THE WILD WOOD

Here at The Nook we have tried to recreate a small area of native woodland and we do have most of the native common wild flowers.

Today, Saturday, we went to Sea Wood, managed by the Woodland Trust, and experienced a true wood in spring. 

There are well trodden ways through the trees but this means the rest of the wood is left to nature. Some of the trees are old and gnarled.

The place is full of wild flowers -

Primroses

 Lesser celandine

Dandelions and Wild Garlic or Ramsons,

The wood anemones formed extensive carpets and there were some pink variations. Even in the limestone rocks and boulders there is new life - here a small seedling tree. Jays and woodpeckers flew between the greenery, there were wood mice holes in banks and bumble bees competing with the calls of birds we could not identify. We love the spring.

Mind you the ash and sycamore seedlings are a pest in the garden and I have to yank them out incessantly. There were swathes of bluebells but they will need another week or so before they attain their peak like these from last year at Muncaster Castle.

ENCHANTED APRIL

If you are reading this there has not been a nuclear war and we are back from the sun in Tuscany. Don't quite know how R got me there as I hate travelling via airports and stuff. 

The garden has not changed that much in a week but has come on with the improving weather. The goldfinches are enjoying the Nyger seed, cock chaffinches fall to the ground locked in combat, avian hormones dominating all and Mr and two Mrs Pheas' patrol underneath looking for dropped offerings.

The banking by the wood is still full of wild daffodils and primroses but I have noticed the Conference Pear has a split in its trunk. The tree has not yet fruited well so I will be keeping a close eye on it. The willow I have tried to weave and shape looks pretty dreadful but, perhaps, with leaves it will improve.

The pulmonaria is doing well in the dark bed to the north of the house and spreading well. It's other name is Lungwort - possibly after the spotted leaves than resemble a tuberculous lung - lovely! It's latin name is Pulmonaria officinalis. Other names include Jerusalem Cowslip, Abraham Isaac and Jacob, Good Friday Plant, Mary's Tears and Thunder and Lightning.
Geoffrey Grissom in his Englishman's Flora says - 'It was a common fancy throughout Europe that drops of the Virgin's milk or the Virgin's tears have fallen on the leaves and caused the spots.'

To two watery observations - the new spring at the top of the small fall has dried but I can still hear water running underground and the new spring by the eucalyptus has got worse so I must drain it as the grass is a quag.

Someday.

The other day a picture frame came in and enormous cardboard box but, rather than recycle it, I have covered the compost heap to be left through the summer. When it rains the card will sink onto the top and enclose it all, let it compost. I know, it looks scruffy, but I have done this before and it seems to help.
  What are these I hear the cry - well they are crocosmia corms year on year on year. Montbretia can become a pest and is liable to escape the garden but it will grow where much else fails.
These are the bog standard orange ones but we do have good old Lucifer and a couple of yellow varieties as well.

The cattle are out in the field below the house for the first time.

 

And in a reflective mood the water lily leaves are rising from the depths of the pond.

Unfortunately spirogyra is also spreading under the carpet of duckweed so out with the rake on a pole and haul it out.

OF MICE, MOSS AND A MISTAKE

The big mower has been out (with me on it) and most of the lawns are cut with the setting fairly high. The grass and moss is surprisingly dry. Things look much neater after the grass is cut.

I have put the Euphorbia characias Wulfenii in the new rose bed with one of the sages. We refer to this plant as 'The Alien' and at this time of year it looks very strange with its tentacle like stems. Actually should have pruned it in the autumn but didn't so will wait and see how things go.

I have been wandering around the garden doing the fingernail test - shrub looks dead, scrape on of the stems and if it is green then it lives. One of the osteospermums and a hebe came up positive. Battered but alive.

Picking daffodils for the house - it is so nice to have the place full of flowers. The pots outside the kitchen have been tidied and the bigger planter restocked with herbs - thyme, sage (two kinds), rosemary and marjoram. Blackbird singing, kestrel overhead, ducks on the shed roof by the pond, rolled up shirt sleeves - spring finally here.

Here is the mouse bit - a wood mouse has climbed the side of the shed and is feeding on the sunflower seeds for the birds. It lives under the shed and can be seen nipping out and back for discarded seeds. They also live in the shed, in a sack of straw, and I sometimes worry about the magazines belonging to my son stored in there. 

And the
mistake?
The rhubarb forcing pot was applied as usual and light excluded but as you can see the rhubarb in the pot did nothing whilst the rest is thriving. It should recover.

The daffodils and primroses at the edge of the wood and by the stream are doing well. We seem to have many more daffs than last year and the clumps of primroses are much bigger.

We do have a nibbler at large - probably snails or slugs - as the fritillaries are a bit chewed. Mind you rabbits are notorious for eating them though they tend to just nip the whole bud off.

They have multiplied too - probably by self seeding. So there you are, whilst Russia and the west do what they always seem to do, most of the time, I talk of nibblers. At least I am too old to be called up. However it would be a shame if the garden was frazzled by some despot with an H bomb.

Back to more important matters - Moss is a nuisance in the lawn and, of course due to the poor level of cultivation etc etc but it can be beautiful on walls and here on a banking of tree roots.

Spring is here so some spring pics of the garden in sunlight.

  

SUNSHINE WOULD BE GOOD

Just a smidgeon - actually Monday was pleasant and I began to fill the new rose bed. but then its has gone all murky again. The outlook is hopeful with some dry weather. I have given the grass nearest the house a light cut - here we go, mowing is here.

The soil where the bed was is pretty poor and if our upsizing is delayed (as seems likely) then something will have to be done albeit on a temporary basis - perhaps rake it over and sow a few packets of poppies and other annuals for a big splash of colour. This will, probably, be an access for the builders when they come, if they come. It will be awkward to get around the house but not impossible.

The turf has been heaped near the compost bins to rot down - it will make fine loam for use elsewhere. The gardener who did all this will be asked back, he worked hard and knew what he was doing.

On the left is the new bed just dug and three big roses planted. On the right is the bed with the contents of the veg bed put in. I found I had four day lilies so rather than put the four together I planted three at one and and one at the other, then reversed this with the purple perennial wallflower Bowles Mauve. Odd numbers seem to go better than even.

The bed that has been left alone under the cherry tree is looking good with the Cardoon and Crambe showing signs of life and three self sown seedlings of the teasel coming through.

R had left some potatoes in the bottom of the veg cupboard and they have chitted! It might be about time to put them in - very gently to try and not break the shoots - worth a try anyway.

Gooseberries are leafing, even the ones in the hedgerows along the road, soon the splendid red bark of the acer will disappear into foliage and the sticky buds of the horse chestnut are expanding. It takes me back to early schooldays with the palmate leaves and horseshoe marks left when they fall - let alone the conkers and conquering in the yard.

APRIL

Easter Day. April 1st. All Fools Day. Sunny but cool. Transplanted more snowdrops, removed last of bulbs from rose bed and now just three massive shrub roses to move with roots like steel hawsers. Tidied around the pond and raked out debris. Despite all attempts at eradication the pendulous sedge is spreading and thriving - a real thug.

The path up from the pond looking good with the daffodils.

As are the daffs on the top banking

and the primroses.

These are wild but nurtured. I do not like the gaudy garden ones as much - and the same goes for the wild daffodils further along.

Shrubs are stirring - the flowering currant with its fragrance of cat pee. Mmm perhaps fragrance is not the right word?

and the hazel catkins are casting clouds of dust over the lawn.

These are the stems of the Stipa and I have still not decided what to do with them. I must be able to use them constructively, not just shred or burn them.
  I have just watched a wood mouse six feet up the side of a shed on a sunflower seed feeder - agile animal!
  Am in the doghouse as I did not shut the freezer door properly, it caught on the ice shelf. So the dustbin is full of homemade soup and veg and stuff. 😬
  And now we have been attacked by insects - well, not us but my wooden jumpers munched by moths - to the bin. 💀

And birds - the hen pheasant is getting tame and full of eggs. I went out to feed the birds and she came running.

Not all of the birds have done so well - not much left of this pigeon - I think pigeon. The sparrow hawk has been in the garden. Down by the compost heaps are scattered white feathers. I am not heartbroken - we are plagued by wood pigeons this year driving the small birds from the feeders and generally being a nuisance.

So now I await the arrival of my gardening help. The perennials are in the veg bed and waiting - for better weather. The turf will be removed from part of the lawn and the soil lightly forked as there are cherry tree roots below. Then the soil from the existing bed will be plonked on the top and firmed down before introducing the plants. After that it will be a case of top dressing with compost or well rotted horse manure.