A STRATAGEM, A DISEASE

Now back from Scotland and still 
remembering the sheer scale of the redwoods in Drumlanrig Castle gardens, the strangeness of the formations at the Crawick Multiverse including these rocks from the bed of the river Nith - from the Permian period - a bit before my time I think.

Sunday and I change the sunflower seed feeder to try and reduce the seed on the ground underneath - the great tits are the worst casting aside one after another until it gets the one it likes best. So I wire a plastic plant dish underneath - an old one with a hole in so it will drain - and the bullfinches come back!
Unfortunately the grey squirrel returns also.
I move the feeder until it hangs from a wire but this does not deter the tree rat.
Time for a squirrel trap baited with peanuts.
First arrival a jay which does not set the trap off - then the tree rat and voila!
  Now we wait to see if there are more greys around - there are - I am at my desk watching two cavorting in the old ash tree outside my window.
  Out to Langholm Mill at Lowick and the garden open under the National Gardens Scheme for charities. A stream lined with azaleas and rhododendrons. It was created by Dr Walter Gill who succeeded my father as GP in Penny Bridge. (Many years ago).
  Home, plug in charger cable to car. Fall over cable and land on right shoulder. No break but it is seizing up already - ten minutes later. The older I get the more adept I have become at falling.😕  
 Monday to Abi and Tom's at Halecat, Witherslack, and bought 4 perennial plants for new bed - a garden centre well worth visiting.
  Back home the garden is looking not bad. 

The asparagus is almost over and the May blossom is starting to recede. The trees turning one green instead of all shades. 

The weeping silver pear I assassinated - raising its canopy, is looking a bit sad - but will recover. And it rains a lot, I grasp handsful (or is it handfuls?) (probably) of goosegrass and bindweed from the big scabious, cut the very last of the asparagus, watch yet more grey squirrels arrive on the feeders, expand the list of must dos and plod on, shoulder a nuisance.

Quick stroll around the garden and find we have been attacked by pocket plum disease - all the damsons are affected, about 70% of the fruit - distorted, no stone in the middle - struck down by Taphrina pruni, and they say it will always affect our trees. 😧
Advice uselesss - like removing and burning all affected fruit - up a twenty foot tree (and we have eight trees)(and I have a dodgy shoulder)(and I would probably fall out of the tree).

Sigh!!

OF BIRDS AND PREDATORS

Usual - that is what R's grandmother wrote almost every day in her diary! Mowing, weeding, dead heading etc.

I have been up by the wall at the far end of the garden digging out the soil under the trees where they hang over from next door, The soil/leaf mould mixture is over a foot deep and will be a great asset to the garden.

Meanwhile back at the bird feeders - it is no wonder I catch squirrels only infrequently as I have just watched great tits entering the trap and leaving with whole peanuts! To other birds -

Robin

Greater spotted woodpecker

Goldfinches

and best of all? Cock bullfinch. On my way out this morning came across the cock pheasant, well a cock pheasant, hopping along on one leg, the other injured - cat? They are definitely the main predator on the garden and at some time or another all of these birds have been victims. One problem is that the cats have no natural predator controlling their numbers. (Sorry Scottie.)

Of course grey squirrels and stoats take eggs and chicks as will other birds - woodpeckers, sparrow hawk etc. 

There has been a minor flap over sickly osprey chicks that the naturalists left to their fate - big outcry - poor little chicks - need to be rescued. But that is the whole point - the natural order of things, predators at the top of the food chain, seeds and insects at the bottom. 

Unfortunately we have got rid of wolves and lynxes and bears and instead of replacing them as natural predators we have distorted the ecosystem - too many people - perhaps a good cull of mankind might be the answer - whoops - dangerous territory.

To move on - (and about time too) - R showed me tadpoles in the pond - they must have been hiding in the weed - I have hoicked a load of crowfoot out to give some clear water, leaving at the side sonny creepies can slither back into the water.

Walking the garden with friends today we put a a small jack snipe - have seen the odd one before in the stream bottom - still a nice surprise.
At the rhubarb patch I was suddenly assailed by a strong sweet gingery scent and realised it was coming from the rhododendron on the banking thirty yards away.


R and I went to Abi and Tom's nursery at Halecat, Witherslack and they have done an amazing job. The trouble is one never leaves without spending something - bought a blue geranium and this unusual white primula.

This morning I have read that there may be a water shortage in the UK after a dry winter - where? Lawn still boggy in places etc etc though the stream has partly dried up. Anyway we have borehole of our own. 

Got up this morning and looked out of the bedroom window up the garden and a swallow zoomed down in front of me from the nest at the top of the gable. I know one swallow doesn't make a summer - but a spring?

The sun on the front of the house this morning was a treat but we have been warned winter is coming back in the next few days - blossom beware.

Watching M. Don on Gardeners' World there was a bit on Charles Dowding and his Natural No-dig way he uses in his market garden. He wrote a very interesting book - Organic Gardening which my son C gave me in 2007 - ISBN 978 1 903998 91 5. (If you have a garden or are into that sort of thing (or have a bad back)).

Went to Muncaster Castle today to see the bluebells - 2 weeks early and stunning.

More Muncaster pics in next blog.