part of the garden today.  I assume that the August hatching of this year's brood is a little later this year, and I see that the RSPB is attributing the low numbers of butterflies to the warm weather last December keeping caterpillars active when there was no food available.  I hope this autumn's lot fare better.  (One thought about the meadow browns: I used to see a lot of these on my lavender and oregano, but have seen hardly any since the lavender was removed.  Perhaps the lavender was the big attraction, with the oregano a mere sideshow?)

This week: Red admirals

Peacock

and a female brimstone

The weather has turned warm again, with some rain and (today) a big thunderstorm (that sent water from the greenhouse roof cascading into a badly-placed seed tray outside!  fortunately the contents were to be thrown away anyway).  The inside of the greenhouse got a bit of a watering through the roof vents, which were open because of the warmth, but luckily no damage was done.  The seedtrays of hardy annuals in there were kept nicely moist as a result, and I don't suppose the tomatoes in the growbags will complain either.  Some of the seeds sown the other week, including winter veg in the coldframe, are starting to germinate; it's obviously ideal weather for them. 

Young birds continue to turn up in the garden: today a young woodpigeon and two young bullfinches, not yet in full adult plumage.  And one night there was a tawny owl calling persistently, or perhaps two; one sounded shrill, and was perhaps a youngster looking for territory, with the other one staking its claim.

A bit of a mystery today: a sudden shower of white feathers from on high.  A sparrow briefly picked one up, then seemed to decide it didn't know what to do with it, lost interest and flew off without it.  There's no sign of a carcass, nor am I sure what bird they came from (seagull? chicken??) or what might have happened to it!  Some of them are fair-sized feathers, and I can't imagine a raptor flying overhead with such a large bird in its claws - but I can't think of any other explanation!

The posh shed

After the demolition

The new summerhouse is now complete, and a great improvement on the old one (and not just because the old one was rotting away).  It's slightly larger and allows us to fit in a big enough table for four to eat, either inside or on the veranda, and refinements such as insulation and windows that open should allow it to be used in a greater range of weathers.  Having a summerhouse in that corner of the garden also provides a significant focal point; in the brief gap between the demolition of the old one and the construction of the new one that part of the garden felt quite featureless.  In the latter stages of the work we were able to use it in the evenings, but just as it was finished the weather turned blustery and showery, so we're waiting for better weather to enjoy it fully!

All finished!

The rain is very welcome despite curtailing work in the garden; everything was getting a bit dry.  And it obliged me to crack on with work in the greenhouse, pricking out seedlings (that should have been dealt with long ago) and sowing seeds of hardy annuals and overwintering veg.

I see that the cyclamen have started flowering; autumn isn't far away.

The adult birds are finishing their moult and returning to the garden; we've had at least one adult robin back (thus far tolerating the youngster who is dominating the patio) and more blackbirds about, as well as the pair of chaffinches and various tits, and a brief visit by a male bullfinch picking seeds off a tall grass (I'm always surprised how such a chunky bird can balance on thin stems without bringing them crashing down).  A group of young goldfinches was feeding in the plum tree one day, and a hen party of five female pheasants came to strut about in the rain, pecking at fallen plums and posing on top of the garden table.  A willow warbler also visited the birdbath; we usually see them around the time of their migration and I've always assumed that they were on passage, but this bird was moulting (either an adult, or a juvenile getting its adult plumage) and I doubt that a bird undergoing the stress of moulting would be undertaking a flight to Africa.  Anyway it's too early for them to migrate, so it looks as though this one at least has spent its summer around here.  There would be plenty of food for it at the moment as there have been a great many flies about; a flock of the local house martins was feeding over the garden for a couple of days, and the sparrows were also fly-catching, sometimes just over our heads (which could be disconcerting for us, though it didn't seem to bother them!).  We still have large sparrow parties on the lawn and in the shrubs, and enjoying perching on the garden bench.  One day there was a distant bird-call, and all the sparrows immediately dived for cover; it must have been an alarm, because a couple of minutes later the sparrowhawk dashed across the bottom of the garden.  The warning system obviously worked that time.

Courgettes, I've had a few ...

... and I'll be having quite a few more, I think.  Six courgette plants is really rather too much of a good thing, although I've managed to deal with all the crop in the kitchen so far, without letting any of them turn into marrows.  The other glut at the moment is the plums; not such a heavy crop this year, but this made them easier to thin out and the remaining ones are a good size as well as reasonably sweet.  Fortunately most of them are low down on the tree (I'd guess that frost damaged the blossom further up) which makes picking easy; we leave the higher ones for the birds, and indeed the blackbirds are enjoying them greatly.  The raspberries are now over, the apples still to come.  Of the veg, the last broad bean plants succumbed to rust and are now gone, and the runners very, very belatedly planted out.  The leeks are still waiting to be transplanted, but a few lettuce plants have gone in and are doing well.  In the greenhouse, my very late tomatoes are in their growbags and doing nicely, as are the aubergines (I still live in hope of getting a crop from these!).

... a few more ...

... and some plums

On the flower front, the sweet william are pretty much past, but the pinks are still flowering away and the late summer flowers (Phlox 'White Admiral', Japanese anemone and the like) are starting.  The dahlias are a very mixed bunch; 'Bishop of Auckland' and 'Ambition' are doing well but the others have done little (in fairness, some of them are swamped by the dogwood and other neighbours) and I think 'Bishop of Llandaff' has disappeared entirely.  The big success this year has been the sweet peas.  I've grown a better selection of varieties, I think, and given them rather better positions in the garden (along the front of the veg plot, alongside the courgettes), and there has been a vase of them in the house continually for weeks now. 

The weather has improved, with a lot of warm, sunny days; in fact the garden is now very dry and I've had to water the more susceptible plants.  The dry border at the bottom of the garden is faring rather better this year now that I've moved the moisture-lovers; only the Lysimachia clethroides is flagging in the heat, and the new eryngium seems happy.

The sparrows seem to be on their last brood of youngsters and are still feeding them, though the juveniles of other species appear to be independent.  There are a number of young blackbirds, a couple of young dunnocks and a very independent little robin who tries to see off the sparrows.  There was a family of mistle thrushes in the rowan tree one day, feeding on the berries, and there are young coal tits about too.  A few sparrow feathers on the lawn suggest that the sparrowhawk is also still around, and a red kite was circling the other day.  There are also a lot of house martins feeding overhead, though I've seen few swallows and hardly any swifts here this year.  A nuthatch has been tapping in the trees at the bottom of the garden, and the yellowhammers are still yammering away in the nearby hedgerows.

After the outbreak of bird pox here a year or two back there have been very few greenfinches about, but I have seen a male here recently and presumably he and his mate have raised a brood as unfortunately we found a dead youngster below the dining room window one day (with the usual tell-tale mark on the window where it had hit).  He was duly buried in the usual gooseberry bed.  This also became the last resting place of a dead rat which one of the local cats kindly left for us; obligingly it was left under one of the gooseberry bushes so all I had to do was to dig a hole next to it and tip it in.

Tigers in the garden

There hasn't been much butterfly activity in the garden this year; recent weeks have turned up one each of peacock, red admiral, small tortoiseshell and speckled wood, and a couple of cabbage whites.  But one day my eye was taken by a fly-past of something the colour of a red admiral but smaller, and whirring in an un-redadmiral way.  I followed it, and spotted another ... and another ....  there were five in all, and when they landed briefly it was clear that they were moths, a beautiful red and black when the wings were extended and black with white and yellow markings at rest.  The reason for there being so many at once was obviously that one was a female, and the males had sex on their minds; only one male struck lucky, and the rest disappeared.  My butterfly book tells me that they were scarlet tiger moths - new ones on me.  Interestingly the book suggests they belong to marshy areas, which might explain why I've never seen them before, but not why they turned up this time!  It hasn't been that wet ....

... in fact the last week or so has been quite dry, and we have at last had hot weather; the T-shirts have been brought out again (first time this year except for our holiday abroad).  Tuesday topped 30C, even in our garden, and Wednesday was also warm, but it has cooled a little (fortunately) and this evening has seen some welcome rain.  The summerhouse has been demolished and is now being rebuilt, so the good weather is very timely.

The nestbox, when removed from the old summerhouse, contained the nuthatch nest with the remains of one well-grown nestling in it.  I wonder if the woodpecker managed to extract the rest; some anti-raiding device needs to be worked out before the nestbox goes up for next year.  There were no signs of a recent nest in the summerhouse roof after all; so what were the nuthatches doing in there?  Mystery.  They are now off in the trees for the summer, although one came to the peanut feeder the other day.  There are lots of sparrows, several blackbirds including a couple of noisy youngsters, dunnocks, the wren and the odd finch (and of course the woodpeckers and pigeons, including occasional visits from Lefty the lame pigeon).  I've also heard yellowhammers in the distance.  The sparrowhawk (female) turned up one day and made off with a sparrow from the lawn; I suppose they have young to feed as well.

We also have a family of field mice in the woodpile at the side of the drive; they occasionally scamper out and down the side of the garage.  I suspect they've found the alpine strawberry plants that have seeded down there.

The broad beans are virtually finished - not a good crop this year.  The kale is running to seed, and a couple of the potato plants died back and have been dug up; the shallots have been a complete dead loss and there has only been one successful garlic plant.  On the other hand the courgettes are doing well, and the leeks are ready for planting out; I also have a good number of bean plants to put in.  The compost bin has produced another good lot of usable compost so the soil should be in rather better heart this winter.  I netted the small blackcurrant bush and the red gooseberry and got a small crop from each; the transplanted green gooseberry bushes did little (still too small, I think) but the big one that I left in place cropped heavily - I picked a reasonable number and left the rest to the blackbirds.  The raspberries are cropping very well, and the blackbirds and I are both quite happy with what we're getting from them!

Catching up ....

Spring and early summer is probably the busiest time in the garden, so not ideal (from the gardening point of view) for a long holiday - but most things seem to have survived our absence, thanks mainly to the efforts of helpful neighbours.  Preparations for and catching up after holiday have left no time for blogging, so there's a two-month gap to plug here!

Tulip 'Cairo' - back in May

It would be nice to report that summer weather has arrived, but it hasn't.  June has been miserably wet and July is starting in the same vein.  The sun is nice when it's shining, but that isn't often.  At least the garden hasn't needed watering, although the weeds have run riot while we were away and I'm still trying to get on top of them.  There's lots of flowers for cutting: the sweet william near the house are in full spate (the patch in the shade at the bottom of the garden are just starting to bloom); plenty of roses; the sweet peas are coming back after their first flush has been cut; the blue penstemons are looking excellent, especially the one in the big pot.  Most of the alliums, which have been really good, are fading (A. cristophii is still in good shape), but the philadelphus is now out.  Sadly we missed the late tulips, though 'Uncle Tom' and 'Cairo' did well.  I think my favourite of the new bulbs was Narcissus 'Silver Chimes', which I planted so late - tiny, but beautiful little clusters of powerfully scented flowers.  I look forward to them again next year.

Sweet william - not a bad show!

Blue penstemon

 The veg plot is looking a bit patchy.  There are a few strapping kale plants and a couple of cabbages - neither showing much damage from wildlife - and broad bean plants lounging all over the place.  The leek seedlings are fattening slowly, and the potatoes look good, but few of the shallots are still around (the result of the partridges' dust bathing, I suspect) and only one garlic plant.  I can't even see the apple cordons for weeds.  Before we went away I optimistically planted out all six courgette plants, with 'Slug Gone' for protection, certain that there would be some casualties from slug/snail attack all the same - but no, all six are thriving and fruiting!  I will do as the Greeks do and eat them very small, to keep on top of the glut!  In the greenhouse there are five aubergine plants, two pepper plants and three tomatoes, but all are still very small from lack of attention; seedlings of various brassicas were stood outside while we were away and have all succumbed to slugs. Gooseberries and blackcurrants are ripening nicely (time for some protection against hungry birds ....).

Pyramidal orchid in the lawn

Back in the spring I spotted some orchid leaves appearing in the lawn, and fenced them off from the mower.  Two are Early Spotted Orchids (one has flowered), as last year, but there are three of the taller and chunkier Pyramidal Orchids over by the plum tree - rather fine flowers.

Forward planning: the biennials are sown and germinating, and I'm starting off more salad plants.  Better late than never.

The birds are still busy, but fewer species coming to the garden at the moment.  Lots of sparrows and woodpigeons, and a few blackbirds; the wren comes daily to search around the patio pots (which still have the spring bulbs in them); and the robin shows up occasionally, but is mostly based down in the bottom hedge.  A young woodpecker is coming to the peanut container with its dad, and is not pleased when I'm in the garden.