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.