November snow

Snow in November isn’t unprecedented – I can recall at least one very bad snowstorm some years ago – but it’s not usual.  November has been a relatively mild month on the whole, and not particularly wet as Novembers go, but this weekend we were hit by Storm Arwen that brought high winds, some light snow and sub-zero temperatures.  Our area was affected much less than others, but Saturday in particular was windy and bitterly cold outdoors, and the cold has continued through the weekend; reasonably mild today, reverting to something more normal for the rest of the week.

For reasons mostly beyond my control, I’m a few weeks behind with my gardening schedule, no garden work having been done since mid-October.  One of the jobs left undone is lifting the dahlias and taking them into the greenhouse.  Actually this is not entirely unreasonable; dahlias ought to be left until their foliage has started to blacken with the first frost, and that didn’t happen until Saturday, but they have gone from slightly tatty but definitely green to flattened and definitely black in the space of 24 hours.  I hope they haven’t been frozen too hard, especially those (the majority) in pots.  My little red chrysanthemums, in contrast, have bounced back as soon as the snow melted from on top of them, a very small beacon of colour on the patio in an otherwise rather sad-looking garden.

Little red chrysanths, with blackened dahlia behind

A sad-looking garden

The dahlias haven’t done well this year, and I have to admit that it’s mostly my fault.  I haven’t been a particularly attentive gardener these past months, I have to confess.  I started by cutting one corner: last winter was relatively mild, and partly because of that and partly in order to be ‘green’ I didn’t insulate the greenhouse, and only switched on the heater on a couple of especially cold nights; spring was mostly chilly, and when May came along (the usual time to put dahlias outdoors) I took the view that gradual hardening off was unnecessary, since the outdoor temperatures were little different to those that the greenhouse had been registering for a long time.  The dahlias didn’t seem to suffer from this.  However I then hit my usual problem of finding enough space in the ground and in pots to accommodate them, and finding time to do all the potting up; some of the smaller dahlia tubers are still sitting outside in the small pots in which they were brought into leaf.  Not only did this mean that they put on minimal growth and therefore the tubers won’t be in great shape, but being left out in small pots in cold weather will probably result in them being killed off.  We shall see.  Even those dahlias that were planted up didn't flower well; I admit to not having been careful about watering and feeding.  I had already been having thoughts about the number of cuttings and other small plants that I have hanging around in search of a home, and being more realistic about how many plants I can handle; that’s a subject for another post.  In the meantime, I shall have to take a good look at all my little pots and see what has survived.

Winter is coming

On our return after autumn travels, it’s clear that the garden has moved into early winter mode, with the wildlife that comes with that.  The weather isn’t particularly cold for November, and although there has been some morning mist there has been relatively little low cloud; but the light has moved from the soft yellow light of autumn to the cold blue light of winter, and the birds that had dispersed for the autumn are back in their winter quarters.  The migrants, fieldfares and redwings, have arrived too.  Although no food would have been put out for them in our absence, the plentiful cooking apples and holly berries in the garden are a prime attraction.

Plenty of cooking apples ...

.... and holly berries

The collared doves and woodpigeons, including our lame friend Lefty, never really went far away, and are still hanging around in considerable numbers.  Likewise the sparrows, who enjoy the bathing facilities, and our two robins, who are again competing for territory.  The thin nervous robin’s bad foot appears to have healed, and he/she is defending the patio from the other robin and occasionally from the dunnocks.  There are several finches around, including a small flock of goldfinches, a pair of chaffinches and at least one greenfinch, as well as blue and great tits and three or four blackbirds.  The pair of mistle thrushes have been sitting in the big ash tree from time to time, along with a large number of starlings; they like to sit in the top of the tree in the afternoon to catch the last of any sun.  They will miss that tree when it’s taken down.

There have been a couple of surprises: a male blackcap, possibly on passage to somewhere a little warmer for the winter, and a grey wagtail.

The hedgehog has presumably gone into hibernation, but other four-legged visitors have been seen.  The squirrel is a regular, digging up the hazelnuts that it buried in the lawn (and occasionally in the veg plot’s woodchip paths) over the autumn.  D spotted a fine adult fox one day, something that we suspect visits the garden from time to time but is rarely seen.  And another day we had a weasel running around the patio; it had obviously found a mouse or vole nest and was taking its prey, one after another, somewhere else to eat.  Well, if you encourage wildlife into your garden you can’t be too picky about what will turn up; not all wildlife is cuddly.

Ashes to ashes, part II

A long pause since the last post, caused by circumstances mostly beyond my control.  The circumstances are going to limit active gardening for a few weeks yet, but there are plenty of plans to be made, and there will be more about them in future posts.  For the moment, then, a look backwards.

Here one day ....

Before we went away for a short break, our neighbours bowed to the inevitable and had their ash tree, the one that overhung the veg plot, cut down to a tall stump.  The idea is to encourage the clematis montana that is growing up it on their side to cover the remains of the trunk.  Despite the height of the tree, remarkably little wood landed on our side of the wall (even though most of the crown was actually on our side).  The neighbours have gained a lot more light - the tree shaded their whole garden - and I gained another load of woodchip for my paths.  In fact, the removal of their tree and ours has noticeably increased the amount of light in houses and gardens across the road which I didn't think would be affected; you don't realise how much light these trees can block out, and at what a distance.

... and gone the next

The third, and most diseased, of the ash trees round our garden, the big one in the field beyond the bottom border, is scheduled to be taken down before the end of the year.  It's sad, but these are trees that could cause a lot of damage if they fell.  Leaving some of the stumps in place at least provides some sort of habitat for wildlife such as insects, even in the dead wood.