End of April update

What a difference two days (since my last post) can make.  It's still cold - and April is now officially the coldest for 60 years, with a frost somewhere in the UK on every April day - but it has finally rained.  Yesterday was properly wet, while today we were treated to a couple of significant hailstorms.  May starts tomorrow, but it is still going to be cold (possibly for much of the month, if the forecast is to be believed).  I hope there is some warmth soon, so that I can move my aubergines and peppers off the windowsill and out into the greenhouse!

Hail on the lawn ...

... and another lot on the way

The rain has helped raise the water level in the pond, which was almost dry; the birds have enjoyed being able to bath in it again, and with the ground nicely dampened they are also finding it easier to seek out food.  Our bereaved female blackbird has apparently struck up a new relationship with one of the local males; she has been gathering nesting material and taking it into the top of the long hedge.  The new nest is just opposite our patio doors, so we might be able to track what develops there.

Another female blackbird has been feeding a youngster down at the other end of the veg patch, and occasionally they come up towards the house.  Yesterday they were right up near the raspberries; mum went off to search for food under the big gooseberry bush and, after a little indecision, youngster decided to follow her.  It was a good move, as it turned out; only seconds later the female sparrowhawk flashed by (and flew off empty-taloned, fortunately).  Little blackbird wouldn't have stood a chance if he hadn't been inside the thorny gooseberry bush.

A new vaseful of flowers from the garden to brighten up the house: big red tulips (variety unknown), doronicums, honesty and centaurea montana.

Coming and going

Daffodils - just going

There has been a lot of coming and going in the past few weeks, with a lot to do in the garden, plants fading and being overtaken by others and plenty of birds coming and going too. 

My comings and goings have been to do with trying to keep on top of the various garden jobs at this time of year: weeding, sowing, pricking out, potting on and, given how dry it has been, watering.  April, unusually, has been very dry: apart from the light snow showers earlier in the month, there has hardly been any precipitation here for weeks, and coming and going with the watering can has been necessary.

The weather this month has also been mostly sunny but an easterly wind has kept it decidedly on the chilly side.  The cool temperatures (low teens centigrade/below 60F most days) have kept the daffodils flowering for longer than usual, though they are now going over, at that stage where they provide welcome colour from a distance but, when viewed close to, are too obviously on the way out to be suitable for cutting for the house.  They are being superseded by the tulips.  The first of these to flower were the little red ones in the front garden, which came out in the last days of March, but the first of the tall ones were the ‘Couleur Cardinal’ which were planted out years ago into the end of the veg plot and have provided a vaseful of colour each year since.  They were closely followed by ‘Apricot Beauty’, a new variety for me (I’m trying to grow at least one new variety every year); it isn’t quite my idea of apricot, being quite pink without much of an orangey flush, but it is lovely.  ‘Exotic Emperor’ was next, an old favourite and always a cheerful early potful.  ‘Orange Emperor’ is also out, as is yellow ‘World Friendship’, and the two big pots with mixed varieties are just starting to come into flower.  

A vase of 'Couleur Cardinal'

'Apricot Beauty'

'Exotic Emperor'

Other colour is also starting to appear, especially around the summerhouse end of the path by the long hedge – doronicums, honesty (Lunaria annua) and a few of the red tulips that are dotted through the planting down there.

Path by the long hedge

On the wilder side, the cowslips in the lawn are coming into bloom, though the sparrows have been pecking at the flowers; and the unintended patch of them on the verge outside our drive is going from strength to strength.

Cowslips in the verge

If the gardener has been kept coming and going recently, that is even more true of the birds here.  A few of them have literally been coming or going, on migration.  ‘Going’, probably, were two male bramblings (a colourful finch which overwinters in the UK) spotted in the plum tree ten days or so ago, and another yesterday; I’ve seen bramblings here before, but they’re definitely unusual visitors for us, probably stopping off on their way back to Scandinavia for the summer.  My Scandinavian readers might be seeing them make landfall after crossing the North Sea soon!  ‘Coming’ were two male blackcaps, probably en route for somewhere more sheltered than our garden; we occasionally see them early or late in the season, again probably on passage, but they never seem to hang around.  I’ve also seen one house martin and D has seen swallows, so our summer visitors are gradually arriving.  I wonder what they’re making of the cold.

The resident birds are busy nesting and raising youngsters.  The blackbird family who were nesting in the hedge seem to have come to an unhappy end.  Dad had been feeding their one survivor from the first brood while Mum incubated the second, but one day we found little one cheeping forlornly for food, and a sad little pile of male blackbird feathers on the lawn.  We tried to put out food for youngster, but he wasn’t sufficiently advanced to sustain himself.  Mum took over feeding duties, even though she had started gathering small worms presumably for the next lot of nestlings, but little one hasn’t been seen for several days and Mum is no longer gathering food, so we assume that she has had to abandon her nest.  Another male has moved into her territory and she is mostly keeping out of his way.  Another possibly abandoned nest is our birdbox; blue tits had been going in and out, but one day they had a full-on, stand-up fight with a pair of great tits down there, and I haven’t seen any activity at all since then. 

On a more positive birdy note, Lefty the lame pigeon has been picking up nesting material with his mate, and at least two pairs of robins are actively taking food to their nests; one of them, presumably my friend from earlier in the year, has become quite tame, following me around when I’m weeding.  Another pair of robins spent one day busily taking nesting material into a hole in the neighbours’ garage fascia, but I haven’t seen them there since; either found somewhere better and moved on, or just being very low-key in their movements?  A young collared dove appeared in the apple tree today, and a wren has been paying visits to the greenhouse, probably in search of spiders (he’s welcome to any that he can find in there as long as he can find his way out again!).  And a rare visitor, a marsh tit, has found our fatball container and has paid at least a couple of visits to it; I hope he makes it a regular pitstop.

Seven daisies

According to an old saying, you know that spring has come when you can fit seven daisies under your foot.  There’s at least one clump of daisies in the lawn that fits the bill, and indeed we have all the other signs of spring here – plants growing, birds nesting and the usual unpredictable spring weather.

Snowy April morning

March ended with a couple of days of warmth – T-shirts for working in the garden! – which extended into the first day or so of April, but it has been downhill since then.  Chilly temperatures by day, despite often blue skies, and the odd frost by night, cold wind from the north and occasional showers of snow or hail, culminating in a thin layer of lying wet snow on Tuesday evening and night.  It is only early April, after all.  The forecast is for below-average temperatures for another week or two at least.

Spring flowers: Doronicum caucasicum

The spring flowers are blooming in spite of the cold: lots of daffodils, with the doronicums and brunnera adding more colour.  In the grass verge just outside our garden is a cheerful little patch of snowdrops (now past), cowslips and primulas; I planted the snowdrops there many years ago but the others have come of their own accord, and very welcome too.

Flowers in the verge

The warm weather brought out the first butterflies – a male brimstone, a peacock and a small tortoiseshell.  The cold will have been a shock to them.  The birds seem to be able to go with the flow at this time of year, even when they have little ones.  The blackbirds nesting in the long hedge are feeding at least one fledgling (there may only be the one as both parents seem to be giving it their full attention), and there have been other cheeping sounds coming from the hedge, so I think some of the sparrows may have hatched too.  A pair of bluetits have been showing interest in the nestbox.  A variety of birds have been coming to the pond to bathe and drink, although the water level is very low (it has been a dry winter and spring here, and I’ve had to water all the pots recently); besides the usual garden residents we’ve had a pair of coal tits, goldfinches and, pleasingly, a greenfinch, which used to be common here before the outbreak of trichomonosis that killed so many of them, and we haven’t seen one for two or three years.  Other unusual sightings the other day were of three red kites having an aerial standoff, and a heron flying low over the garden on Sunday (checking out the neighbours’ pond?).  And one day the local woodpigeons held a convention in the field behind us; I counted 60 before they spotted me and flew off.

Other wildlife is also active: the first hedgehog droppings have appeared on the lawn, and a fox seems to have called by.  I found a dead pheasant (such are the delights of country living) tucked neatly between the wall by the gas tank and the semi-wild shrubs growing there; pheasants don’t normally keel over so tidily by themselves, and I guessed that this was the result of a fox’s successful hunting expedition (too much shopping to carry home all at once?).  Usually I would attempt to bury dead wildlife found in the garden, but digging a hole deep enough for a pheasant wasn’t going to be easy, so I left it where it was.  And next morning it had gone; I assume the fox had come back for his shopping.

Given the cold, I won’t be doing any outdoor sowing or planting for a few days at least.  There are plenty of seeds sown in the greenhouse and cold frame, plus the really tender ones indoors germinating on the radiators and growing on on the windowsills: aubergines and peppers, with tomatoes newly germinated and courgettes sown yesterday.

Spring is also a time for new perspectives, and last week’s hard landscaping work has given me scope for re-thinking some planting ideas.  The newly re-laid patio and its adjacent paths, together with the clearing of some of the plant and weed growth alongside, give much clearer lines to that part of the garden, and I can see why gardeners are advised to sort out their hard landscaping before thinking about planting; I’m already considering new planting ideas (a clump of daffodils at that corner?  Some low-growing geraniums along that edge?). 

Newly re-laid patio

The garden birdlife was less sure about the work, although the blackbird enjoyed the digging.  All the plant pots had to be moved (and have not yet been put back), as well as the birdbaths, which were left unfilled (and no breakfast crumbs left out either).  Once it was all complete, the birds appeared a little suspicious of the new arrangement and hesitant about returning; Lefty the lame woodpigeon seemed to miss the terracotta shell which holds drinking water, his favourite drinking spot, but once it was reinstated he deigned to come back to feed.  The cold weather and the resumption of food put out on the patio will have encouraged them to overcome their disapproval!