Blooming wrong

Most of the tulips have now been planted; but it was a rather unsatisfying day's gardening.  On the one hand, it was good to get most of the half-hardies under cover, and the tulips planted in the pots in their place, and the last of the autumn leaves were cleared from the lawn (still lots on the veg beds, though!).  The autumn tulip orders, on the other hand, have left something to be desired.  In the past couple of years I've had tulips bursting into flower and sometimes revealing themselves to be the wrong variety; this year the problem has arisen even before they were planted.  The orders came in while we were away, and the parcels were put in the greenhouse as I had requested; I must admit I delayed unpacking and examining them (too much else to do after our travels), but when I opened the first package there was a definite problem.  I had ordered, from the usually reliable Bloms, one bag each of two tulip varieties and one variety of crocus; instead, the package contained two tulip varieties I'd never heard of, and no crocuses.  The company apologised and sent the correct tulips immediately, but still no crocuses (I settled for a credit note; it was rather too late to be planting crocuses anyway).  The other package, from Sarah Raven's bulb supplier (where I've had problems with wrong varieties in the past), seemed ok from a quick inspection, but when I went to plant some of them the other day I noticed that there was a mistake there too: a colour-coordinated pack of three different tulips was actually one pack of one tulip and two of a second (and no third variety).  It was rather too late to go back to the company and complain; I substituted another variety of a similar colour to the missing one, though the shape will be different and I suspect it will flower too early to blend with the others.  The doubled-up tulip is the lovely 'Havran', a favourite of mine with two or more blackcurrant-black flowers on a bluish-green stem, an elegant plant, but I wasn't looking for quite so much black in my plantings (I've also got 'Black Parrot' this year).  Ah well; maybe time to check out some other bulb suppliers who might have better-organised packing sheds.

That wasn't the end of the day's woes.  I then went to plant some variegated London Pride (Saxifraga x urbium) on the top of the bulb pots - partly to provide some interest over winter and partly to discourage the birds from poking around in the pots and disturbing the compost.  The London Pride was in the top of another pot and I'd already used a little of it; but when I lifted some more, it came up without roots.  Uh oh, I've been here before ..... the sure sign of vine weevil grubs in the compost.  I found some of the little nuisances earlier in the autumn when I went to repot some Geranium renardii; the pot had been invaded by a viola and some miniature sisyrinchium, and both of those were flourishing, but the geranium had been attacked (not fatally, fortunately).  The grubs are obviously picky eaters.  I also know that there will be vine weevil in the big pot on the patio, which is currently occupied by some heuchera (a favourite target of vine weevil) which is not looking in good shape (I've salvaged some bits of that and potted them on, so the plant isn't completely lost).  I wasn't expecting the little blighters in the saxifrage pot, however.  The compost was rather wet (I must remember to raise up the base of winter pots by putting 'pot feet' under them - there was little space for excess moisture to run away), so I put it temporarily in an old compost sack to keep the grubs from contaminating anything else.  Since then on dry days I've been putting a little of the compost, well spread out, under the fat ball feeder, where the local robin has been gratefully disposing of the grubs and any other minilife that he finds in there; it's a win-win situation for both of us.

A quick sighting of a male blackcap, taking a bath in the pond, the other day.  It's late in the year for a blackcap round here; they usually migrate south for the winter, but it's a bit late for this one to be heading off, so maybe he'll hang around.

Time, flies

It has been a good (if that’s the right word) year for flying insects.  The fly-catching birds – house martins and the like – seem to have had good pickings over the fields, and others besides us have noted that there have been a lot of wasps in late summer and, as autumn drew on, harlequin ladybirds trying to get into houses.  Since October we’ve had large numbers of houseflies appearing daily at the dining room windows (indoors) and we can’t work out where they’re coming from.  We usually have a good number coming into the upstairs rooms from the loft, but if anything there seem to be fewer upstairs this year; it’s definitely a downstairs problem.  They’re coming in for warmth and then trying to get outside into the light.  We did see a cloud of flies one day around one of the chimney stacks, so they might be getting in that way, but I haven’t seen them coming into the dining room from that direction.  Another definite possibility is that they’re squeezing in round the edges of the windows, which don’t fit all that well in places, but again I haven’t seen much sign of that.  They just seem to appear as if from nowhere, by the dozen.  Perhaps they’re creeping in round the skirting boards and making a dash for the windows when they see I’m not looking?  I’ve given up opening the windows and trying to shoo them out; it’s time for more drastic action.  I’ve been picking them up with the hand-held vacuum and emptying it outside, preferably as far away from the house as possible to discourage them from finding their way back.  It probably gives them a headache, but I’m not in a mood to be too particular.

The weather has been up and down over the past few weeks, with some frosty nights, some heavy rain, strong winds in the last few days, and occasional mild spells.  A couple of weeks ago we had a dusting of snow, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t forecast; it started to lie lightly but disappeared within a couple of hours.  Fortunately I had just bubblewrapped the greenhouse and dusted down the heater, which has been set low, just to keep the temperature above freezing.

Not forecast!

After a few more days away, there’s still a lot to be done around the garden.  I still haven’t managed to sweep up all the fallen leaves, and not all the tulips are planted yet.  There are still some dahlias and other half-hardies in the pots, and they need to be dug out before the tulips can go in.  Today I pulled up the borage, which I had left because I’d seen a couple of late bumblebees checking out the remains of the flowers for sustenance; the flowers are well past now and the bees ought to be tucked up until the warmer weather.  The phlox stems have been cut down to half-height, leaving some cover for overwintering insects but removing the unsightly dead tops which were spoiling the look of the Viburnum davidii right alongside; it’s a pleasantly shapely shrub, particularly at this time of year when shape and texture in the garden are all-important, and the phlox stems were doing nothing for its appearance.

Winter jasmine

The leaves have now fallen, except for the buddleia and Lonicera purpusii which are always slow to drop, but there are still some berries around.  A pair of mistle thrushes are enjoying the berries on the Sorbus ‘Joseph Rock’ and defending them noisily against all incomers (ie the fieldfares); the redwings have made considerable inroads into the holly berries (but some stems have been cut for Christmas and are in a bucket of water in the summerhouse).  There are still several big apples on the cooking-apple tree, looking like outsize Christmas decorations, and the birds are enjoying them; a green woodpecker was there the other day.  The winter-flowering shrubs are getting into their stride, and the winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) provided a good vaseful which has lasted for over two weeks now; it was originally paired with some stems of autumn leaves which have now fallen, but the flowers make a good display by themselves.