A LITTLE HEAVEN

It has not rained for a week and looks set fair!
Here I am talking about lack of rain - for once.
Having said that, the lawn in the lower garden is still sodden and a no go area.
R and I out pruning some of the buddleias yesterday - yes, I know it may be a mite early but the sun was out and so were we.

We have our first wild primroses and the stinking hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) has been in flower for a week or more.
The Witch Hazel is in full flower (and scent), roses are beginning growth and the aquilegias are uncurling their leaves from the compost and manure.

The buddleias are all over the garden - outside the kitchen window where they give cover to the birds at the feeders, around the septic tank and as a hedge on the banking. On the banking they are pruned very short at the banking top and then longer as one descends the slope, so that the top is level. For several months the birds do lose their queuing bush by the kitchen and the septic tank becomes rather visible.

There are snowdrops everywhere and the first crocus, planted on the top banking, are appearing. Locally there is an area known as the purple pasture for its carpet of spring crocus. I know I might need thousands of crocus or a hundred years to emulate that - and I am a bit fogeyed - but one has to start somewhere.

Last autumn the grass on some of the banks was too wet to strim and had to be left.
So now I have decided to burn some of it off and this proved successful but a bit scary when a breeze blew up - had to dash around with a shovel bashing out the burn to protect shrubs about which I had forgotten.

I have repaired the steps up into the wood - nothing sophisticated, just some pressure treated planks sawn up and held in place with two or three stakes.

The manure man keeps traipsing, keeps mulching. I have transplanted errant white campanulas that seem to have spread over a large area of one of the flower beds. There was so much that, in the end, I dumped some of it by the far wall - where it will survive (or not).

Ah! Goldfinches outside my window - a little heaven, as is the garden when it is still, breathless and basking in early spring (late winter) sun. I can almost hear the grass growing, the buds unfurling in joy after the long wet, cold, dark months.

The winter is coming to an end, though we did have snow flurries yesterday, and I am waiting for the final sign that winter is over - only about six weeks to go - then the chatter will begin again and the sky will fill with swallows.

As I said, a little heaven.

FROG BLOG, SPRING SPRUNG

Spawn to Pond 2 en passant!

We have our first frogspawn. R was in her shed (The Wendy House) and heard strange noises coming from the pond. It was all of a commotion. She crept nearer and the frogs disappeared into the mud - but - left behind our first spawn. No doubt the mallard and herons will be here soon - for a snack.

And now I realise I have put off the refurbishment of the ponds too long. I will have to isolate the area with the spawn before draining the rest or move the spawn from one pond to the other.

Last night the song thrush was trebling from the big sycamore - it has returned again from its winter holiday abroad.
And this morning, early, a blackbird was fluting from the old ash.
This warm snap has brought everything on.

Before that there was snow and dark evenings.
The snowdrops seem to have loved the weather last year. We did divide and replant in the green and they have thrived.
The pulmonaria is out as is the mahonia. We have a small scraggy plant at the woodland edge but have been given a beautiful specimen by our son-in-law's parents. The spot is picked but I will delay planting it until the ground is softer - hard frost last night.
Panic - birds scattering, one into the study window - sparrowhawk on a hedge-skimming attack but all have escaped.

The mist has risen and gardening deferred - too nice not to walk - perhaps to town and back separated by a coffee.

We have been given some purple tulips by I and A - to pot or not to pot? I will have to think about what to plant with them and what colour.

I have decided to convert one of the veg beds to a cut flower one - this will mean lots of preparation - shifting more manure. Mind you, those who have read my previous blogs will realise I can shift plenty, even if only in writing.

The manure heap from which I barrow is enormous - see image.

Now, I mentioned how some plants have done well from the weird weather last year - well, moles! They are everywhere casting up their mounds of soil. I do not think I have seen such a proliferation.

Perhaps I could borrow my friend's dog to have a go at them, but not yet, it is only a puppy - a cockerpoo!

Ah! Yes - another way of getting rid of moles has come my way - sticking a stem of rhubarb down the holes in the hills. That would be fine but the rhubarb is only three inches tall even in the big forcing pot.

Another friend just said to get some traps.
Perhaps he needs a new waistcoat?

TALES OF LAWNS, PONDS AND A HOT CROSS BUN

So, there we were, staring out of the bathroom window at the banking under the flowering currant (still dormant) and gazing at an earthwork, an adit to somewhere newly dug.

We had wondered where the rabbits had got to - even in winter, if the weather is mild, they come out to feed. Now we know.

So up in the bushes and block up the nascent warren. It was not nearly deep enough for there to be anyone down there. The bunny will try again, and again and get hot and cross hence the title.

The snowdrops are in full flower now and replanting them in the green last year to extend the spread has worked.

R is looking at catalogues, I am looking at the old bank balance - no seriously a packet of seed is so much better value than a few seedlings.

We have been invaded by the twitterers agin - long-tailed tits - clustered on the feeders.

I am still barrowing manure up from the horses - if the amount of this I have put on the garden is anything to go by we should buried in vegetation come July.

At the end of the big shed I have fixed a large square of concrete reinforcing mesh as trellis, dug over the soil - and manured it - and planted a Clematis armandii  with a red honeysuckle on each side.

This we can see from the kitchen.

I wish to mention our forlorn lawns. The appalling weather this year has resulted in the death of grass. There are bare patches, areas of moss and creeping buttercup. Reeds are growing in the lower garden where it is still wet. The extent of the damage is beyond me spiking and topdressing such a large area. In the end there may have to be some scarifying and reseeding - and some praying for dryer weather. Mowing will have to start with the light machine to avoid too much damage.

The photo shows the stream and ponds 7 years ago before we had created the garden, house just built. Now they are overgrown. The ponds need restructuring or even turning into a stream! With so much water coming down the stream from the back field silt has made the water too shallow. The water lily is sitting on a muddy bank.
Now, I could dig them out, reline them and wait for them to fill up with silt again but is that the best solution? It is so much simpler with a pond not on a source of running water.
Mmm! I seem to have water on the brain!

HAIR TODAY AND GONE TOMORROW

And I am going cu-cu?
Can't shift manure at the moment - just tweaked my back pushing human hair down mole holes. (Trying to turn the compost did not help much either.)

Why the title - don't know really - time for a pome reflecting on the glorious summer of 2012 :-

WHAT SUMMER?

Summer is a-going out,

loud sang no cuckoo,

strewn - no seed, no sweet

mead brewed, leaves fall,

water springs anew

through our sodden wood.

It rains, it rains 

again, rindle drips collide,

pipes gather shadows,

throw down torrents,

besprent the yard. 

The garden weeps for the sun.

Three amelanchiers are dead

drenched by the flooding rill,

mildew’s white hyphae 

blight the meadowsweet.

We dream of drought

now summer is a-going out.

This has so much internal rhyme it would make the compost heap turn itself.

Actually line two is a lie - I did hear a cuckoo here once last spring.

The garden does have colour in early February - apart from snowdrops and so on - is white a colour?

Most of it is in leaves but the hamamelis (we have an orange one) is flowering and spreading scent, shoots are appearing everywhere and the grass is greening.

At this rate, ground permitting, I will be mowing by March and the beds will not all be manured (because of my back).

I am now finding out where I planted daffodils in the autumn for, as usual, I have neither kept a record nor labelled them.

There are lots coming up by the far dry-stone wall and along the willow tunnel - shown above.

Unfortunately the sides of the tunnel have also sprouted a plethora of mole mountains - hair to the rescue.

The ranunculus in the old earthenware sink is sprouting and tulips are pushing up through the yellow pansies in the pots.

I do not think I have seen so many tiny figs on the bush as this spring - we need a good summer up here though to stand any change of figs stuffed with cream cheese and cooked - Yum!

Until today I had not seen Mr Phez (cock pheasant) around but he is back - the ladies must be looking attractive again. He is prowling by the rough shrubbery at the top of the garden where they nest every year.

So, I will have to keep a watch on the moles and hope that 'hair today, gone tomorrow' actually happens.

Hot bath or watch the Rugby.

Could I record the Rugby and have an early bath?

Why not!

BIRDS, FLOODS AND SHEEP (ONE)

I was counting the birds for the RSPB this morning. Then they all suddenly disappeared! Last year it was a Kestrel, this year I suspect Megatron the neighbour's black cat. Fortunately they came back and in addition to the usual we had our tree sparrows and a pair of bramblings.
The survey over, I am looking out of my window - there are long-tailed tits on the feeders and a greater-spotted woodpecker in the old ash tree! Such is life.

The snow has done its damage, (we had 15cm (Wow! Metric)), - snapped a branch off the Magnolia grandiflora, flattened a rhododendron (it will sprout again from the stump). It rained all night and it is above freezing and now we have floods again. Water, water everywhere and not an albatross in sight.

To top it all one big sheep has found our grass is greener and climbed over the wall in the far corner where the fence abuts up against it, managed to knock part of the wall down too. So, wellies on and out I go before breakfast with some barbed wire and do a temporary repair. However, sheep are resourceful and agile. I will not be at all surprised to see it back in the garden. At least it was on its own.

Despite the snow there is still some shape and colour in the garden. The miscanthus is blowing in the wind now but yesterday was heavy with the snow, the brown colours contrasting with the white.

I am still staying off the lawns as far as I can and definitely off the upper banking as the snowdrops are just coming out and the whole area is peppered with daffodil shoots.

Now I have just seen three female pheasants ambling up the woodland path!
Maybe they are here because of the peanuts - the damp had got into the feeders so I emptied the contents on the grass and refilled with fresh dry nuts.
Even if the birds do not take them the wood mice will be nipping out and carrying them off.

I searched the garden for tracks but apart from the bird trampled areas under the feeders nothing - except sheep. We have had a fox, rabbits and even bullocks in the past but today nothing. The voles have tunnels under the snow in the longer grass - a network of paths out of sight of predators.

Bullocks in a garden are a disaster - they trample everywhere leaving deep hoof marks for yours truly to fill in and seed.

Now the rooks have arrived.
Where were they an hour or so ago?

Sigh!

Oh! Yes - on my blogsite, darbishire@blogspot.co.uk, I now have a sign in facility in the top lefthand corner. Wonderful thing sons! There are 300 blogs on there!

SLUGGERY, SNAILERY, ROOKERY, MARMALADERY

Let us hope this cold spell has reduced the sluggery that goes on in the garden every year. Plants are not safe out in the summer. There they are enjoying a mild day, thinking about their flowers and fruit, when suddenly this slimy gang creep out and chew hell out of them - I call it sluggery.
This is not the same as snailery. They do not hide underground and ambush vegetation - they are more obvious, not so sneaky. Snailery is not the same as sneaky sluggery.

The paths are gravelled, the fallen wood and twigs collected, more muck barrowed and spread despite the frost and snow. Actually we have not had that much here, maximum 3". I did not even get the toboggan out and there was not enough for an igloo. We have had our tragedies with a couple of small bird deaths - this is a window hit from a blue tit and I found a dunnock frozen in a flower bed.

Our buzzard dropped in but was soon harassed into dropping out again by the rooks. I suppose that is a case of rookery?

Today has been Seville Day - I have been making this year's Marmalade. Old recipe, Sadie's Best. I may have blogged this a year or so ago but for the G&G Garden bloggers, here it is again. (I know this is last years batch so do not look too closely at the labels.)

9 Seville Oranges
8 lbs Sugar,
9 pints water if softening on top of cooker (I do it in the simmering oven of the Aga with the lid on so only 6 pints water).
2 lemons
1 sweet orange,
yield 14 lbs or so.

(You can see I am not Metric Man)

Cut up fruit, squeeze out juice, tie pips in a muslin bag, and any other bits.
Cut up peel and put through mincer (have old Kenwood).
Put juice and peel in big jam pan and add water.
Put pips and bits in muslin bag and hang in pan.
(NOTE: I need to do it in two lots so need to divide bits into two bags.)
Boil up without sugar and simmer for 1-2 hours till peel soft and transparent.
Now I divide it in two and add half sugar (warmed in bowl in oven).
Stir from time over gentle heat till dissolved, then boil hard, lid off, for 10-12 minutes.
Put jars in bottom oven with lids on a baking tray.
Test regularly by taking off heat and putting a teaspoonful on a saucer. I put the saucers in the freezer to make them cold and speed up the testing.
When you push your finger into test sample and it wrinkles it is ready!
Fill hot jars and screw on tops straight away. As the marmalade cools it vacuum seals the lids. No need for waxy discs and rubber bands and such.

A bit of a faff but once a year should be enough except for extremely avid marmalade consumers, those with a marmalade waistline.

CHIPPINGS OFF AN OLD BLOKE

What can you do when the ground is frozen? We are just above the snow line here at 365 ft and all is rock hard. First wear gloves, two or three pairs of socks (except then you cannot get your wellies on), several old jumpers and so on.
Of course what I do is go out in one pair of socks, a good pair of trousers and a good shirt and get really mucky. R has given up.

So, four tons of Burlington blue slate chippings are barrowed onto the garden paths to repair the damage done by last year's weather. We could have had welsh purple chippings or green slate ones but the blue is less intrusive.
The path edges have rotted and new ones are being put in. Steps need to be remade, not, this time, with discarded scaffolding planks but I have found a cheap source of pressure treated fence posts. So, sawn up into lengths of about two feet, they can be used as the risers, pegged well and then infilled behind with soil and the chippings. I have abandoned the wood chip path through the wood as the surface rotted (especially this year) in a few months. Stone, I hope, will last longer.

Another victim of the rain was our electric gate at the bottom of the track. (R insisted she did not want to get out in the rain to open and shut it so it was one luxury we indulged in when we built the house.) The water has affected the motor and penetrated the seals. The paper lady arrived one day, popped the paper through the letterbox and then could not get out! Trapped by a shut gate. As it was very early it was a pyjamas under trousers job.

The track will need repairing, the ponds will need redigging, lining and the boardwalk repairing. Bankings are rough as all was so wet in the late summer and autumn that strimming was not possible. As the daffs are coming up any cutting back will have to wait until July at the earliest so they can build up their bulbs for next year.

It always amazes me how much wood falls off our ash trees. we have been collecting it and storing it under cover.

And the muckwork goes on, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow up from the horse heap off the lane below the house.
Hard work but one of the secrets of a garden which bursts with growth later in the year.
Whilst we were watching the rain the creeping buttercups have been having a field day, well a buttercup field day - tough to extract their clawing roots.

And, much of the lawn areas are still out of bounds,
boggy and soggy, the grass sparse, (I'm a poet and don't know it).

First buds on the snowdrops and the mahonia coming into flower and woodpeckers pecking nuts at least mean we are the right side of the dark days. The world is waking - which is more than can be said for myself.
I have found a cure for insomnia - sleep!
No, the cure is shifting manure, heaps of manure.

And now is the time to try Cousin G's mole disperser again - out with the human hair and down the molehole it goes.

MUCK, MIST AND MAGAZINES

I am a fogey in a fog - a cold chilling fog - it penetrates to the
bone. The trees are long-limbed ghosts, dripping in the mizzle.
Everything is still, so still that the movement of a bird stands out and draws the eye.

The shifting of horse manure goes on, day after day, one barrow pushed up the steep hill from the muck mountain in the corner of the horse field by the gate. Now I am clearing the dead remnants of plants from the flower beds ahead of the spreading and loading up the compost bays. The grasses, miscanthus and stipa, are left and look good - fountains of light brown against the grey of the day.

Yesterday I had an urgent telephone call from my Grandson - he had been out walking and found a fossil in a stone. So, out I go to the garden and root amongst the many pieces of stone gathered from all the places we have visited. I find a good fossil, clean it and put it with the gathering collection of bits and pieces to take down to him and his sister (and his parents) when we go later this winter to grandchild sit, (not on them).

The chipping paths in the garden have suffered with the rain and are muddy. A new layer was needed so two large builders' bags of blue slate chippings were delivered late yesterday - lorry too big for our narrow gate and so on of course despite warnings. The sacks now sit atop a low wall (easier to fill the wheelbarrow from above) waiting for muscle power (he comes on Monday).

The rain eased, the water level in the stream has fallen to reveal mud and silt washed down from the field and filling the two ponds - more digging needed!

Just once since the beginning of the year (perhaps twice) has the sun shone. Then it lights up the pansies in the pots - a success. So is the sarcococcus by the door where its scent wafts over me each time I pass. I put the winter-flowering honeysuckle on the banking - this was a mistake. it needs moving to somewhere I can smell that as well.

So, what can one do when the days are drear and the darkness pervades all?
The woodburner can be lit, a mug filled and magazines - such as the three shown - read, and catalogues perused.
R has said that we do not need more plants, we have more than enough.
I wonder if she knows I have twelve catmints and twenty senecios (whoops brachyglottis now) rooting in the shed?

I did not put in any more wallflowers in the autumn, the slugs ate the lot, but have noticed last year's are coming into bud already. They are now small shrubs with woody stems.

So from the fogey in the fog, here are good wishes to all for the New Year.
(ps. 6 month scan OK, next check in July)

Yesterday I sat out in the chill for an hour waiting for the delivery of the chippings and it just felt wonderful to be alive, a very small part of this fantastic thing called Earth, a part of the magic, listening to birds call and distant voices across the fields, feeling the sharpness of the air on my face, to be happy.

THE NEW YEAR RESOLVED?

Ah! Here I am again, full of resolutions - to lose weight after the feasting and to do something in the garden every day I can no matter how small. Having said that I have been pinned to the computer, if not by the rain, by the fact that, in my wisdom (HA!) I upgraded to the Latest Mountain Lion system for the Mac. It was only £13 - was - but then Photoshop was incompatible, scanner was too, half the things did not work and I have had to sort it out - sigh!

This has nothing to with gardening - only blogging.

The sheep are in the field in front of the house and now we are in the dark mornings after Christmas everything seems rather monochrome.

However there is a big flower bud on the Fatsia, the last roses of summer are still flowering, grasses such as Miscanthus have taken on a warm brown colour and bulbs are beginning to push through the soil - daffodils and snowdrops, the latter especially. The image shows the first snowdrops flowering by the Wendy House path at the end of last January.

Now a new year is coming and surprises - 'I had forgotten I planted that!' - self-sown seedlings - especially aquilegias and opium poppies.
The birds are singing too - twittering long-tailed tits, a robin in the ash nearest the house, great tits and collared doves, the coo-ee of the goldfinches t They know something is afoot.

It is during these dark days between Christmas and my mother's birthday that motivation is hard but the birds must be fed, the blogger must begin to starve and plans developed.
The paths need re chipping, the compost turning, dead growth removing, overgrown plants thinning, cuttings tended, and the garden needs walking - each time new ideas, things to be done come forth, wood fallen of the trees collected and added to the bonfire that never burned - too sodden.
Can I face the disaster of the veg this year with the incessant rain - can I find a way round it - the beds to be raised more, domed to aid water run off, be more selective in choice of veg - and will the asparagus have survived all this water?

It is time to be positive!!

So I shall light the wood burner, get a mug of something hot and contemplate all that I have just said and bury myself for the last few moments of this year.

Then . . . . . 

A STREAM OF THOUGHT

By popular request or something here is a bit about our drain/stream/torrent.

It rises from the back field and runs through the rough area in the top western corner before plunging down a banking into the garden area proper.

This banking is rough but has golden saxifrage, wild bluebells and daffodils in the spring, wild angelica and grasses later in the year.

We cut/strim/clear it once a year.

From there it runs beside the veg beds and the compost heaps (or through them at present with this appalling year) and on into the far lawn.
As time has gone by it has cut itself a deeper and deeper bed but this still cannot cope with the volume of water coming out of the field today.

In the picture you can see the white Birches in front of the far wall. There are clumps of daffodils either side of the stream by its bank and under the trees. Later in the year the underplanting of the trees is mostly Ox-eye Daisies.

I have just been up the garden and the water is flowing freely everywhere, the turf is sodden and still it rains.
You can understand that the soil (Lois backwards)(Happy Christmas) is unworkable - even some of the leeks seem to be floating. (I have a Krik in my neck and a plethora of Grandchildren hunting me.)

To continue - after the lawn the way is through a wild area with teasels, yellow rattle, ragged robin and bedstraw to the top settling pond. This is shown in the picture with the boardwalk wending its way to the Wendy House (R's writing shed). In the water are watercress and reedmace. The shrub to the left is my one surviving amelanchier - the other two have drowned. The hedge to the field below the garden is on the right.

In the far corner the water plunges down a ten foot fall into next door's field. When the stream is in spate you can hear the water roaring as it drops out of the garden.

With all the good food around it seems a pity that fat is not water soluble - I could just stand in the rain for a while rather than diet. Mind you, with this year's weather I would have dissolved and disappeared long ago.
Mmm! I have a feeling there are some people already doing a rain dance.

So this is Christmas,
and what have I done, (in the garden - not a lot),
rain isn't over
and it's not much fun.
Wishing you all - a wonderful Christmas time.

THE SOLSTICE IS COMING

The first picture is the view west from outside the kitchen.

I have just noticed a black bottomless flowerpot with a copper band halfway up the top banking. I have absolutely no idea how it got there but it has come from the veg beds (slug protection). There has been little wind in the last few days and that which there has been is in the opposite direction. I know squirrels can get up to all sorts of mischief but . . . ?

I seem to be feeding all the small birds in the area and the only time they seem scarce is when a neighbours black cat - called by their children Megatron - or the greater-spotted woodpecker comes calling.
The pheasants from last years brood forage under the feeders, seem very relaxed at home in the garden where they were born.

I have discovered solar powered fairy lights for the garden - well, the magnolia stellata by the back door and around the paved area outside the kitchen door. Then I obeyed instructions and left the batteries to charge for three days. Weather very overcast so after three hours one packed in - battery flat. However, once we get to summer and bright sunshine they will be great (except that they only come on when it is dark (and I am asleep)).

The first bulbs are pushing up - some daffs but no snowdrops yet and the yellow pansies in pots are flowering well.
The trellis for the yellow rose on the back wall is done - cost nothing - just some ash poles and string saved from an earlier tree delivery.

I have been trying to find a way to increase the area available for cuttings etc by the window in the shed. My son dumped and old glass-shelved television and video stand on me - just the job. It looks a bit peculiar but functions ok.

No garden work today - today is time for the Doc to be a patient - twice, morning and afternoon. The later one is for an appointment re failing hearing.

What did I say?

Or is that failing - er? - em - Ah! Yes, memory.

Nearly to the shortest day - the day the 'worshippers' at Stonehenge on Midsummer's Day should really be there, welcoming both the end of the old and the start of the new year. But that would be too cold and uncomfortable and so on? Midsummer's Day is when one thinks, "The days are getting shorter again already!'
Not a time of celebration, especially when you know it is going to rain for the next six months.

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?

WHEN AUTUMN AND WINTER COLLIDE

So, one day we are totally Wellied (waterproof Wellington Boots on for those reading this in Russia) and flooded out - and then a hard frost - ice on the pond, clear skies and wonderful stars.

The last leaves are coming off the Great White Cherry and making a many coloured carpet on the path in front of the house. I have left them there for now they look so good but will soon collect them for the leaf mould sack - which I have moved to beside the new compost bins beyond the veg beds.
I have also dismantled the compost heaps by the house and dug over the ground. Then I transplanted a dozen bay trees (the ones I bought as a herb in a pot on the market for a couple of pounds)(there were 27 small bays in one pot)(so I planted them out) and put in then last of the daffodils from the cheap sack.

One snag from removing the compost bays was that I had a bird feeder pole attached to it. This has been move around to the side of the house so I can now see 4 feeders from my desk. However I spent half and hour crouched in the shed scrabbling on the floor as I dropped a feeder full of black sunflower seed and it shed its load everywhere.
Within half an hour of setting up the new feeder pole I was rewarded with the arrival of a male Greater Spotted Woodpecker.

The last tree (well not yet quite big enough for a tree) with leaves is the Liquidambar, so red and determined not to let go.

I have finished the back bed, cleared away dying vegetation, tidied shrubs and removed weeds. The yellow climbing rose's wooden trellis support had rotted so I cut some young ash poles (whilst I can) and made a new one - then tied the rose in after pruning.

In the rose bed the last flowers were struggling on but have now succumbed to the cold. Nevertheless I can usually find a rose somewhere for the Christmas table.

I am behind with everything because of the wet weather and spent some time yesterday repairing the outflow from the top pond - the flooding had washed it away emptying out the water.

It is nearly muck time but first I need to tidy the rest of the flowerbeds. Unfortunately (or fortunately) they are frozen solid. Chickens and eggs, harts and corses spring to mind.

I have just looked out the window - the female Greater Spotted Woodpecker is on the peanuts on the new pole and feeders. In the last ten minutes I have had the woodpecker, Wood Pigeon, blackbird, chaffinch, great tit, blue tit, coal tit, tree sparrow, robin and dunnock outside my room.
No grey squirrels for a while - can the word have got about that they should avoid our garden?

The sun is out, the sky is blue, all is well with the world - until it rains again - possibly tonight - on frozen roads.
Well, I cannot be an optimist all the time!?

DO SLUGS DROWN OR DO BACK STROKE?

Now, some of you have thought that wearing a waste paper basket on one's head is ridiculous - see last blog.

It is the sort of thing I do.
I went down the garden yesterday to get some carrots with a plastic bowl on my head as it was raining.
The sheep in the field completely ignored me!

It is raining again and the vegetable beds are under water, the garden is a river and, in the village, it has burst its banks. I put on waterproofs and great big Wellington boots so I could wander about kicking up the puddles (and unblocking drains). Felt just like a senile Christopher Robin.

Do slugs drown or just do back-stroke waiting for things to get a bit drier - only a bit that is. Snails can seal themselves in their shells so they should be all right - sadly.

The birds have braved the rain and are using the feeders - those under some sort of cover and those in the rain.

If one has a garden one spends a lot of time doing a lot of things in that garden. This year the thing I have done most is look out of windows and plan as the jungle takes over.

And it is so dark - like dusk at midday.
The bad weather is relentless and next year I will only be growing water cress, flukes or no flukes. In fact, one wonders if the weather is a fluke - no it has gone on to long - this is Global Wetting.

My skin is going all wrinkly, (no, not just from age), and I am shrinking, (no, not just from age either).

So, to try and cheer everyone up who lives in this sodden country, (I said sodden), I am putting on a picture of a big red paeony, full of warm colours like the sun.
Now you may well ask what that is, the sun I mean.
Well, as my memory is getting poorer, (yes, from age), and time is passing faster, (ditto), I am trying to remember when I last basked, (no I am not as big as those sharks)(not quite), and came to the conclusion it must have been this year.
I think.
Therefore I am . . . what?

Wet!

OF BATS AND THINGS

In fact, the ash first - we hear much of what will happen to our/my ash woodland but no one has yet mentioned that many of the hedges are predominantly ash. Around here some hedges are almost exclusively ash.

This is a nightmare for farmers trying to keep stock in fields. Invest in barbed wire!

Now to a tale of bats, or a bats tale or .... well. you decide.

The owner of this tale will remain firmly anonymous.

She hates bats.

She sleeps with her bedroom window open and, one night, she heard a fluttering in the house. (She lives alone.) A bat was at large!

The thought of one getting in her hair made her drape a towel over her head as she hurried to the computer and typed in, "How do you get rid of bats?"

She found the answer. 

Take a tupperware bowl and a sheet of cardboard. Place the bowl over the bat and then slide the cardboard under the bowl being careful not to let the bat escape. Then take it somewhere and release it. This is best done at daybreak when the animals are torpid.

Being frightened (yet very brave) she stayed up all night and, as the first light appeared in the east, she put on her jeans and a wicker waste paper basket (over her head so the bat would not get in her hair)(and so she could see through the wickerwork).

She crept downstairs and there by a pot plant on a table was something resembling a dead leaf. Of course, as she had the basket on her head she could not wear her glasses but she thought it was the bat.

She placed the bowl over the thing and slid the cardboard into place. The thing moved. It was the bat.

Now what to do?

She opened the front door and, both hands occupied, set off down the road, the waste paper basket still on her head. It was a good thing it was very early in the morning.

Finally she found a garage door with a gap at the bottom and popped the bat inside.

Then she hurried home, forgetting to take the basket off her head till she had shut the door.

Now, I have asked the person in question for permission to publish this and she has reluctantly consented.

To move on - here is a siskin (I think) sheltering from the rain under the eaves of one of the sheds - even the birds are fed up with the weather.

At least it picked a place with plenty of food.

And autumn is done.

Winter has come in mid November. (And it will last until March.)

Wooly combinations on, wood burning stove lit, lumberjack cap with earflaps at the ready, gloves and Wellies by the back door.

Still loads to do in the garden.

I am getting my knees wet praying for a few dry days (for a change).

So, I know what I want for Christmas -

SUNSHINE!!

POEMS AND KNEES AND THINGS

First the big news - I have come third in the Gardeners' World Magazine Poetry Competition - and won £50 of gardening vouchers. Perhaps there is a little self wish fulfilment in the poem - what a way to go. (Not so nice for those who find me though.)

So what do I spend it on? It will not be on my knees even if I am. One replacement down, the other can wait (and wait).

It will not really go a long way. Get someone in for half a day to strim? Buy a few plants - no that has been vetoed for now by R who says we have enough in the garden and I can divide and do cuttings etc. A new trowel - do not need it - a pot with a lid to hide in the garden and put my whisky in for tots on cold days - am joking - on the other hand . . .

It is now time for tidying and clearing and weeding and getting the beds ready for the winter.
Autumn colours are all but over and it was misty and very still this morning, not a breath of wind.

The whole garden is going to sleep - well, not quite true - birds, rabbits and some plants are very awake. The sarcococcus is in bud as is the winter-flowering honeysuckle. Plants like roses struggle on and the marigolds offer blazes of yellow here and there.

The pots filled with tulips have been topped with bright yellow winter pansies and, after nipping out the flowers when planted, they are now blooming and lighting up the area around the house.
Hopefully they will do so all winter.

The last autumn leaves are still on the Great White Cherry and the Liquidambar.

From my desk I can, once more, 

see through the wood to the top where the ash trunks are grey in the mist.

So, it is start at one end time, work through the garden and, Oh yes, I have not made the new tops for the cold frames - urgent! I have not drained the cassis from the jars and rebottled it. I have not, I have not . . . etc.

And the poem -

SHEDDING TIME

April crosses the lawn,

swings shadows over the grass.

In a potting shed,

rotting at the back planks,

a kettle boils

on a gas ring.

He hefts a tea-bag

into a mug,

dribbles milk and stirs

till bricklayer brown.

Deck-chair stripes swing,

sink, settle.

He watches a spider

crouching behind the dibber

watching him, waiting.

He turns on the Test,

listens to tales of cake

and occasional cricket

and drowses,

lulled by the drone of the commentator,

warm sun through the webbed window

and the roar of the bees

on the rosemary by the door.

England collapse.

The tea goes cold

and skins.

Shadows creep over him.

The rise of his waistcoat

falls and stills.

Woodlice scurry,

disturb dust.

THE BURNING OF THE LEAVES

So our Government has a sense of humour!!!

Their advice to gardeners to burn their ash leaves because of this fungus is just as stupid as imagining there is anything we can do to stop the spread of die-back.

We have at least ten mature ash trees in our garden, especially in the wild woodland area. Burning is as ridiculous as thinking I could collect the leaves in the first place.

If the plague reaches us as I suspect it will I will, also, not be burning the wood, well, not immediately. No doubt I will have to get a fellow who fells to take the trees down. However the wood will be logged and stacked for the wood burner. By the time our trees become victims the disease will be endemic, if not already. So, I pray that our lovely ash are immune knowing they will not be. They provide us with welcome shelter from the prevailing winds and, though the come into leaf last and drop first, I much prefer them to the sycamore that seems to get eberywhere.

Now to other things like rushing out into the garden between the rain and the rain.

The two thornless hawthorns came and have been planted and staked. I hope they will grow to form an arch over a strip of grass leading down to the lower lawn.

 This year’s wallflower seedlings have been munched to almost nothing but I have noticed last year’s are magnificent. Wallflowers are really small shrubs and, if looked after, will flower for a year or two or more. Last year’s crop are now two feet tall and bursting with promise.

At the moment I am writing this as an excuse to come out of the garden. Some plants are dangerously invasive and I have been trying to extract Japanese anemones from a rose bed. This has proved impossible and I am sure bits are left to reveal themselves next year - then I will have to do a second weed.

Into the hole where the anemones were have gone the lilies from last year’s big pot.

Next to the outside table, on the paved area by the house, I plant a big tub with lilies so we can enjoy the flowers, bask on the scent and get the pollen all over our clothes. What lilies - for myself there is only one - the gorgeous Lilium regale, ten in a tub.

There is some discussion as to whether they should be potted up now or in the spring. The idea being that, in the spring they will not have had to survive a winter. I have found that, if you plant them deeply, there seems to be no problem - and was none in the two hard winters we had.

When I was dumping the barrowful of anemone roots in a distant corner of the garden - they may survive there and will not be a threat I found the old golden autumn fruiting raspberry canes I had also dumped a few years ago and they had fruit. A bit sour but really raspberryish. It is just that my head cannot get around the colour and R does not like them so they are, affectively, a wild surprise.

Had my break - must go into the garden and pick up all the ash leaves - see you next spring!