THE CONTINUING STORY OF BUNGALOW BILL

Except we don't live in a bungalow.
But my first name is Bill (well William) even if I don't use it much.

Here we go again as I have just deleted the start of this blog (insert a grumpy) and - well, R has dug out the past-it forget-me-nots and put them up in the woodland to self seed. I am covered in greenfly and whitefly after weeding under the big sycamore (Notable tree - Woodland Trust) as the tree is a metropolis of little flying things.
Roses are being dead headed, weeding goes on - carrots, Nantes, are sown - the last, really the last, asparagus cut and eaten by R who loves it - a bowl of strawberries on the kitchen island - the Sweet Cicely cut back and chucked in the compost bin.

This is outside the kitchen doors -

and this the view down to the pond from there.

This is the house martin nest from where the fledglings went - just above the top picture. The swallows still seem to be building and a community on the beam seems likely - i.e. more than one nest. No sign of egg eating squirrels for a bit - fingers crossed.

The elder is flowering well but we are not making elderflower cordial this year - too lazy.
We have mullein moth caterpillars chomping our plants so have had to take action. 

On the shed the clematis montana Albert is in fine flower. I also have two montana Elizabeths in pots and still do not know where to put them.

Up something I suppose - but what?
The catmint (nepeta) this year is splendid and spilling onto the paving. It goes so well both with the alchemilla and euphorbia - both yellow/greens.

This is Rose Golden Showers, one of two we have and it is flooding the garden with sunshine despite the rain.

The poppies continue to blast us with colour, both in the flower beds and growing semi wild up on the banking near the fig. We have many colours but the good old blast of orange vermilion is still the best. (Goliath and Patty's Plum are not bad either.)

Now, every time I mention Putin I get a surge in hits for the blog - am I being monitored by the Russian secret service? It seems silly but could be true. On the other hand could it be the Vlad fan club - like its members in Marseille? Ultraviolent - the n is there on purpose - nothing to do with a suntan. 

Come Tuesday and a largely sunny day and I half kill myself hover mowing the lower banking. I forgot that if I perspire the flies come homing in on me.

Went to supermarket and bought a pot of basil and one of coriander. Each pot contains many plants so took out a few of each and planted them in the veg beds.

The pond is looking good and I sent a pic to Gary Primrose who helped us build it. He lives near Tarn Hows at a place called Yewfield and has a blog - http://www.yewfield.co.uk/about/gardeners-blog.

Well worth a visit on the net. There is a link to the left of this blog.
One last thing, pond related - the yellow mimulus (monkey flower) sows itself everywhere and R said we should try it in a vase. I thought it would be useless but to my surprise it has lasted over a week and is still going strong!

The rain has made many of the strawberries rotten so I am going to have a cup of tea to drown my sorrows.

JUNE IS BURSTING OUT

Today is Wednesday 12th and for the first time the temperature reachees 70F. The garden is full of birdsong and you can almost hear the plants growing. Sun hat on and old shoes not rubber boots.

I am watering - the veg, the rhubarb, etc. Why do hose pipes always get knotted up and kink?
Mowed the woodland paths.

House Martins nest building under the west gable end, chaffinches nesting in the beech hedge.

So much purple it must be the in colour. It does contest well with other colours as long as it is intense - not so in favour of wishy-washy purples.

R is still up in the wood (ready to cut down my last few willows). The hawthorn up there is coated in may blossom - well it is June.
I have taken the supermarket basil and put it in a bed within the rabbit proof area. It may grow - probably not.

Email from Go Wild about their free seeds I sowed above the pond - nothing showing yet. (The pigeons have eaten them all?)

Bats flying outside at dusk for the first time - well, the first time we have seen them.

"Oh! The cuckoo is a pretty bird," so goes the song but not as far as other birds are concerned - today saw a cuckoo being chased all over the place by small birds. It makes one wonder how they know that the cuckoo is bad news.
First willow warbler heard in the garden with its characteristic descending song.

Just been finishing off the removal of stones from the new drainage areas and reseeding with grass. Watered it and then it almost rained - few drops then nothing.
It is strange but watering the garden often causes it to rain!
I also dug a new drain by the pond to try and dry out a boggy area and raked mud out of the small pond. A lot gets washed down every time it rains heavily.

And we thought that the ducks and herons and such had eaten everything in the pond but we have seen tadpoles. And a dytiscus water beetle larva - predator supreme, also known as the water tiger.
Purple in the pond also with the water lily leaves. Note the spirogyra alga - probably due to rich inflow water (soakaway from the septic tank). I spend time removing it with a rake and dumping it at the edge so creepy crawlies can return to the water.

Found a dead young pheasant by the pond - its head missing so probably a fox. The parents frequent the feeders (underneath) and had another young with them so not all lost.

The geraniums are coming into their own - in fact this one had self sown itself.

Sometimes it is the hidden corners that delight - the poppies self sown by the shed, 

 The shrubs on the banking by the path to the lawns,

Or even a small collection of items on the paving.

Thursday - it is grim up north so the reaper has been out.
Now, some of you will have laughed when I bought an Austrian scythe and went to Sprint Mill for lessons with Steve Tomlin - but - I have been cutting the long grass that the mower cannot get at by the stream this afternoon after mowing the lawns.

Also noticed we have a dead hawthorn in the wood and another looking on its last legs. I was removing any new shoots on the trees below head height. 
I checked the ties on the new white birches to see that they are not too tight and then pruned off any lower branches, again to shoulder height. Now all the growth energy will be concentrated in the top of the trees and without lower foliage I can see through the trunks to a young copper beech. The area under the birches has been left and is a sea of buttercups.

End of week - still eating asparagus as sprouting well and have had first strawberry. Much promise to come with red and black currants, 

 

gooseberries,

we have Victoria plums coming, damsons, Bramley apples and greengages on the tree I and A gave us - the first time we have had fruit, something not always guaranteed this far north.

The plums

and Conference pears.

So much going on and I am trying to restrict myself to one blog a week (but failing).

Friday and suddenly the temperature is 24C and humid - I have put on my cheap shorts from ASDA in Hereford to get my legs brown before the summer holiday. However rain is forecast for tomorrow. That should signal time to write a blog - another one!

HADES STRIKES AGAIN

I have just watched another of our frogs being consumed by Hades the heron. It was plucked from the centre of the pond and then held in the beak, dropped and speared several times then washed in the water. Still the legs wriggled so another spearing and washing, then a flick and it was gone.

The only thing in the pond is the reflection of the eucalyptus tree.

HERON

The heron concentrates 

down its splinter bill.

Its malevolent eyes burn

like sodium in a grey mist.

Without a ripple

the heron stalks water.

The headlamps of its skull

search the sluggish river.

It strikes! An arching frog

heads headfirst down the long throat.

The bulge that still lives

descends into oblivion.

There are so many gloomy days at the moment, so still and misty if not actually raining.
The windmill is unmoving.

The mowers have come back from servicing and are in the shed. It rains so for now they stay there but I will soon have to attach the trailer and shift muck.

Today's (March edition) of the Gardeners' World Magazine is almost 200 pages and stuffed with good things - especially a section on pruning. These mags always contain offers of plants - free but for the postage - so tempting but where would I put them. R has stated categorically that there are not to be any more flower beds as they need weeding and maintaining.


Talking of pruning the time is coming to cut back the willow - a la Gary Primrose.

Now it is brightening up and the rain has stopped (for now). I am running out of excuses for not going out and doing something.

I have yet to manure the banking in front of the house - a bit of tidying first. 
If I had a few dry days, perhaps with a drying wind, I could give the lawns a little scalping to neaten them up - if. 

Pots are showing life and the tulips I saved from last year and replanted in the autumn are through.

This morning I heard the song thrush for the first time this year with its endless triple phrasing without repetition - that is it repeats a bit of song three times or so and then does the same with a different piece. Each snatch is not the same as the one before or after.

Here is another pic of snowdrops.

And finally nurturing last year's amaryllis has paid off in a big way.

What a colour. One bulb flowering and the other stirring so when the first is over we will have the second to enjoy.

WINTER DRAWS ON, IT IS DICK FEST TIME

3 mm of frost have attacked the Nook and I am off to check if the sweet peas have survived let alone nasturtiums - the latter notoriously affected by cold - and turned into slimy yuk!

However we still have roses like this Emma Hamilton - mm! looking at the photo I should have dead headed this one. (This is a plant from David Austin Roses and blowsy, and heavily scented.)

Yet more leaves removed from paths, weeds dealt with and some areas about 1 metre round prepared on the banking for moving shrubs - I know it is a bit late but once the frost has gone it should be okay if I am careful.

Leaves are everywhere - these are rosemary cuttings interspersed with self sown foxglove seedlings (and some weeds)
The leaves are off the nearby beech hedge and need to be removed.








Gary, Monday pm to see pond and multiple drainage channels, to expound further ideas with regard to stoney beaches and steps and stuff. I have saved the unused pond liners - both underlay and butyl - as these may be of use when putting in the drains. Placing the underlay over the drain will stop loose soil etc getting in and blocking the pipe.

I have just rubbed my forehead and I am bleeding. in fact I am full of holes! Whilst R was clearing the bed by the shed I was pruning the damsons and they have SPINES!!! - And now I have spines and holes and scratches. Used the tractor and trailer to cart the prunings down the garden and they all fell off under the plum tree which is very low - so I pruned that too. All the stuff is now on the bonfire or the COMPOST (mentioned it again L) heap.

I selected some areas, about a metre in diameter, on the banking below the house to where I can move shrubs blocking R's view if the pond from the bedroom.

I am listening to Eva Cassidy singing Songbird, have just listened to some Nick Drake, most relaxing.

My sister-in-law K has had her poems published - you can see it at -
http://www.indigodreamsbookshop.com/#/kerry-darbishire/4586916905
Brilliant stuff - worth every penny - well it might cost a bit more than that.

Now have David Gray's Birds of the High Arctic on my Itunes.

Oh! Yes, Gary did not come - postponed until Thursday but that is fine - nothing will change dramatically before then. (I hope.)

Here is a bird feeder drying on the Aga range, mentioned about hygiene and bird death before.

The paperwhites are
tied around a stake as they have flopped -so much for Christmas bulbs

 And then there are more coming - daft bulbs - they have been in the cool and dark and should not be bursting forth like this. I have forgotten quite what I stuffed in here but it looks like everything. It seems there is not much room for compost!

Signing off for now - sister and cousin on way for tea. (Have just made some of Mrs Tyson's shortbread from my mothers recipe book - that is three things I can cook now!)

It is recycling time again - plastics and cardboard to the tip. We seem to have a drawer full of plastic bags. In Scotland now you have to pay 5 pence for a bag in a shop. I wonder, could we sell our bags there for 4 pence?

Gary has been - as charming as ever (I know he sometimes reads the blog so . . ) - and plans are afoot for drains and stones and possibly steps and extraction of hedges.

So this will probably be the last longblog of November, and yes, I have a cuppa tea beside me in this dark dank weather.

Saturday is the Ulverston Dickensian Festival (known locally as the Dick Fest) when tens of thousands descend on a small town stuffed with street stalls - crafts, food, people dressed up, street entertainers, a helter-skelter, small fair things, roasting chestnuts and mulled wine - you name it.
We will walk in and back as parking is impossible, anyway it is not good to drive after a few mulled wines.

All welcome.

MURK AND WORK

Out of the murk comes November, winding the garden down etc etc.

Actually now begins one of the busiest times of the year - need (unfortunately) does not equal desire as far as moi, diggings and stuff goes. 

The bulbs are still waiting. 

Today I must fix the windmill - the metal pole it is on is too flimsy and I will need to attach it to a good stout fence post. 

Today I must replace the broken tie on the left-hand hawthorn as it is leaning towards the small oak (that R wants removed elsewhere so the view up the garden from the pond is uninterrupted). (I have just chopped the glace cherries for the Christmas cake and popped them in the bowl with the dried fruit and sherry.)(Well I ate only one.)(R has gone to church and left me this huge task.)

Yesterday I emerged from the house to find A and J examining then pond and outflow. They obviously feel some responsibility for their handiwork which is good, some pride in it. When Gary returns so will they - I have found more for them to do.

The garden proceeds on into winter - the leaves are all off the ash trees now though there is still colour with such as the liquidambar. Yesterday leaves were swept and R cleaned the slippery paving by the front door (which is still at the back) in the rain with the Karcher. Logs were taken in for the woodburner and this was lit in the evening. Some of the fallen twigs - we get a lot off the ash - have been stacked up in the wood as places for wildlife like hedgehogs and small rodents to find winter sanctuary.

There is still a lot of colour in the garden though the nasturtiums have been removed from the compost heap in preparation for its use. They have been plonked on the other heap to make more compost. Hostas and other perennials going over are being tidied and consigned to the heap.

The leaves above are one of he azaleas in the woodland edge.

Then there are more exotic, less hardy plants that are still flowering like this Passion Flower.

I still feed the birds (and the rabbits though the latter not willingly).

Oh! And I found a clump of HONEY FUNGUS near the beech hedge. I fear it is endemic and all we can do is pray. If the dreaded ash killing disease reaches us the struggling trees will be easy prey for this fungus. 

Still, we would have a lot of logs for the burner then and ash is a good fuel.

So, as the finger of the hour drags ever remorselessly towards the top of the clock and the rumble under my belt signifies I am getting dehydrated, it must be time for a little fuel for my soul.

What I mean is I am going to have a cup of tea.