Bad Garden Birdwatch

It's the same every year.

For days either side of the last weekend in January, the garden positively flutters with avian activity.  Little tits peck the peanuts, chirpy flocks of sparrows throw the seeds they don't like out of the feeders for dunnocks and chaffinches to peck at below.  Goldfinches sweep in, sometimes eight or more at a time, twittering and squabbling to get to the niger seeds.  A flock of long-tailed tits, chippering and chiming, might surround the fat balls for a lively feeding session, before going on their way.  The robin sings, the wren darts about in the hedges.  Keen-eyed blackbirds hunt for worms on the lawn, collared doves call from on top of the chimney pots and the woodpigeons, nicknamed Hilary and Tom, get romantic under the pear tree*.

Sometimes, a magpie or a pair of jackdaws drop by.  Crows have nested in the birch tree in the garden that backs onto ours (I'm not saying their nest was a mess, but I don't think they watch Grand Designs).  A greater spotted woodpecker puts in an appearance a few times a year.  Occasionally, we've seen a fieldfare, feasting on the cotoneaster berries, and once - the day after BGBW day, of course - a pair of siskins.  Greenfinches were regular visitors but sadly, no more.

Yesterday, one coal tit, one blue tit, a dunnock and three sparrows were 'it'.  To be fair, that wasn't our worst ever birdwatch - in 2013, I saw nothing at all, as you can read here.  Meanwhile, on Twitter, someone posted a photo of a kingfisher in their garden.  I retweeted it, somehow without adding the words 'smug b*st*rd!', although I could have ticked off two Kingfishers this time last week - not in the garden, but along the Macclesfield Canal as we made our way back to base from Congleton on our little narrowboat.  One of the kingfishers has apparently become almost resident at the Heritage boatyard near Scholar Green.  We also saw a stunning male kestrel on that journey - all too quick for the camera, of course.

It'll be interesting to see what turns up tomorrow!

*Welfare rights lit spoiler!

An Early Spring

A brief spell of snow

I've recently started using Twitter and, since I understand 'little and often' is the way to make this work, have been browsing through old posts on this blog - and 'the political one' and 'the writing one' - to see if any are worth recycling.  There are a few likely candidates, especially after the revelation on the 'Indy's' site that a photo of a tater recently sold for $1.  While 'The Million Dollar Spud' sounds like a very good title for a short story, the tater in the photo seems a fairly undistinguished example of its kind and I'm sure that with a little more attention to lighting, one of my Highland Burgundy Reds or Kestrels, or the notorious Pink Fir Apples, could look a good deal more exciting. 

One thing I noticed was that my early posts tended to be shorter than the more recent ones, more frequent and with more photos, as their main purpose was to promote the gardening business.  With gardens already bursting into bloom in the wake of our mild winter and the axe hovering over funding for my 'indoor' job, that seems a sensible format to revive.

First snowdrops

Clusters of snowdrops are already in flower in the back garden borders though not yet in the front, which is a little more exposed.  There are at least two distinct cultivars but, as both were growing here when we moved in, I haven't confidently identified either.  Those above are the slightly shorter of the two.

Double hellebores

This year, they complement the hellebores rather nicely.  These have been starting to come into flower since before Christmas but are now in their prime, very early.  This time last year, despite another fairly mild winter, they were only just coming into bud.

One of the main advantages of doing this blog is that I can keep track of when particular plants bloom or fruit from year to year to see if things really are changing.  I see my best hellebore photos from 2014 were in a post from 11th March - 2013 and 2012 also have the hellebores in full flower in mid-March, a good six weeks later than this year. 

That they are doing so well so early is both a concern and a relief as the plants seem to have settled well after being split and moved in the autumn.  Some are now visible from the kitchen window, rather than being tucked away out of clear sight in the herb garden.  If I had remembered, there was a special offer on for more (from T&M) at the weekend, but we got back from a couple of days on the narrowboat to unusually good telly on Sunday evening and I forgot.  I'll have to be patient - hopefully the new plants in the front garden will be big enough to split in a few years, if I look after them properly, and there may be another opportunity to snap up some bargain plugs before spring is out.

It's good to have some winter colour and I'm optimistic that late summer will no longer be the usual dull lull, now that I have my young penstemon plants to plug the gaps (last summer's cuttings are still doing well in the cold frame).  I'm going to take some verbena bonariensis cuttings too, since the mild winter has resulted in masses of new shoots on the stalks of last autumn's plants (see above).  I'm glad I wasn't too quick to tidy them up and I haven't got the heart to give the roses the prune they ought to have just yet, as they are still producing flowers!.
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Breaking Bud

Hawthorn flower buds ready to break at Westport Lake, Stoke-on-Trent on 28th December 2015

Happy New Year!

It's resolutions time and one of mine was to spend less time randomly browsing the Internet finding Tory policies to get angry about and more time on my blogs.  At this time of year, this blog tends to get neglected in favour of the 'welfare rights lit' one, 'Benefits, Books and Biscuits', as I allow my fictional characters to chill out in their favourite pub, where they relax between novels, telling tales (making movies this year) and, in the process, keeping keen readers up to date with developments in their lives.  After all, it's not as if there's much going on in the garden...

Except this year, there is a surprising amount of growth.  We seem to be experiencing a peculiar hybrid season with some autumn flowers and fungi still in bloom amid early signs of spring everywhere.  It was a shock to see a dusting of white frost on the garden when I drew the curtains this morning since it hasn't been properly cold at night since,,, probably July, actually.

Rudbekias in flower, South Bank 19th December 2015

We don't have daffodils in bloom up here but, on a pre-Christmas visit to Hampshire and Sussex, found them out in parks and gardens across the south, while rudbekias continued to put on a show under the gaze of the London Eye. When we used to visit family in Cornwall at Christmas, we got used to finding primrose flowers peeking from the hedgerows, due to the mild microclimate of the Lizard peninsula.  This year, they are out much further north and east, along with bright yellow celandines, spotted in the verges of the A24 near Dorking.

Primroses - Southwater, 20th December 2015

In our garden, there are roses still flowering but also 'Christmas roses'.  I split and moved some of my hellebores this year, hoping for a bright display through early spring, but they have been blooming for over a fortnight already.  The winter jasmine is also out and looking much less spindly than usual.  The veg plot continues to produce as if it were autumn - we had a picking of fresh salad leaves from the cold frame with last night's dinner and plan to serve calabrese and romanesco with tonight's meal - unless the purple sprouting broccoli is already ripe.  They surely won't fruit but there are flowers on several strawberry plants.  Again, I despair of a decent rhubarb crop...

Fresh salad for dinner, North Staffs, 31st December 2015

Our recent winter walks have also shown mingled and mangled seasons.  Great crested grebes in fine breeding plumage skim across lakes fringed by woodlands full of fungi.  Hawthorn flower buds await no more than a touch of sunlight to burst open.  On our narrowboat over Christmas we heard blackbirds and thrushes serenading well into the evening and as part of a distinctly spring-like dawn chorus.  Nature is thoroughly confused.  The woodpigeon couple we've nick-named Hilary and Tom (followers of the Solent Welfare Rights Project books will get the reference) certainly think it's time for romance!

Flourishing fungi, Westport Lake N. Staffs 28th December 2015

We're promised a cold snap this week.  Whether this will reset the clock for plants and animals alike, or simply strike down those brave bulbs that have pushed through the soil too soon remains to be seen; most early spring flowers are able to handle a little frost and snow.  Animals and insects that should be tucked away for the winter may suffer badly; migrating birds and the bugs they predate are likely to be out of synch too. 

Great crested grebe, Westport Lake, 28th December 2015

2016 is certainly going to be an interesting year and, as I may have to resume commercial gardening again before long, I must resolve to keep better records of what thrives and what fails in these unpredictable times.

Black Bean Friday?

I haven't been garden blogging for a while but have been spurred to action by something that has shocked me to the core.

Yesterday, on so-called 'Black Friday', my inbox filled with predictable sale mail from companies keen to embrace this American tradition.  Fair enough, if you're tall girl clothing company Long Tall Sally which operates 'across the pond'.  Slightly silly from UK bulb and plant companies J Parker and Thompson and Morgan, who should really stick to advertising their Christmas gifts of indoor bulbs and other plants tortured and confused to flower out of season.

But the Royal Horticultural Social exhorting me to 'make Black Friday a Green Friday' with a selection of special offers?  Say it's not so!  How frightfully un-British of them.  What shocking cad, what utter bounder, in their marketing department thought that was a good idea?  I had a hissy fit of the Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells variety and deleted the message, without pausing to check out the bargains.

American import

I'm certainly not against all things American - my extensive collection of Sarracenia cultivars, boundless enthusiasm for the mighty spud and support for the oft-oppressed grey squirrel surely illustrates that.  My problem with 'Black Friday' is that it is irrelevant with no 'Thanksgiving' to precede it, becoming merely another opportunity to encourage reckless consumer spending on supposed bargains.

I therefore signed up to 'Buy Nothing Friday' the antidote to this hysteria, determined to spend not a penny on the day. The news that we were short of milk and that without a purchase, there could be no midday cuppa forced a relaxation of the rules and permission was also granted for Himself to buy a stamp for his letter to our MP, opposing air strikes in Syria.

Parsnip of Mass Destruction!

"Yes, but how's the garden?" my few followers might wonder.  Better today than tomorrow is the fairest answer, with another spell of very windy, wet weather threatened.  It has, though, been a really good year in many respects, not least due to a highly successful brassica crop from the allotment.  We've enjoyed calabrese, romanesco and, for the first time ever, some very presentable cauliflowers, largely down to Jon's meticulous caterpillar-picking.  The taters also thrived but we have only two squashes, due to the cool, wet start to the summer.

Highland Burgundy Red taters and 'Bob's Beans'

'Bob's Beans' - a black-seeded variety of runner, bred by selective seed-saving by a friend in Hampshire - gave us a fine crop, though we started them late.  As well as enjoying the pods, we cooked and ate some of the seeds as beans, boiling them rigorously and changing the water, and have a few saved for next season.  I have a cunning plan for training next season's runners, so watch this space.  

Natural inspiration

Towpath 'herbaceous border'

A friend has asked me for help and advice regarding turning the boundaries of her large, rural garden into something more attractive - and more effective as a wind-break - than the post-and-wire farm fencing entangled with nettles currently running along them.  We're hindered by the exposed nature of the site, the sheer length of the boundaries, limits on the budget and possibly the worst excuse for 'soil' I have ever encountered, including the sand-and-shingle Hampshire Basin geology on which I grew up.

Ideally, the planting should be robust enough to cope with the occasional browsing by cows (without poisoning them) but without too much attention from humans, and on the north side to have the potential to form a backdrop for a more traditional herbaceous border in due course.  So far, thanks to the squirrels who have raided my nut tree for the past few years only to forget where they buried their loot, we have planted a number of surplus hazel saplings along the south side of the site.  With appropriate pruning and coppicing, they could be layered into a proper hedge in due course.  There is an ample supply of periwinkle on site already which could be transplanted to scramble through it at ground level and honeysuckle would be a good addition to the mix for colour and scent, allowing other wild flowers and trees to naturalise with it.  Briar roses might help with the animal-proofing; I have taken dozens of cuttings this week of this lovely example from my garden, so hopefully some will take and can be added to the 'hedgerow' in a year or two.

Luckily, I should also be able to strike plenty of honeysuckle cuttings from the luxuriant growth in my garden, though I am reluctant to share Ash saplings due to the risk of spreading die-back if it is in our area.  

I was pondering the options for the 'herbaceous border' boundary during a week on the boat, when I noticed how Mother Nature manages to achieve much the look we would like working with wild plants.  Unmown canal towpath sides often support a glorious array of species, especially from mid-summer onwards, so I made a point of snapping a few good examples. 

 

Even the most unlikely 'weeds' such as dock and cow-parsley looked surprisingly attractive amid a mixture of grasses, meadow-sweet, water mint and balsam, suggesting that we could decide to tolerate some of these colourful or architectural plants along with whatever we use for our hedge (more hazel probably, as the squirrel has been busy planting).  Even ragwort looks glorious in late summer sun, but isn't a good choice where livestock are about.

Rose bay willow-herb always looks stunning but has invasive roots, and parachutes its seed everywhere!  However, on the north side of the site, most of the fluff should be blown into the fields rather than the flower beds and any rogues can be dug out if the appear where they aren't wanted.   

 In front of the really wild plants, we could aim to establish a plantable area by building up farmyard manure and grass-cuttings to create something more akin to soil, and plant that with clusters of hydrangeas (again, cuttings have been taken), buddleia (which grows happily on site), dogwoods (it's the right time for me to raid the roundabout at the end of the road for cuttings!), and crocosmia (which grows abundantly on site), establishing a semi-cultivated middle zone of the border capable of fighting off the really wild plants and blending with the less sturdy cultivars that could form the true 'herbaceous border' in front, with space for large drifts of flowers. 

Prairie planting at Trentham Gardens

Whereas the south hedge is primarily a spring and early summer feature, this would be at its best through late summer, autumn and into winter, so the front section would need some earlier flowers to add interest.  Unfussy aquilegia and alchemilla mollis are always available from the garden here, but establishing a depth of soil for spring bulb-planting may take some time!

A typical British summer?

Naturally, I'm being ironic with the title of this post because while it used to be said that a British summer was 'three fine days and a thunderstorm', that seems like blissful predictability compared to our current climate.  While we've had a disproportionate amount of wet, windy and cool weather here in the North Midlands, until very recently my father down in Hampshire was grumbling down the phone to me about water shortage. 

We had our hottest day ever on July 1st 2015, if Wikipedia is to be believed (big 'if' there, I know) but the heatwave soon broke down and since St Swithan's Day (which was pleasantly warm and dry) we've had vivid thunderstorms worthy of a Hammer Horror movie, high winds, nights so cold rural areas were warned of the risk of frost (I used the need to incinerate some confidential waste as an excuse to light the fire) and such heavy showers on Saturday they suggested the arrival of the monsoon and onset of the rainy season.

   

The rain has at least kept the plants lush.  In fact, against the odds, the garden appears to be thriving, though it's no surprise that the Astilbes - happy in damp soil and shade - are having a particularly good year. 

 

The persistent heavy rain eventually wrought destruction on the chairs of our bistro-style patio chairs, bought quite a few years ago, renovated with a pot of Hammerite two summers ago, but finally succumbing to rust this year.  Fortunately, a hinge on one had the good grace to fail when nobody was sitting on it, leaving the seat hanging at an odd angle by way of warning, so we were spared the indignity of having it snap under us and given a cast iron (sorry...) excuse to get a new set. 

The table from the old set makes a great place to display the sarracenia collection safely above slug and snail attack.  I may treat myself to some new saucer pots for them, in place of green but not-so-chic plastic trifle dishes they're sitting in for now.  They prefer to be outside in the summer, where their colours develop better and they make sturdier growth than in the greenhouse.  Although they have taken a battering from the high winds and heavy rain in the last few days, they are still feeding happily...

Dodging the Storm Clouds

Under stormy skies - the back garden in full bloom

I had been planning to plant the last of the potatoes today, but heavy showers of rain and hail are streaming across the Cheshire Plain and it's proving impossible to make progress in the garden between them.  With light evenings and the promise of better weather in the next few days, I've decided that the taters will have to wait and I'll do some writing instead.

  

Clematis montana / Spanish Bluebell and Golden Hop

I was tempted to settle down to a deadly serious politically-focused blog, with the General Election result still fresh and my thoughts not yet collected into a coherent article.  If I wrote that today, it would be a bit of a rant.  As the song goes, it's not easy being Green...

Alternatively, I have the closing chapters of my latest 'Welfare Rights Lit' saga to write, rewrite and edit - arguably, a task I should set to with greater urgency with the new Government pledged to slice another £12 billion from the Social Security budget and my characters still coming to terms with the last lot of 'reforms'.  But you have to be in the right frame of mind to write fiction and today I'm not, so here's a gardening blog post.  Late May/early June is actually when the garden tends to look its best and sunshine between storm-clouds creates particularly good light for photography, so there will be lots of pictures.

The front garden - replanted

After all the digging and shuffling about earlier in the year, the front garden has started to settle down, although the top bed still looks rather empty and I've yet to get the solar fountain for the little pond.  I'm not planning to add extra perennials to the top bed as I want to plant bulbs in the autumn and there should be some unexpected summer colour as turning the soil over has brought a lot of poppy and borage seeds close enough to the surface to germinate, though there are weeds to come out too.

It may be a little short of spring flowers, but the mixture of foliage creates a lovely tapestry of shapes and colours and, with perhaps some long-lived tulips or late flowering narcissi, should improve in future years.

Bramley blooms - one for 'AppleWatch'

Across the driveway, the apple blossom is now in full bloom - the question now is whether to report this to 'AppleWatch'?  Some friends will already know that a few weeks ago when #AppleWatch was trending on Twitter and Facebook, I thought it was a survey of when apple trees were coming into flower rather than the latest must-have gadget!  The plum and pear blossom is long gone, but it appears that our 'Onward' pear may have managed to coincide its flowering with the 'Concorde' and been pollinated for a change - usually it is slightly too early, despite being the same flowering group, through being planted in a sheltered spot against the outhouse wall!

The veggie plot

The back garden has also recovered well from a month of neglect, due to lengthy absences boating to Birmingham and back, with both the flower garden areas and veg plots looking good.  The quantity of flower on the strawberry plants is especially encouraging!  We have just about finished the purple sprouting broccoli, but there is still chard and a good crop of early lettuces in the cold frame propagated from a reduced to clear 'living salad' tray from Sainsbury's.

 

  Reproduction 'sagger' with geraniums / clematis arch

The flower garden area is almost overwhelmed in places by over-exuberant clematis montana, which I was afraid I had pruned back too hard for flowers during the early autumn.  No chance!  I plan to give it a more determined hair cut after it finishes flowering, though this might have to wait if the blackbirds choose to nest in it again this year, as they have done before - one reason that it has got so out of control!  The garden is blessed with lots of birds this year - nothing desperately exotic, but a good contingent of sparrows after a few quiet years and plenty of goldfinches, blue tits and blackbirds. 

  

'Hilary' and 'Tom' / purple aquilegia

Concerning birds, this post wouldn't be complete without a mention of the two wood pigeons who have earned themselves the nicknames Hilary and Tom (after a couple from my stories - that's a minor spoiler if you haven't read them, I'm afraid), on the basis that they are clearly very much in love and often to be found chasing each other around the lawn beneath the pear tree.

In between moments of passion, however, they helpfully hoover up the birdseed that the sparrows throw out of the feeders, which will hopefully avoid that awkward moment when something unexpected turns up in the border!