A proper December

Back in the day, November was chilly and December even more so.  Taking part in Bonfire Night activities, in early November, meant donning warm clothes and gloves, which were generally de rigeur until about March, or sometimes April.  In recent years, winters have been becoming milder, and we’ve got used to plants overwintering with little protection.  Some years I’ve left my echeverias outside, their pots moved up against the house wall for shelter.  Last winter I left some dahlias in pots on the patio, with no special measures to keep them warm, and they survived.

But then, occasionally, the weather just likes to remind us that we can’t take things for granted.  December this year has been cold, and last Sunday we woke to about 18cm (7 inches or so) of snow; there has been no further snowfall, but temperatures have only occasionally risen above zero Centigrade (and then only by a couple of degrees) and at night have fallen to -9C at times.  The roads have been treacherous, so I’ve been confined to the village, living (rather comfortably, actually) out of the stores in the freezer.  Yesterday a rapid thaw started, with rain and significantly warmer weather, and today all the snow has gone, leaving us with milder but very windy conditions. 

Frosted glass in the porch

When icicles hang by the wall ,,,

The birdlife has been very glad of the cooking apple tree; they've eaten all the apples that were still on the tree, and we’ve taken a few more out of store for the blackbirds.  It has been too cold to keep putting drinking water out for them; it froze within a couple of hours.

The last apple on the tree

So, what of the plants?  The greenhouse temperature has fallen to below -3C, which the dahlias (brought in there to dry off) will not like, and the top growth on the hedychiums is looking decidedly peaky.  Last year I dispensed with the greenhouse’s bubblewrap protection over winter, but this year I’m regretting not having taken any steps to protect the more tender plants.  Too late now, I suppose, although the meteorologists are hinting darkly at more cold weather to come, so it might still be worth putting the wrap up.

But, despite the past week’s freezing temperatures, life in the garden still goes on: under the snow, the hellebores have been pushing up buds …

Hellebore buds under the old leaves

 

No gardening today! (eom)

 

No gardening today ...

... and no bird bathing either!

Foggy November, frosty December

Woodpigeons in the fog

True to form, November slid downhill from mild and wet to chilly, foggy and damp.  The last days of the month were marked by dismal, dank fog, with the sun occasionally peeking through but to no great effect.  The pigeons gathered high in the trees to enjoy what little sun there was, and the sparrows, dunnocks and robins enjoyed the fatballs and crumbs put out for them; Lefty became a regular on the patio for breakfast.   Then one day into December, officially winter, the temperatures dropped, the weather came from the east and north and overnight minus temperatures (and not much more by day) became the norm.  Clear, sunny weather but feeling cold.  The berries on the rowan and holly trees were eaten weeks ago, so the cotoneaster berries and cooking apples – the eaters were boxed up for safety some time back – have been the main attraction for birds in search of food.  Fieldfares and a host of blackbirds flocked to the apple tree and to a pile of partly-damaged apples left out on the terrace up by the house, with occasional forays by robins, tits and chaffinches (there aren’t many cooking apples left on the tree now, although I have a few in store).  A female blackcap was feeding on the apple tree a couple of weeks ago, though I haven’t seen her since; blackcaps have been noted staying the winter in the UK in recent years instead of migrating to Iberia, and it was a bit late for this one to be on passage unless she was heading for the south coast.  I hope she stays here over winter.

Diners on the terrace

At least there have been no further avian flu casualties as far as I’ve seen.

I haven’t yet finished weeding the veg patch so no compost has been spread on the beds yet; as a result no garlic or beans have been planted / sown, though there will still be time for that when the freeze lets up.  The tulip bulbs are also still waiting to be planted, though the saved sweet pea seeds have been sown and are germinating on an indoor windowsill. 

There are still a few last flowers blooming in the garden, though they won’t last long in the frost.  Fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’ was in flower until the past few days, and one last ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ rose is holding on, battered but unbowed; and I picked the last nerine stem for a vase the other day.  There are winter flowers too: Rosemary ‘Miss Jessop’s Upright’ is providing some colour in the front garden, along with Mahonia ‘Winter Sun’ and the winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum).

Rosemary 'Miss Jessop's Upright'

Jasminum nudiflorum

Fuchsia 'Hawkshead' - before the frost

Rosa 'Gertrude Jekyll' - hanging on in there

Pandemic

No, not that pandemic, but the outbreak of avian flu that is particularly bad across the country this year.   Migrant birds may have brought it here – seabird colonies and flocks of wild geese have been much affected – and it has now reached our parts.  It’s highly contagious and apparently birds die very quickly after catching it.  The estate next to the village brings in large numbers of pheasants for shooting, which have come down with the disease; they roam very freely around the area, spreading the flu to at least one of the village farms, whose hens all died yesterday.  500 of the pheasants have also died;  the prospects don’t look good for the other chicken flocks round here (and our local supply of eggs will be disrupted for some time).  Fortunately hardly any pheasants and few partridges have been wandering into the garden this autumn, so perhaps our land isn't badly infected.

But I wasn’t entirely surprised to find a dead woodpigeon under the holly tree today.  It hadn’t been attacked; it just looked as if it had just keeled over, so I’m assuming it was another casualty of the flu rather than a victim of a predator.  I found it a burial place in the front border by the wall.  But we’re hoping that our many other birds in the garden and beyond stay clear of the disease, especially the birds of prey such as the kites which might scavenge on the carcasses of the dead pheasants.  Ultimately, though, there’s not much we can do about it.

Our lame woodpigeon Lefty is still hale and hearty, and has been clearing up the dropped scraps under the fatball container when the sparrows are having their fill.  We’re hoping he’ll make it into 2023 when he will be at least 10 years old (we first noticed him in 2013, see the blog from that year).

Lefty and the sparrows

The weather has been on the mild side for November, but rather wet on the whole.  While stacking firewood for the winter, D noticed that the birds had been making use of the woodstore over the summer – there are two nests tucked up under the roof on top of the wood.  We left them there at least for the time being in case they are of use as a winter roost!

Nest in the woodstore

Returning home

Back home after more travels, this time to eastern Europe, where the weather was unseasonably mild and sunny (whereas at home it was wet and windy).  It seems that we’re not the only ones returning to the Cotswolds from the northern parts of Europe; the fieldfares and redwings have arrived in our absence.  At the moment they are mostly turning their attention to the rowanberries, in competition with the blackbirds and starlings, who are taking a dim view of their presence, as is the plum tree woodpigeon who is also trying to shoo them away when it finds them perching in his tree.  I wonder if the blackbirds are also migrants?  We haven’t had much blackbird activity for several weeks – a pair had been feeding on the cotoneaster berries in the front garden but staying away from the main garden – so perhaps these are a different pair.

Rowanberries in the garden

The apples will need to be picked and protected from the birds now that the weather is turning cooler, although some of them are still ripening on the trees, especially the Coxes.  I mentioned in the last post that the Blenheim Oranges were particularly large this year; the biggest eventually turned the scales at just over 500g (about 1lb 2oz).  And there are plenty of cooking apples to store for the winter.

Big 'Blenheim Orange'

Apples still ripening on the cordons

The dahlias haven’t produced many flowers this year, which is my fault as I haven’t planted them out properly.  Something else that falls into the ‘must do better’ category for next year.  There have been three fine ‘Café au lait’ blooms and a few on one of the Bishop’s Children plants.  I’ve always preferred the single dahlias over the showier doubles, but having cut a few doubles in a neighbour’s garden for a village event I’m at least partly won over; this one is past its best, and the photo doesn't do its colouring justice, but it had lovely delicate blue-tinged edges to its petals, and I could be persuaded to grow it in future.

Big dahlia from Liz's garden

Work to be done

 

Nerine bowdenii

The hiatus since the last post is partly due to a holiday (in the UK), partly due to time spent doing other things (cooking and freezing the tomato glut, among other jobs) and partly due to inactivity on my part.  I haven’t been very busy in the garden this year; must do better over the winter.  The successes, such as the excellent show of nerines, which have been keeping us in cut flowers over recent weeks, don’t feel well deserved.

Actually not much has been happening on the plot over the past few weeks apart from autumn closing in.  The weather has been mostly mild (apart from a couple of frosty nights), with some lovely pleasant, sunny days and some wet ones – nothing too dramatic.  Despite the heat earlier in the year, there has been no Indian summer.  The autumn colours are turning nicely and leaves are starting to fall; the autumn sedums and the winter-flowering viburnums are blooming and there are a few cyclamen under the holly tree, whose berries are colouring up well.  It’s only a matter of time before the fieldfares and redwings fly in from northern parts and start feeding on them and the apples.

It's time to get the autumn jobs done but, as always, I’m behind with those.  The overwintering broad bean seeds only arrived in the post today, likewise the sweet pea seeds, but I already have garlic cloves saved from this year’s crop and seed of winter lettuces left over, and they could have been sown (but haven’t been).  Part of the reason is that this summer’s crop needs to be cleared away first; but the frost hasn’t yet polished off the courgette plants and summer beans, and I’m loath to cut them down prematurely.  There are lettuce and radicchio still going great guns.  And my lax gardening regime this year has resulted in quite a few weeds that need to be removed so that the beds can be mulched ready for the new crop.  Much space in the greenhouse is taken up with the tomato plants, most of which only have a few green fruits still on them, but the ‘Gardener’s Delight’ still has huge trusses of unripe fruits and isn’t ready to be pulled out.

Tomato 'Gardener's Delight' 

On the subject of fruit, the apples are still ripening on the cordons but we’ve started picking the earlier varieties to store them away from insect and bird attack.  (Finding somewhere to store them safe from mouse attack is another problem.)  The crop is enormous, as are some of the individual apples; ‘Blenheim Orange’ has produced some of the biggest eating apples we’ve seen.

Giant 'Blenheim Orange' apples

Earlier in the month we took advantage of a few dry and windy days to get the lawnmower out and tackle the grass that had been left to grow long this year.  We don’t usually cut it after September but it really needed taking in hand.  Despite the weather it was still quite damp so it only got a rough and fairly high cut, to a height that should keep it manageable over the winter.  Having taken quite a relaxed attitude to it this summer, we didn’t feel the need to attempt to produce the ‘perfect English lawn’ effect (not that our lawn ever comes even remotely close to that ideal).

In a recent post I mentioned that it has been a good year for hummingbird hawkmoths.  It’s not long since they were thought not to breed in the UK, but warmer summers have encouraged them to stay, and only a couple of weeks ago I saw one in a garden deep in the Lake District, well beyond its previous range.  Very welcome foreign visitors.

Home-grown

Figs

After our neighbour’s lovely dish of figs, we’ve managed a couple of our own; not as big or as beautiful, but not at all bad (and they tasted good).  I was quite pleased with them.  We continue to have large quantities of tomatoes and courgettes (pasta sauce, anyone?), lovely lettuces and a few beans; the climbers are very late, having been munched when small by the rabbit and only slowly sprouting from the base again.  And of course there is a huge crop of apples.  Not at all bad for a season when I’ve done so little.

Autumn flowers are starting to show as well.  There’s one big Dahlia ‘Café au lait’ flower, some rudbeckia blooms and a nice little pot of fuchsia, and the antirrhinums are throwing up a second flush of colourful flowers.  And I’ve obviously done something right this year with the nerines; after a few rather lean years they have produced over a dozen flower stems.

Dahlia 'Cafe au lait'

fuchsia (unknown variety)

The birds are sorting themselves out for the winter.  The robins are claiming their territories, tick-ticking at each other and occasionally singing sweetly across the lawn.  While humans regard fences and hedges as the boundaries of our territory, for birds it’s open spaces that divide up the land, and lawns are disputed areas; the robins may come down briefly to pick up a tasty morsel from the grass, but they don’t stay long.  There are a pair of warblers about at the moment, and a greenfinch was down today, but otherwise it’s the smaller birds and the pigeons/doves that are coming to the garden right now.  The blackbirds, when they show themselves, are still moulting; and anyway, there’s plenty of fruit in the hedgerows, so why would they come to the garden?

Sliding into autumn

 

August blackberries in the hedge

The long, hot, dry summer lasted well into and beyond mid-August, bringing early blackberries – a huge crop in the hedgerow opposite the house – and a second spell of unusual heat, slightly more moderate in its temperatures this time (only hitting mid-thirties C) but lasting for a week or so.  Since then we’ve had more pleasant weather with some intermittent rain, ranging from light showers to a few real downpours and a couple of noisy thunderstorms, all of which coincided with the announcement of an official drought and hosepipe ban; it will take more than a few autumn rains to replenish the water supplies after such a hot, dry period.  The rain brought an autumnal feel lurking behind the late summer warmth, with evenings drawing in and cooling off and mornings sometimes on the chilly side until the sun gets going. 

The garden is looking dishevelled, and not particularly colourful, but is greening up again with the rain.  Apart from one or two of my smaller pots, I don’t think anything has actually died of the lack of water, although interestingly much of the ground elder has frizzled away; I suppose it’s too much to hope for that it has actually died, but you never know.  It has been a very good year for fruit, and not just the blackberries; the apples are some of the best we’ve grown, and plentiful.  The tomatoes, too, have done well, producing a big crop of cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse, but the two ‘Harzfeuer’ plants in pots on the patio have also been very successful; I don’t think it’s an F1 variety, so I’m intending to try saving seed for next year.  The tomatoes and apples did very well at the local Show!

My still-small fig plant has produced a few moderately-sized fruits, but they went from rock-hard to overripe very quickly.  I’m encouraged, though, especially as its parent plant, elsewhere in the village, has produced a large crop of big, juicy figs, a few of which were donated to us!

Not mine!

We usually see a hummingbird hawkmoth on the buddleia in August, but this year I counted three at one time, and there are reports elsewhere of them doing well this year.  I was struck this summer by how the winter savory seemed to attract lots of bees, and of different species, so I’ll look to take some cuttings to spread it around the garden.  Can't have too many pollinators!

Winter savory - with one of its bees

Wildlife night and day

Wildlife continues to come to visit the garden, night and day.

We don't tend to see the night-time visitors, for obvious reasons, but the plum tree has been a big attraction for them,   We had feared that the crop this year would be small, but in fact it has been less than usual but not too bad; it looks as though a grass frost may have reduced the flowering low down on the tree, but the higher branches fruited quite well.  As always, however, a good number of plums have fallen into the grass below.  The grass is still long this year (we haven’t cut the area while we’re waiting for the orchids to set seed), and shows clearly where the wildlife has crushed the grass while foraging for fallen fruit.  We know that foxes like plums, which would explain the dog-noises heard one night and the sizeable well-trodden areas under the tree; but they’re not the only nocturnal foragers.

After the recent heatwave, we’ve had warm but occasionally showery weather; sometimes no more than a faint mizzle, but it slightly revived the browner parts of the garden.  Returning to the house one evening after supper in the summerhouse, with traces of dampness in the air, we mused that the wet was 'good for the garden', and would enable the hedgehogs to find slugs to eat.  On reaching the back door, we found that the hedgehogs were enjoying a more varied diet than just slugs.  On the doorstep, in the darkness, was a black hedgehoggy shape, chomping at a handful of plums that D had left by the doormat.  After a pause for thought, he trotted off into the night.  You can’t be angry with a hedgehog; he’s welcome to a few plums, and we’ve taken to leaving a few overripe ones beside a dish of water overnight.  On one occasion the plums vanished completely, stones and all, which was probably a fox’s doing.  There are at least two hedgehogs snuffling round the garden in the evenings; a larger one has also been seen.  Our nocturnal visitors also include a frog, found one evening near the back door; the weather has turned warm and very dry again, so we’ve taken to ensuring that he has a nice damp spot behind the sweet pea pots to hide in.  The things we do for our wild creatures!

The evidence, morning after the feast!

By day, the birdlife has been joined by the summer butterflies.  The buddleja is in full flower, and it’s the season for the larger butterfly species to have their summer hatching.  Quite a good showing this year.  The large and small whites will be disappointed by the lack of brassicas in the veg plot for them to lay their eggs in (there are a few seedlings in the cold frame, but well protected from the butterflies), but there are plenty of the adults; and there are good numbers of brimstones, meadow browns and gatekeepers about.  We’ve had a few peacocks (only three, though there’s still time for more to come), about the same for tortoiseshells, one or two red admirals, two commas and a painted lady.  I was pleased to spot a silver-washed fritillary, a largish butterfly not unlike a comma in its colour and markings but with a more classic butterfly shape; it was around one day, not seen since.  

Silver-washed fritillary on the buddleja

One big difference this year is the number of blue butterflies.  I’ve had quick sightings of blues in the past, and have assumed that they were holly blues; from their behaviour, I’m inclined to think that at least some of them may well have been, but this year the blues are more numerous, lower-flying and quite definitely common blues.  They like basking in the long grass of the cowslip patch (also still uncut), as well as joining the large numbers of bees on the oregano.  It looks like an unexpected benefit of our partial ‘no-mow’ regime; confirmation of the evidence that long grass attracts insect life, and something definitely to be repeated next year!

Common blue (underside) on oregano

Male common blue

Female common blue

Sorry about the size of the blues in the photos; they're only very little butterflies, but their colour makes them quite eye-catching.

As for the weather, the temperatures are up again, with low 30s centigrade (about 90F) forecast for the next few days (and back to the 20s, low 70s fahrenheit, next week, with some very welcome showers).

Too darn hot

We Brits love complaining about the weather, but it’s not often that the complaint is about heat. 

Around the middle of the month, it started to warm up, and for a couple of days we had record-breaking temperatures; 41C (104F) in certain parts of the east of the country, two degrees above the previous record, and 35C here. It’s not likely to impress readers in some countries, but we’re not geared up for that sort of heat; the trains stopped running, for example. Here, we just closed the curtains and stayed indoors, drinking plenty of water. Since then things have cooled down to the low twenties C, which is a lot more manageable. 

Still, the garden is very dry and there is talk of the dreaded hosepipe ban (not that it will be dreaded by us, as we don’t use a hosepipe); there has been a little rain today, some of it quite heavy, but it’s not likely to make much impression on already parched earth. We have taken to walking down the garden by a different route so as not to wear away the usual path to the summerhouse. My over-large collection of pots has been moved into the shade by the back door and I’m collecting waste water in the kitchen to use on the tomatoes (which are doing quite nicely in the greenhouse, and even the two ‘Harzfeuer’ plants in pots on the patio are fruiting well). 

The parched path to the summerhouse

Some plants in the garden are suffering; the violets and Lysimachia clethroides are wilting, but the sedum ‘Herbstfreude’ behind, being a succulent, is still doing fine. I expect the violets will recover (they are spreading too much anyway), and the lysimachia is a bit of a thug and drought is one of the things that keeps it under control; it usually grows back. 

Wilting violets and lysimachia, but upright sedums behind

We’ve been ensuring that there is water available on the patio so that the wildlife can drink and bathe. A squirrel has been coming for an occasional drink and to try to dig up allium bulbs from my pots (without success); it came to the windows to look inside, even though it could see me watching, almost as though it was asking for more food, please! It should be able to tackle the hazelnuts soon; the nuthatches are helping themselves to them, so even though they’re still unripe they ought to be edible. 

Hello there!

Allium bulbs, yum yum

On the subject of edibles: although the veg garden doesn’t have much to offer, we do have lettuces, broad beans, the first French beans and courgettes; and the shallots and garlic have been dug up for storing. The raspberries are nearly all over, but the plums are ripening fast in the warmth – more than we can keep up with so I think jam will be in order!

Alas, poor Peter

Sadly, Peter Rabbit is no more.  He had been a most entertaining fixture in the garden for a few weeks, hanging out around the veg plot and occasionally venturing out onto the lawn (and into next-door’s garden, to the annoyance of their dog, who wasn’t allowed out to chase him).  He nibbled some of the veg plants, which had to be protected, but seemed happy with clover and grasses on the lawn; and from time to time he would chase the pigeons, apparently just for fun (the pigeons mostly ignored him).  Then, on Sunday morning he was found stretched out on one of the veg plot paths near the rhubarb, quite dead; there was no sign of him having been attacked in any way, and we assume that he had just died.

The difficulty of finding a suitable spot to bury deceased wildlife in this garden has already been mentioned.  A place under one of the osmanthuses was selected, where the vegetation needed clearing in any case; a lot of the Buddleja alternifolia had to be cut out (and about time too), and a quick decision taken on the self-sown hypericum (dig out!).  A suitably deep-ish hole was dug and Peter was laid to rest, with a Geranium nodosum (little pale pink flowers, likes shade) on top.  We had got used to looking out for him and now miss him.

Meanwhile, the garden marches on.  June had a couple of warm spells – the usual ‘two hot days and a thunderstorm’ – but overall was rather chilly and windy, with some showery rain; July is shaping up to be quite a lot warmer.  We’ve just had a few days of heat, followed by a drizzly day today, with more heat from tomorrow.  Real rain has been in short supply, and it is once more an uphill battle to keep all the little pots watered; I shall have to bed the plants out temporarily into one of the empty veg beds, though I know only too well how easy it is to leave them there and let them become fixtures that are not easily removed!  The bottom end of the veg plot has already morphed into a sort of ‘cutting garden’, with antirrhinums, foxgloves and sweet William making a bright corner in sweet-shop colours and providing vasefuls of flowers.  Should I leave them there?  Might not be a bad idea!

A colourful corner

The unmown area under the plum tree is full of orchids (pyramidal orchids); I reckon there are over 60.  The photo gives a poor impression and only shows a few of them, as the shade and the long grass makes it difficult to get a good view, but it’s a splendid show. 

Orchids under the plum tree

The roses are a little past their peak, but still blooming freely.  I always forget to celebrate Rosa dupontii up the side of the house; it has little scent, but it’s a lovely flower (and the bees think so too, nb one in the photo!).  The sweet peas have also provided a few posies for the house: red, white and blue (pity they weren’t in bloom for the Jubilee!).

Red, white and blue sweet peas

Rosa dupontii

I have done one job that has been put off for too long: repotting the azalea  (A. ‘Rosebud’) in fresh compost.  It might be too late, as the top growth is quite sparse, but it’s an old plant (from our last garden, so over 30 years old) and it has done well.  I hope to do the camellias as well, once they’re past their flowering time.

Fine double rainbow this evening - pot of gold down in the field ....