No time for me-time recently, or for blogging! - it's that time of year when
the garden jobs all start clamouring to be done at once. Me, me, me, now,
right now! I go out into the garden intending to do one job, and on the
way I spot something that needs doing even more urgently.
And in the end I spend the day doing
something else entirely that really can’t wait.
Some things on the to-do list have been:
1. Fill bird feeders. Our regular birds have been busy nesting and
feeding youngsters, and the feeders have been emptying quickly as the parents
grab some fast food on the go while the little ones do their own ‘me-me-me’.
We have sparrows and starlings in the eaves,
a pair of bluetits in the nest box on the summerhouse wall (undeterred by us
spending much of our time in there during the warm weather), and blackbirds in
a hidey-hole behind some rubbish by the garage (left over from our house
improvements and still awaiting a skip for disposal).
A wren seemed to be building a nest in the
wall behind the veg plot, but hasn’t been seen for some time; perhaps they
decided not to use that one. The song thrush has been singing long and
lustily, probably while his mate is on the nest somewhere, and dunnocks and
goldfinches, and of course the robins, call by from time to time. There
are several woodpigeons but no obvious nesting activity.
The blackbirds – possibly another pair, or
our nesting pair with an earlier nest elsewhere – had two demanding youngsters
being fed on our patio, but sadly neither survived; one was found dead in the
front garden, cause not obvious, and the other, a friendly little one who
didn’t mind our comings and goings, just disappeared. The bluetits are
now feeding babies in the nestbox, and there are young sparrows around; one of them
was carried off one day by a jay – but that’s why they have so many little
ones.
2. Bury the dead baby blackbird. Finding a suitable spot for
burial is never easy; there needs to be enough depth of soil (which rules out
several parts of the garden), and a place where I'm not going to be digging for
quite some years (I don't really want to be accidentally digging up a
carcass). Ideally I like to put casualties under or close alongside a new
planting, so this job was actually an opportunity to address another task on my
longer-term 'to-do' list: to try to mask the electricity substation across the
road. This is green, so not too obvious against the hedgerow behind it,
but it bears a vivid yellow sign proclaiming 'Danger of Death' which isn't
quite what one wants to see from the garden. The trickiest aspect to
conceal is the view from the summerhouse window, which is the whole length of
the garden away from the offending yellow sign but the eye is drawn to it along
the 'long walk' alongside the leylandii hedge, with the sign visible over the
front garden wall which isn't quite high enough to block it out. What is
needed is something higher on our side of the wall, but with the wall to the
west and the high leylandii hedge to the south, and the big holly tree
overhanging it, it's a seriously dark spot; and there's already a Fatsia
japonica there which sadly isn't high or wide enough to do the job. It
recently occurred to me that I might try the offshoot of my Rosa altaica, a creamy-flowered
Central Asian species rose, that I potted up a couple of years ago and haven't
found a home for; the existing plant survives reasonably well in a shady spot,
so it's worth a go. The fatsia is tough enough to cope with a close
neighbour.
After a bit of ground-elder-clearing,
both the rose and the blackbird went in, with some protective mulch. Two
jobs done - tick, tick.
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| White forget-me-nots |
3. Pull up forget-me-nots.
I
always leave them in for too long; I’m unwilling to take out plants that are
still flowering, but while they have fresh flowers at the top of the stems,
lower down they’re already setting seed and they’re just becoming too
prolific.
I’ve been trying to be
ruthless with them, especially the paler ones; they were originally the
dark-blue variety 'Compindi' but they have self-seeded into various
shades.
This year some of the plants in
the front garden have come up with white flowers, and I’ve shaken some of their
seeds in that dark corner under the rose and fatsia, in the hope that some of
the seedlings will come true.
I have
vague plans for white and yellow plants in there, to lighten things up a bit;
it certainly does contain white-flowered plants at the moment, but they're
mostly ground elder and Allium triquetrum, two thugs that need to be removed
(and that's also on the 'must-do' list) before they take over.
4. It’s not just the forget-me-nots that need taking in hand in the
front garden; those narrow beds have been taken over by snowdrops and brunnera
as well, in a mad sort of riot; none of them undesirable in themselves, but
they're going to proliferate if unchecked and they need taking in hand. Also,
the brunnera and forget-me-nots are mostly indistinguishable – the flowers are
very similar – so some rethinking is required there, and something to fill the
resulting gap.
5. Fill the bird feeders again; they've been emptied. Also
refill the bird bath.
It has been quite
a dry month on the whole (although we’ve had more rain (and chilly weather)
recently), and what with sunny, dry weather and frequent bathing by dusty birds
which have been popping in and out of nests, the bird baths have needed a lot
of cleaning and refilling.
6. Dead-head the daffodils, tulips and other bulbs that I don't want
to self-seed (muscari and Spanish bluebells, I'm thinking of you....).
I’ve also dead-headed the hellebores before the seed-pods ripen, and the
brunnera to stop it self-seeding too much.
7.
Remove weeds.
This is a never-ending item on the to-do
list, but there are some that I really need to get on top of before they set
seed, either by digging the weeds out or at least by removing the flower-heads
and/or seed-pods.
Pressing examples are
the speedwell in the veg plot, especially under the apple cordons, and the
Allium triquetrum, which is pretty but a terrible thug.
A start has been made on both of these, but
there is still work to be done.
Then
there are the dandelions in the lawn, and at least here I seem to be winning;
over the years I’ve assiduously dug out, or taken the flowerheads off, any
plants I could find, and there does seem to be fewer of them this year.
Peering in the rough and weedy grass that
passes for a lawn here, I’ve also found our usual orchid plants, and also several
twayblades (which are a very unshowy sort of orchid, with minuscule flowers and
two rather striking leaves); we had a twayblade a few years back, but I haven’t
seen any since, so finding these is a bonus.
All have been protected from mowing until after they’ve flowered.
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| Potted primulas |
8.
Find better homes for plants that
have self-sown in the wrong place.
Two
primulas appeared in the veg plot, one a primrose (or a very similar hybrid),
the other a cowslip-type primula with red flowers.
Both were potted up, popped in an ornamental
trough and displayed on the table outside the dining-room window, where they’ve
done well and provided some interest even on wet days.
A pulmonaria has produced a few seedlings,
which have been potted on and/or replanted in the dark, narrow bed by the gas
tank; that strip has been in danger of being taken over by brunnera seedlings
and Welsh poppy, and has now been thoroughly weeded.
The variegation on the pulmonarias will
provide some lighter tones, but I need to think of some colour for later in the
year.
Then there’s the question of what
to do about the poppies that have appeared in greater numbers this spring;
they’re the classic scarlet field poppies, but larger and more attractive than
the little weedy things that I’ve had in the past, and quite garden-worthy in
their own way.
They can stay until the
ground is needed for the dahlias.
9.
Pot up some Geum rivale.
This grows near the pond where its pale
orange flowers complement the blue bugle (Ajuga atropurpureum) well; it had
spread wide and I’d been meaning to take it in hand, but this year large parts
of the plant have died off, apparently just from old-age.
It’s a good opportunity to reclaim this area
and plant it up more appropriately, but I don’t want to lose the geum; it’s an
unassuming plant but I like it.
10.
Fill the bird feeders again.
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| A well-packed propagator ... |
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| ... and potting bench |
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| Nest in the compost bag! |
11.
Keep up with the
seed-sowing.
I’m trying to be better at
this this year, but that’s a subject for another post.
Sowing, pricking out, watering and hardening
off takes a lot of time.
This year I’ve
sown some seeds in short lengths of guttering in the greenhouse, as so often
recommended; carrots, dill, coriander, peas and sugar snaps have all been
planted out, and a second lot are nearly ready to go too.
A temporary covering of some fleece allowed
the peas and sugar snaps to get their roots into the soil so that they could
better withstand being pecked by birds, and they’ve established well.
I put a little home-made garden compost into
the planting rows first.
This compost
had been decanted into old potting compost sacks ready for use, with the tops
loosely folded over to keep the rain out, but there was a slight hitch; when I
opened the first bag, whose top had un-folded itself a little, I found a
surprise inside …. The nest contained neither an occupant nor any eggs, and fortunately
it didn’t seem to be in use; I left the bag so that the top was sufficiently
open to allow access but still affording some protection, but when the bag blew
open again a few days later the nest was still untouched.
Perhaps it was one of the wren nests; I
believe their habit is for the male to build several nests and the female
chooses the one she likes best.
(“You
want me to nest in that dark, damp plastic bag? Really?”) Fortunately there was another bag of compost ready for me to use instead.
12.
Tackle the ivy on the garden wall
by the garage.
This was a joint attack
by me and the neighbours on the other side, and when we’d finished it was
apparent that the wall underneath is in a parlous state.
Some rebuilding needed, and a professional job
at that; another warning to keep ivy away from dry-stone walling.
13.
Remove butterfly from
greenhouse.
Some greenhouse visitors,
bees for example, are good at finding their own way out, but butterflies tend
to need a little help.
On this occasion
the visitor, a male orange-tip, was eventually persuaded to leave by the
door.
I’ve been trying to remember to
record butterfly sightings on the Butterfly Conservation website; mostly
orange-tips so far this year, with occasional brimstones, holly blues and, just
recently, the first small whites, but there have been a tortoiseshell, a red
admiral and a speckled wood.
I tend to
associate the latter with late summer, but apparently they have a spring brood
as well.
14.
And those bird feeders need
filling yet again ……
