Me-Me-Me time

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.

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.

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.

A  well-packed propagator ...

... and potting bench

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 ……