Guerrilla gardening

I've started a spot of guerrilla gardening (making use of otherwise ungardened space that doesn't belong to you).  Opposite the house is a fairly typical stretch of rough countryside road verge, mostly coarse grasses and the less attractive sorts of weed; it is occasionally strimmed by a council contractor in spring and summer but otherwise left to its own devices.  It would be nice if it occasionally had something more interesting growing in it.  I don't want it to look like a garden, just a little more cheerful!  There are a couple of good plants there already - a self-sown geranium which looks like a pale form of Geranium phaeum, and an alkanet - and I've tried to introduce the native Iris foetidissima, at least one of which is surviving - but Strimmer Man tends to cut them down before they can do anything much.  I don't want to put anything too highly bred in there, both because such plants probably wouldn't survive the competition from the weeds (or Strimmer Man) and because they would look out of place in a country verge.  The exception would be some daffodils (there are plenty of daffs, the modern large-flowered types, in the verges in other parts of the village), which would cheer the space up and would die down before Strimmer Man puts in an appearance.  I have a lot of surplus-to-requirements daffodil bulbs, dug up from the bottom of the garden, and I've started planting them in the verge; it's really a bit late in the year, and a lot of them are going in much too shallowly as it's difficult to make deep enough holes, but we'll see what happens.  They were grouped by type in my flowerbed, but as they were growing closely together they will have got mixed up as I dug them out, so they might make rather a jumble, but I hope a colourful one.  If time permits, I might also put in some of the violets that are spreading much too well down in the bottom bed, and some of the Crocus 'Whitewell Purple' which should self-seed happily around, at least until the grass gets too long for them; and I keep meaning to move some of my snowdrops in there too (that will have to wait until after they've flowered in spring).  That should provide a good bit of spring interest, before Strimmer Man strikes.

Red chrysanths

When listing the flowers in the garden last time I forgot to mention the pot of dwarf red chrysanthemums on the patio, which continue to bloom brightly.  There's also a little pot of Cyclamen coum with dark pink flowers, which is making a small but welcome spot of cheer, and as usual the pinks are throwing up some unseasonal flower spikes.  (For some reason, at this time of year the flowers open pink, whereas earlier they are mostly white; presumably the effect of the colder weather?)  Vases of cut flowers this week, however, contain the proper winter flowererers, the winter jasmine and the winter honeysuckle; the latter is making quite a good show at the moment, with lots of its little cream-coloured flowers pumping out scent whenever there's any warmth in the sun.

Lonicera purpusii, winter honeysuckle

Last week was a mix of weather, with both sunshine and rain, and strong winds; it has now turned cold, as forecast, with frosts (first ice on the pond, need to scrape the car windscreen) and bright, but chilly, sunshine.  The dahlias have finally started to succumb and some of them have been taken into the greenhouse to dry off.  The garlic was planted out before the cold really kicked in, and I've just, very belatedly, put in seeds of the autumn-sown broad beans, with a topping of good garden compost to protect them from the frost.  The beans have gone into the same bed as this year's runner and French beans, but, as most of those were eaten by slugs before getting more than a couple of inches high and the rest didn't grow well, I'm hoping that it won't matter.  I didn't dig the bed over, either; I'm giving 'no-dig' gardening a go, in parts of the garden at least.  It's supposed to be good for soil fertility, and that's something that really needs addressing in this garden.

We've cut some of the holly (with berries) and it's in the summerhouse in a bucket of water; just as well as the cold weather has attracted blackbirds, fieldfares and redwings to the tree and they've eaten most of what was left.  They're now turning their attention to the last of the apples (the last that are on the tree, anyway; there are plenty in store in the greenhouse where they can't get at them).  The smaller birds have been enjoying the fatballs, including the long-tailed-tit family; and, when the main garage door was open one day, we had a wren inside, looking for spiders and singing lustily.  Other visitors have included a bullfinch and a song thrush.  Less desirably, we had another sparrowhawk visit, from the male this time, who caught some small bird, took it down to the bottom of the garden and proceeded to eat it on top of one of the piles of branches and twigs that are there to provide wildlife shelter.  At least they are tidy eaters, and take the remains of their lunch away with them, so I don't have any grisly bits to deal with.