HOLEHIRD GARDEN, WINTER DRAWS ON

So, after a good lunch out I was off to Holehird with N. It has a splendid view to the Lake District Mountains

This hillside garden is the home of the Lake District Horticultural Society and a must visit for any garden lover coming to Cumbria. It has the National collections of Astilbes, Meconopsis, Daboecia and Polystichum. The Society lease the gardens and all the work is done by volunteers. They have a library and run courses and lectures.

Three pics of birds now - Adam Booth's metal ones by the pond,

the cock pheasant on the banking creating a fuss with his raucous call - the birds may be beginning to sing again but he hardly sings.

And the nuthatch at the feeders on the shed with a goldfinch. The reason there is not much sunflower seed there is because the grey squirrels are eating it. I can hear them when I wake in the morning clattering the shed.

And this morning two delightful? bunnies on the top banking.

Yesterday I took out the little mower and set it on mulch, raised the blades a bit and did the whole garden. As rain is forecast this may be the last big mow.

The butterflies are having a late fling especially the red admirals.

Elsewhere the black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia goldsturm I think) goes on and on flowering imparting a blaze of yellow as the nights close in.

I have some plans afoot for the winter but body and pocket may determine as to whether they get done - and if R agrees. As she says - "It is my garden too!"
(By that she means it is her garden too.)

Non garden bit -

So England are out of the Rugby Union World Cup at the first stage - not surprising after they lost to Wales - and we have some men in armour running about in London - Jets and Dolphins.

Putin has put his oar in and when all is done and Assad is his buddy he will have access to the Syrian Mediterranean coast. He can strut more (is that possible) and say what a big boy am I.
Until Sunni and Shia shake hands and give each other a hug nothing will be settled.

Just seen pic on Facebook showing US has 3.7 murders a year for each 100,000 thousand population - UK has 0.07. Just wondered if gun possession has anything to do with that?

Back to gardening - 
I have decided, no R has decided, that the pink Japanese anemone will have to be moved. If so perhaps I (we) will replace it with some agapanthus and/or hollyhocks.

It is time to sit back and think of (no, not England), to think of changes too be made over the winter. Can I face having the drain men back for the boggy bits of lawn, should we have a large ash tree near the house cut down, will I have my right knee replaced?

Nearly time to put the central heating on.

PRATTLING ON ABOUT ENTROPY AGAIN

Standing under a roof light looking up at clouds passing I realised that every instant in one's life will never be repeated. (Unless the universe is truly infinite of course.) (Which I doubt or cannot comprehend.)
Each time I go into the garden it is a new garden - the basic structure might be the same but the detail is different - a new flower out here, leaf fallen there. Everything is in a constant state of flux, change, and, as a gardener, all one does is try to guide this more, or often less, in the direction one wants it to go, to defeat entropy.
This hen pheasant may sit on the shed roof again but never in just that way.
I think that being able to freeze a moment that will never be repeated is why photography appeals to me. I have a collection of unique images, ones that may be imitated but never repeated.
 

As the trees and shrubs grow the garden becomes increasingly compartmentalised with small views appearing as one moves around. I think this is, at least, partially intentional but some late autumn pruning may be ahead.

Fuchsia magellanica is growing, reluctantly, by the gate and beginning to look more than a stick or two. Memories of hedges near Glencolumbkille in Donegal spurred the planting and finally we have a result albeit small.

We have another fuchsia in the garden but it only flowers at the last minute in September/October and is not yet out. Its growth gets cut back by the cold every winter and slowly regrows as the weather warms (which it hardly did this year).

Also near the gate and under a damson tree (no fruit on this one because the blossom was frosted) is a huge teasel - eight feet tall and waiting to be picked to card wool. (Well, maybe many many years ago.)

This morning as I returned from acting as a taxi for R who has hurt her foot there were about fifteen ramblers sitting outside the gate having morning coffee from their flasks. We have a bridleway (public footpath) runs along the upper side of the garden in the field. I offered them biscuits which they declined and gave them directions as they were unsure of the way forward.

Then I went down the garden to cut some flowers for a vase as R's friend M was coming. R has always wanted a big hedge at the top of the garden for privacy but I noted that, as they walked theatre side of the Rosa rugosa hedge I had planted (inadequate says R) they could not see in.
 

The big daisies, marguerites, have been fantastic this year, have never flowered so well and the yellow rose Golden Showers is still pumping out petals.

Now I have cut the lower banking and we can see the pond I have moved the three bird cultures by Adam Booth to the far side so they are reflected in the surface of then water.


Panic - a cock chaffinch stuck in a bush by its foot - so I released it. The bird had a deformed and swollen foot which is not uncommon in such finches. (Sorry about poor pic but an elusive bird.) The deformity is caused by the Frigilla papillomavirus (FPV).

So there are plums everywhere, so juicy straight from the tree. 
I have just cut back some of the osiers to make new plants - very similar to currants - but they root easier - PB wanted some for his garden so off with a bundle today.

It is windy raining in the south but, for a change, still, dry and sunny up here. (SMILE!)

SEALED WITH A KISS

Yes, it's gonna be a cold, dreary summer, but I'll fill the emptiness, I'll send you all my blog every week  etc etc . . . 

Just watched a squirrel trying desperately to get its head through the bars of a squirrel proof feeder - and failing (for now).
The house martin nest in the gable is very silent and I believe the squirrel has had the eggs and the nest is abandoned - well was - suspicious tweeting coming from up there - possible a takeover again by the tree sparrows.

The garden is, sadly, full of fledgeling pigeons - 4 sitting in a row on a cherry tree branch, but then, also goldfinches feeding in the long grass to cheer me.

The lower banking needs scything if I can find the weather, the time and the inclination - actually the banking is steep so plenty of inclination. (Groan)
This is a self sown broom on that banking growing a bit close to the liquidambar (on the right). The broom needs pruning but I killed off the last one - pruned too hard - so just a light trim this time - after flowering of course.

Stuff arrived from Sarah Raven - 3 Euphorbia characias wulfenii and three Cosmos - the latter so taped into the bottom of a deep cardboard box I broke one trying to get it out. Planted them out and also the gladioli R bought at the Greenodd potato do that I had put in pond baskets - so I could fill a gap at this time of year.

The cardoon is enormous and I have a fancy to have several in a big clump somewhere as a STATEMENT.

This pansy is backlit and almost looks better from this angle - as they are south facing outside the kitchen, they face away from us. (Too many faces.)

Here is a combination that has worked - the catmint and osteospermum ecklonis.

They are by the roses. I have underplanted a large part of the rose bed with nepeta (catmint) which seems to be ok.
The forgetmenots are over and will be self sown so need to be removed.

In the fruit garden I have used the tried and tested chives as edging - and useful in a salad or as an addition to potato and mayonnaise salad (with a sprinkle of paprika or cayenne pepper on the top for colour.)

My old (well not ancient yet) friend PS from new Zealand came for lunch and take photos of the garden but it rained and rained - soft mizzle - soaked everything. Then, just before he went there was a short burst of sunshine lighting things up. He came, he ate, he drank, he took pictures and ate a large ripe strawberry. We talked, and laughed.


We went to Threave Gardens for a cuppa and a stroll. They have done much since last there including adding some Joe Smith stone sculpture like this.

I am reading Maritime Ireland, An Archaeology of Coastal Communities by Aidan O'Sullivan and Colin Breen. It makes one feel so transitory when one thinks of them fishing off the coast 10,000 years ago!
(I am also reading Geoge MacBeth's Collected Poems (Owl is a great poem) and Peter May's Blow Back - an Enzo Macleod novel so not too stuffy.) (In between I consistently fail to do the gentle Kakuro in the paper but can do the diabolical one - answers as to why on a small piece of paper by yesterday.)

We have been away in southern Scotland and walked the wonderful woods at Castramon near Gatehouse-of-Fleet - fantastic old beech trees, nuthatches and pied wagtails, sanicle by the path.
In the tree pic the footpath goes between the two trunks.

And then poppies are stupendous so here are more pics -

Glory of glories, the bullfinches are nesting in the privet at the back of the house.

BREATHLESS IN ROSSIDE

I love the garden when it is still, not a whisper of breeze, like it is this morning, It is as if the garden is waiting for something.

The dog does not even nod its head and the pansies are unruffled. The pathway to the lower garden is filled with leaf litter from the big sycamore.

Then I realise everything is waiting for me with rake, secateurs, fork, manure and sweat. That seems to dampen the spirits a modicum.

The sun is shining and I have swept the drive/car park/whatever of old leaves and twigs. There is no excuse so out I go this afternoon even if it is only to pick up fallen twigs.
When we were in Scotland the other week we had a wonderful day that included a walk in Cally Woods at Gatehouse of Fleet. The autumn colours and branch filtered light were fantastic.

And now we are at the November/December watershed (or weathershed)(or whatever) yet there are flowers still in the garden - other than roses.

Here are some of the alstroemerias from the garden in a vase.
Today I have finished the bed by the back wall - weeded, deleaved (put in a big sack to make leaf mould) and too dressed with some go the old manure from down the garden.
R finished tidying the bed by the shed and planted some bulbs under the magnolia stellata.

I have built this structure to keep the willow poles, cut when the willow tunnel was demolished, (for supports next year), off the ground - Damian Hirst et your heart out - so they do not rot.

This is the cut leaved elder, hacked back to ground level in the early spring and now 12 feet high (about 4 metres for those who have gone metric).

It has been the Dick Fest, the weather has been good, and last night we were treated to a glorious sunset - unusual for us as we are south east facing - we tend to get sunrises.

Happy Birthday Gillie.

AN IMMEASURABLE FALLING OF SNOW

Yes - it snowed - but only one flake thick - on the a frozen garden.

In fact the ground is solid and essentially must stayoffable.

I have just begun a winter clean of the shed, clearing out the excess of plastic flower pots, bagging them and taking them to the tip. When I got there I thought, 'I can recycle these, they are plastic.' No such luck - big notice on the plastics place saying no flower pots so they went in with the unrecyclable waste.

The birds are getting michelin star nuts and we were rewarded two days ago with a flock of squeaking long-tail tits. Their call is so recognisable.

Our dog is being very courageous. He (?she) stands outside by the pansies in all weathers nodding gently away.

I am writing a family history - incredible boring except for odd snippets.
I found one quote which might even apply to myself though it was said by my Great Grandfather of his uncle who, when he retired, took up gardening.
The quote was - "He has taken up putting 13 geraniums into 12 pots!"

The rosa rugosas by the path into the garden were being rocked and blown by this northerly gale we had so I have pruned them now to prevent damage.

We have four sheds - an insulated borehole shed (we have our own water supply), a 'Wendy House' down then garden with insulation and elec., a shed with mowers and pots and stuff in it and another shed - I badly needed more space - which is full of my sons' stuff. One day I might get it back - one day?

Under the seeming permafrost the ground is still waterlogged and drains from the field down our track and through the gate. There is a steep drop below the gate and the tarmac there is now covered in ice.

We have eaten the last of the carrots, there are still a few beetroot and some leeks.

Fortunately, with the very cold weather we do have sunshine so I can tell the time in the garden - well, I could if my gnomon was not bent. As a consequence, the last time I looked at it I got the hour wrong (partly because I had not moved the shadow back 1 hour with the change from summer time).
Like me the dial is suffering from verdigris. It came, I think, from a Liverpool house belonging to my wife's Grandparents. We, also, used to have a big windmill man from there - he stands holding a handle and the blades of the windmill turn making it look like he is turning the windmill not the other way around if you know what I mean. Unfortunately it disintegrated in a gale some years ago. I tried to repair it but failed.

Now, there is an idea. If all these huge windmills they have put up for generating electricity had a giant man attached to them winding away like billy-o, that would be fantastic and spectacular, wouldn't it?

STATUES AND THINGS

Right from the start we have tried to introduce sculpture and things into the garden - of course we cannot afford a ten ton Henry Moore - but we have a small boy reading a book, a falcon from L., three birds from Adam Booth, blacksmith of Kirkpatrick Durham and this crouching figure by Rebecca Buck which we bought from Workshop

Wales near Fishguard.

There are also the willow tunnel, several rough hurdles made from hedge trimmings and a curved living willow wall by the pond, a sheep skull in a rhododendron, a rhododendron pruned like a shelter and my cloud tree - a hawthorn somewhat topiarised.

We do not have much stone in the garden other than that I have dug from the ground so rock structures are out unless we buy some in.

At the bottom by the pond is a boardwalk made of scaffolding planks which have been deemed not fit for use by the firm down North Lonsdale Road.

Always in the lookout for stuff I still have to try and decide what to do with an assortment of poles and so on. Stuff welcome.