To dispose of a pigeon

"It's not against any religion // To want to dispose of a pigeon" sang Tom Lehrer in "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park".  Let's leave aside the accuracy of that statement (I'm pretty sure it's against the tenets of Buddhism, and I think quite a few Christians and adherents of some other faiths would have a problem with avicide other than in the cause of providing a meal).  I'm mostly happy for pigeons to visit my garden, with the occasional exception of when they peck at the vegetables or the plum buds (in which case we shoo them off, rather than poison them).  But when I have a dead bird on my hands, I do like to dispose of it decently.

Shallow grave

Down between the doronicums and the daffodils was a neat, low mound of soil, with the wing of a woodpigeon showing through at the top.  The two thoughts that came to mind, almost simultaneously, were: 1) who put that there? and 2) how much of the pigeon is attached to the wing?  (The answer to the second question proved to be - all of it.)  I would guess that it was buried by a fox; foxes will occasionally bury their prey, with the intention of coming back for it another day.  I remember one day not long after we moved here when, digging in a flowerbed, I unearthed the perfectly preserved head of a cock pheasant (no sign of the rest of the bird); it was a bit of a Godfather moment, albeit with a different sort of head and a different sort of bed.  Burying a pigeon, as I've noted on this blog previously, isn't easily done in this garden, and the fox had not selected the deepest soil for the purpose, with the poor bird really only three-quarters covered.  What surprised me was how neatly the fox had done it; I would have expected to see signs of scraping and other soil disturbance all around but no, nothing of the sort.  Fortunately that bed is in need of renovation and serious weeding, and no plants had been disturbed.

So - the old problem of where to bury a pigeon (properly).  Last year we had a short length of fence installed behind the summerhouse, and when the holes for the supports were dug I was surprised how deep the soil was there.  I hadn't seen a hole that deep in this garden since we hired a mini-JCB to excavate the pond.  Not having a JCB or even a particularly sharp spade to hand, I could only manage to get down about 25cm or so, but it was enough to give the pigeon a more appropriate burial; and I put a couple of bricks on top, just in case the fox returned and wanted to dig up its supper.

Meanwhile the plum tree is blooming nicely, with not too much pigeon damage so far!

A sign of spring

One sign of spring

Ask people how they know that spring has arrived and you would probably get a mixed bag of answers - warmer weather, primroses and daffodils flowering, birdsong, nesting activity, bees and butterflies appearing.  We've got all of that, but the other day another, less obviously welcome, sign of spring appeared: a small bit of poo on the lawn.  Thin, longish, dark and shiny.  We've had a hedgehog in the garden; and he (or she, or they) has been here and left a little deposit every night since.  I hope he or she is finding and eating the slugs.

Tulip 'Orange Emperor'

The weather has been windy, but getting warmer, and it's very pleasant in the sun; no need of a jacket for gardening, and the rest of the full winter gardening kit is being gradually discarded.  The first of the tulips are out: 'Orange Emperor' was the first, followed by 'White Valley', both of them replanted from last year but producing some welcome flowers.  The crocuses have gone and the early daffodils are fading, but other bulbs, such as the little pot of Pushkinia libanotica and the Muscari latifolia, are looking good and cheering up the patio and terrace areas, while the bigger daffs are still providing most of the colour elsewhere.  The two osmanthus are in bloom, and the first plum blossom is starting.  Meanwhile in the greenhouse, the dahlias have been dusted down, the rotten bits thrown out and the good tubers all planted up; and the first lettuce seedlings pricked out into modules to grow on in the cold frame.

Pushkinia libanotica

Pointy sticks!

I've been sowing the first spring seeds - the brassicas in the cold frame, and some other crops (salads mostly, but also leeks, turnips and beetroot) out in the veg patch.  This year I've drawn up a rough planting plan of what should go where, although I still find it difficult to envisage what crops will be out of the ground in time for the next crop to go in; I hope I've left enough space between the salads for the brassicas (sown in the cold frame) to be planted out, although some of the salads will (I hope) have grown and been eaten by then.  The plan seems to be working so far.  To protect the seedbed areas from dustbathing sparrows, wallowing partridges and dogs and cats wanting to use them as a litter tray, I've pushed in twiggy prunings from the buddleja, the idea being that wandering creatures will think twice before poking the more tender parts of their anatomy into a space with so many pointy sticks; I did this over the winter with one or two of the mulched beds and it seems to have been successful.  It may not be very decorative, but it's worth doing if it helps my seeds to come up undisturbed!

Despite the un-decorative sticks, the veg patch is looking rather tidier than in the past.  The long beds abutting the lawn have been edged with the spade and a shallow trough created to discourage the creeping grasses from trespassing, and - except for one section which needs heavy-duty weeding - look quite neat.  Most of the antirrhinums which were planted out there last year have survived the winter, so I've tidied them up a bit and look forward to seeing what they do this year.  The

Alkanet

black polythene covering the two 'no-dig' mulched beds was blown around by the winds so has been put back together again; underneath there is some couch grass trying to come through (and a lot of red ants, and a little stash - a mouse's? - of nibbled hazel shells), but I think I should be able to put courgettes and squashes in there this year through the polythene, slug activity permitting.  The paths between the veg beds, while not entirely weed-free, look rather better than in the past, and I'm trying to keep on top of that; for the moment I've reprieved the large, self-sown alkanet plant in one of the paths as the blue flowers are pretty and the bees seem to enjoy them, although the moment it looks like setting seed it will be pulled up as far as possible (the roots are immoveable).

Absolutely no excuse

There's absolutely no excuse for not getting on with the gardening jobs now.  We are instructed to stay at home for at least three weeks, and the sun has been shining; most people in the village are either working in their gardens or taking some exercise walking round the lanes.  And the clocks go forward this weekend, giving an extra hour to work in the afternoon.  The sun has not exactly been warm, but it was very welcome and it dispersed the early morning frost; I've been opening the greenhouse vents during the day to stop it getting too warm in there.  It'll soon be time to take down the bubblewrap, but not until the night frosts ease up; this morning is cloudy and breezy, and the next couple of days are going to be much colder and windier.  The rising temperatures in the last week or so, however, have brought out more bees, wasps and hoverflies, and the first two butterflies: a peacock and a comma.

Soon, ideally this weekend, we'll make the first cut of the lawn, which is looking decidedly shaggy after the mild winter.  The orchids have been marked off to protect them, and the cowslips are starting to show too.  In preparation I've dug out the old grass clippings pile, which had at least two years' worth, and probably more, of rotted clippings in it; the old rotted stuff has been spread under the hazels and under some of the apple cordons, to improve the soil and to mulch out some of the weeds (mostly speedwell and lesser celandine).  If I can find compost to spare, in due course I might spread some on top of the hazels bed and plant out salad crops in there.  The robin was very enthusiastic about my work, but two toads probably took a rather dimmer view of my disturbing their nice damp hiding place in the old clippings pile.  I tidied up the honeysuckle and clematis down in that corner of the garden as well, and it's now looking rather tidier.

Doronicum caucasicum

The daffodils are mostly all out, except for the late scented ones; the mixed small daffs continue to do very well, but the 'Elka' have only produced eight flowers in all and probably need feeding.  I need to find a place for, and plant, more of the late scented narcissi; the few I had seem to have pretty much all disappeared.  The doronicums are also out; it's a pity that they're daffodil-yellow, as they disappear visually into the general mix.  Epimedium sulphureum is also yellow, but a paler shade of primrose and, being a shade-lover, it's well away from the daffs.  In late winter I cut off all the leaves and gave the plant a frost-protecting mulch of dry wisteria leaves; the flowers are coming through this and making a rather fine show.

Epimedium sulphureum

I'm also quite pleased with the windowbox; it looked a bit meh for much of the winter, despite the varied foliage colour, but the crocuses and little daffodils are out and it now looks rather better.  For later in spring, I have a six-pack of little violas - an impulse buy at the garden centre when I went to stock up on bird seed - which cost all of £1.50 and look like a bargain at that price.

Much is being made in the press about panic-buying of toilet rolls; when I went shopping just before everything locked down, what I had trouble finding was potting compost (my favourite brand from my preferred supplier was sold out - "it's been manic" said the sales guy) and bird seed.  I got the seed from elsewhere, and am just hoping that I can get by with my current stock of compost until I'm able to replenish it.  Propagation has to go ahead, however; the aubergines have been potted on into larger pots, and the tomato seedlings (sown in half-toilet roll inners) potted into 3in pots.  All are now on the landing window-sill.  In the greenhouse I need to make space for all the seed-sowing and potting up of dahlia tubers which will occupy me in the next couple of weeks.

Mixed hellebores

There are plenty of other jobs to be getting on with as well.  At the side of the house, a clump of self-sown hellebores contains a nice white plant, and later in the year I'd like to isolate that and put it in a better spot.  In the meantime I need to mark it in some way so that I dig up the correct bit!

In like a lion

Crocuses in the sun

"In like a lion and out like a lamb" is the old saying about March, and we've certainly had the lion weather this month.  There hasn't been as much very heavy rain as earlier in the year, though there have been some sharp hail showers, but it has been blustery for much of the time.  It does look as though the weather might be more benign from next week, however, so perhaps the second part of the adage might also be true this year.  Not that there haven't been some pleasant spring days; now and again we've had a day of sun, one of those days when the sun is bright and warm enough to remind you that spring is on its way, until you step into the shade, or the wind picks up, and you realise that it's not spring quite yet.

One day early in the month I even managed lunch outdoors (admittedly wearing full winter gardening clothes); I took a magazine to read, but in the end just sat and looked, and pondered, and planned.  A good opportunity to take stock of things, and to enjoy the garden in the sunshine.

There will be plenty more opportunities to give thought to the garden in the coming weeks, as we are all encouraged to shut ourselves away from the virus-ridden world.  No excuse not to get on with all those garden jobs when we can’t go anywhere else!

Over the past couple of weeks the garden’s insect life has been waking up.  There have been a couple of bees, a few hoverflies at the pulmonarias, a ladybird and a cloud of tiny flies over the lawn.  And last evening there was a bat feeding near the house, surely a sign that flying insects were about.  As for the birds, a blackbird has been carrying off beakfuls of moss, while her mate sings lustily from next-door’s roof; a thrush has been singing somewhere nearby, and a tawny owl calling from the trees across the road.  A pair of blue tits have checked out the nestbox (now protected with its outer layer of chicken netting, to keep the woodpeckers away), although a great tit was showing interest in it today.  A wren has been examining crevices in the dry-stone wall behind the veg plot, either for spiders to eat or places to nest, and the bottom-of-the-garden robin appears to have a mate.  There are also signs that our elderly, disabled pigeon Lefty may have found a new partner; he was sitting on the electricity wires by the holly tree, a favourite perch of his, with another pigeon one morning – there’s life in the old bird yet.

Pulmonaria by the wall

Ladybird out and about

The weather, and other commitments, have prevented me from getting much done in the garden.  The big apple tree has had a rough prune; there are more shoots that ought to be cut out, but I’ve already taken quite a lot off the canopy and don’t want to take more (20% is the limit) in case that prompts it to send up even more water-shoots.  I may let it be for this year, and take out one or two larger branches next year instead.  The buddleja is partly pruned - it’s always a lengthy job - and I have made a belated start on cutting back the big hazel clumps to let more light through to the veg beds.  

Last weekend I cut back the dead stems of the Big Yellow Thing (aka bupthalmum) and the Phlox ‘White Admiral’; that part of the garden always looks so much fresher once the old stems have gone.  When I tugged at the old bits of phlox, large parts of the rootstock came up; the clump was rotten in the centre, and actually I was delighted.  I’ve tried to dig that phlox up, without success, having pretty much fallen out of love with it, so this was an excellent opportunity to remove as much as possible.  The problem is that it’s too close to the Viburnum davidii, which, properly pruned (and not butchered as usually happens in supermarket car parks and the like), is a graceful, spreading small shrub that really needs a bit of space around it to show off its elegance, not to have a pushy phlox elbowing it in the ribs.  The phlox, when in flower, is the same height as the viburnum, so they do one another no favours so close – there’s no contrast.  And, although it’s white-flowered and so doesn’t clash with anything, it is aggressively white in a look-at-me sort of way.  Some of the clump remains, but at the far side of the old position; I’ll see how that looks in the summer, and remove the lot if I don’t like it.  I took a couple of pieces and potted them up, so I might put them elsewhere in the garden, or pass them on to the plant sale later in the year.

Primrose on the table

Also potted up were a few pieces of lily-of-the-valley, which is spreading under the apple cordons and into the veg patch paths; it really needs its enthusiasm curbing.  One piece is being forced in the greenhouse for early flowers (and it’s already in bud); the others are for donating to the plant sale.  Back in January I had dug up and potted a couple of bits of my Epimedium sulphureum, mostly for my own use elsewhere in the garden; they are nicely in flower (as is the clump in the garden), and they, and a pot of emerging pushkinias, have been put on the table outside the dining room window, joining a flowering primrose which was already in position there to provide some colour at close range.

The daffodils are mostly out – a welcome and cheerful splash of yellow – and some of the tulips are showing buds.

Indoors, the aubergine seedlings are flourishing, and tomatoes, peppers, chillies and some basil are germinating nicely; in the cold frame I have some lettuce seeds germinating.  It’s time to get seed-sowing properly underway, especially for edibles given that we might be glad of fresh food in the garden in a few months’ time if we’re still in lockdown!

Wet wet wet

We've been abroad for most of February, watching the weather reports of repeated storms hitting the UK (and much of the rest of Europe).  The heavy rain, falling on what was already waterlogged ground, has caused much flooding, with the Severn valley hit badly as usual; up here we are clear of any standing water, but the ground is very wet and I don’t think I’ll be sowing any seed in it for a little while yet.  The gales have brought down a lot of dead ash wood, and more strong wind is forecast for this weekend so there may be more firewood to come.  Today started with a light covering of snow that had fallen overnight, the first real fall of the winter, but it melted quickly – adding to the general wetness.

When we left there were a few daffodils already in bud and I rather thought that more of them would be out when we got back, but only some of the miniatures are actually in bloom; the others are sitting there waiting for some warmer sun.  The snowdrops and winter aconites are past their peak, but some of the crocuses are out; sadly the rain and wind have battered the little Crocus tommasinianus ('Tommies') ‘Whitewell Purple’ which are delicate little things, and they’re mostly lying prostrate in the grass.  However I’m pleased to see that the tulips which I planted (shamefully late) in pots before we left are producing healthy-looking crops of leaves (whether they flower is another matter; a lot of them are last year’s bulbs).  The pulmonarias and sweet violets are coming out – I have a little posy of the latter on the table here, pumping out perfume; and of course the hellebores are in full flow.  

Battered Tommies

Helleborus x hybridus - a nice pink form

Rhubarb 'Timperley Early'

The veg patch is looking a little dishevelled, with bits of ash twig everywhere and some of the plastic covering one of my ‘no-dig’ beds having blown off, so some tidying up is in order.  The garlic and shallots are sprouting, and from a quick peek under the fleece I see that the broad beans are germinating.  The Rhubarb ‘Timperley Early’ is ready for picking, though its immediate surroundings are in need of some weeding.

Now I’m back it’s time to get on with the indoor sowings.  The aubergines were sown in January and have germinated, and the peppers and chillies are next on the list.  They need warmth, so spend their first weeks in the house (on a radiator to germinate, then on a sunny windowsill), where they will be joined in due course by the tomatoes.  I ought to get some salad crops going in the greenhouse, and perhaps some carrots in lengths of guttering.  It will soon be time to start the dahlias off as well.  The greenhouse has not been heated this winter – it hasn’t got really cold, and even without the heater the temperature hasn’t fallen below 1.7C – but it should be suitable for the non-tender subjects.  Depending on the weather I may need some heating when we get to the big seed-sowing operation later in March (although the propagator will help there).

The birds seem pleased with my return, especially given the snow this morning; the feeders have been replenished and a rotten windfall apple put down for the blackbirds.  The long-tailed tits have been busy at the peanuts and fatballs, and while I was checking progress in the veg patch my bottom-of-the-garden robin friend came and talked to me - whether it was a "welcome back" or a "where do you think you've been all this time?" I'm not sure.

A day under the hazels

After weeks of mostly wet and miserable weather, at last three beautiful, sunny days – a chance to get out and get on with garden jobs, despite the frosty weather.  (It didn’t last long; today was foggy, damp and milder, and there’s more of the same in the forecast.)  The frost only melted where the sun got on to it, which limited access to some parts of the garden to avoid walking on frozen grass, and the soil was still wet and sticky after all the rain, so I spent time weeding the vegetable garden paths and tackling the bottom corner of the veg plot. 

Work in progress

The far end of the veg garden contains a shelter belt consisting of two big hazel bushes.  When we moved here, I brought several plants in pots with me, and two of the pots sprouted hazel plants – some of our squirrels had buried nuts in there as a farewell present.  I planted them on the edge of the veg plot, to protect it from the easterly winds, and they have grown into quite tall trees, which I have dismally failed to prune over the years.  As a result they not only cast shade in that corner, but also sprawled out over the path adjoining the corner bed, making access, and hence maintenance, difficult.  That bed currently contains a few aquilegia plants grown from seed and awaiting more suitable quarters (one reason I want to get on with clearing the shady area behind the front garden wall) and not much else; the space right in the corner has for some time served as a parking place for buddleja prunings used as bean poles and the like, and the strip under the hazels had been colonised by herb bennet (a wildflower, not edible) and damson suckers.  And the boards that are supposed to demarcate the bed edges had fallen over and were lying in the path, making access even more tricky.

Serious pruning of the hazels has been deferred to another day, but the first step was to clear proper access to the area by cutting back some of the lower branches, so that I didn’t poke myself in the eye while weeding.  Most of the damson suckers were dug out, although a couple have come up in the cluster of hazel trunks and nothing will get them out, so I’ll just have to keep an eye on them and rub off any shoots that appear.  An old and unproductive rhubarb plant was also dug out and thrown away.  Weeding the area was less of a struggle than I had expected, although there are a lot of weed seedlings appearing, so once I’ve tackled the hazel pruning I will mulch the area heavily and probably leave it for a year or so.  One legacy of the lack of attention given to the area is that fallen leaves have just been left there to rot, so I’ll pile up those leaves that haven’t yet made their way to the leaf mould bins and leave the worms to get on with it, with the mulch on top.

My gardening companion

At least there are quite a few worms in there, although some of them fell prey to the bottom-of-the-garden robin, a friendly and trusting little chap (or chapess) who pops up whenever I go down there and sings to me.  Much of the singing is territory-defending, directed at the other local robins, of which there are quite a few, but sometimes it’s a very quiet warbling clearly directed at me; I’m never sure whether it’s a ‘please go away so that I can safely come down and look for food’, a ‘please carry on and dig up more worms’ or just ‘this is really nice’.  Anyway, he had a very happy afternoon picking over where I had been working - and I thoroughly enjoyed his company.

New Year in bloom

Galanthus elwesii

A gardening journalist the other week wrote about flowers open at New Year; every year he counts how many types of plant, including weeds, in his garden have at least one flower on New Year’s Day.  His total this year was lower than usual, despite the continuing mild weather, probably because it has been (and still is) so miserably wet.  It prompted me to go out and take a look round our own plot, albeit a few days into January, and there were more flowers than I had first thought.  It does depend a bit on what you count as an ‘open flower’; I discounted a single bloom of each of Geum rivale and Welsh poppy (Meconopsis cambrica), both of which were really the sad half-mummified remains of autumn flowers rather than fresh blooms.  But it was interesting how many plants were actively flowering regardless of the mist and murk.  Of course there were the usual winter suspects: winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum), Mahonia ‘Winter Sun’ and Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ (also Viburnum tinus ‘Gwenllian’, which has lovely dark blue berries as well as flowers, but only one viburnum can be counted – we’re totalling general types of plant, not varieties).  There are also some isolated flowers on the winter honeysuckle (Lonicera purpusii), but fewer than usual thanks to the assiduous attentions of three bullfinches, a handsome male and two elegant females, who find the buds irresistible.  A little out of sight and out of mind are two other early bloomers, the rosemary and sarcococca (sweet box); I must find a better site for the latter where we can enjoy its scent.  The first snowdrops, Galanthus elwesii, are out, as are the primulas by the drive entrance, and at least one viola left over in a pot from last year’s plantings is still in flower; so too are a couple of stems on the senecio (now called something else by the botanists, I forget what) and two tiny blooms on the little red chrysanthemum in a patio pot.  More surprisingly, the ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ rose still has a few buds, one of which opened fairly satisfactorily when cut and put in a vase indoors.  There are flowers on several of the ‘Baron Solemacher’ alpine strawberries that are scattered around the garden, and let’s not forget all the daisies in the lawn, and clumps of meadow grass between the paving slabs (grass is a flowering plant too).  The hellebores are well in bud but not yet in flower, so weren’t counted.

Viburnum tinus 'Gwenllian'

Hellebore in bud

I make that 14; I must repeat the exercise next year for comparison.

What I did do on New Year’s morning was to count the number of bird species that put in an appearance over the course of a leisurely breakfast: 16, not counting the red kite that cruised by overhead.  I hope they stay around for the Big Garden Birdwatch later in the month, though the windfall apples are now all eaten and so the number of blackbirds – at least 15 at one point – has reduced substantially, and the regular skirmishes between the mistle thrush and his enemy the fieldfare have stopped.  But spring is in the air – two of the robins have paired up and a blackbird has been occasionally heard singing on dry afternoons.

Coriander, dill - and daffodil shoots

The weather hasn’t been good for gardening; even the greenhouse isn’t tempting me out much.  I have managed to get the shallots planted and broad beans sown (and covered up with fleece to prevent the squirrel from digging them up; he has a lot of hazelnuts buried in that area), and made a start on pruning the apple trees, doing a little out-of-season thinning on the cordons and tidying up the smaller tree before starting on the big tree – still more to do there.  Meanwhile the garden has little to offer on the edibles side other than the cooking apples in store, some remaining leeks and various herbs; the dill and coriander that I sowed in the big patio tubs, on top of the miniature daffodils, have produced a small but welcome harvest (and the daffodils are starting to push up between them).  With the weather as mild as it is, and not much cold in the medium-term forecast, I’m tempted to try sowing some seeds early, although that might really be pushing it; February is still to come, and anyway the ground is so wet that it might really not be a great idea.  On top of the rain we are now having a very windy week; not much sun forecast before the weekend.