Through the garden gate--November

The garden is slowly settling down for the winter. As I look around there is still colour to be found, from stems, leaves starting to go over and flowers still struggling on. There were some amazing leaf colours from trees which I gazed on briefly only for them to have blown away a few days later.

I have done an autumn tidy up. Just a little one as I like to leave a lot for the wildlife over the winter. But the garden looks better for it. I love to see the seed heads of plants gone over, a reminder of their summer display.

There are still some plants which are making an attempt at flowering again, little flashes of colours amongst the foliage-- a bit of blue lavender and campanula, pink geranium and as for the Rudbekias, well they are still going strong as is the fuchsia in the front garden. The grasses are looking good, this time of year they give some welcome colour and interest to the garden borders.

I'm feeding the birds most days now and they are often to be seen perched on the fence in the morning waiting for their food. In the back garden there are groups of starlings, pigeons, doves and magpies with the occasional blackbird. In the front garden the sparrows and blue tits are active in the shrubs. 

I bought some white hellebores this week to make some Christmas pot displays on the garden bench, they seem to be becoming a popular plant for this time of year. They are lovely.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post

Allotment catch up

We went to the allotment three times in the last week. That's quite a lot for January. But we were making the most of fine weather to get the last of the beds cleared, weeded and mulched. It was good to get down there, the days are very dreary in January and to get out in the fresh air and do some exercise in the form of hoeing, shovelling and barrowing manure and compost made us feel much better.

It's very quiet down the allotments at the moment, not many people about. Some we won't see yet until March when the growing season starts again. This time of year though, is a good time to catch up on maintenance jobs. Like mending fences, making new beds, sorting out a new allotment.

The birds were glad to see us, we hadn't filled up the feeders for a while.  We have probably now refilled them three times in the last week.

There's always something to do on the allotment, but at this time of year there isn't the rush to get seeds sown or plants in the ground or the feeling that there is so much to do we'll never get through all the jobs. So we can take our time, make the most of leisurely visits to the plot and think about this year's growing plan.  

Leighton Moss

I joined the RSPB a few weeks ago so was keen to visit one of their reserves in our area. Leighton Moss is not exactly in our area it's about an hour's drive up the M6 but I'd always wanted to visit.  As it was school holidays and we were looking after the grandchildren we thought it would be a good day out.

On arrival at the visitor centre we were made very welcome and as we had never been before were shown a map of the reserve on a computer screen and told which birds or animals we might see in different places.

There were a lot of professional looking birdwatchers about with big expensive looking binoculars and cameras. I kept my tiny binoculars well hidden and only took photographs when there was no one else about.  The 8 year old was given a children's backpack to look after which he appeared to take quite seriously. He had better binoculars in the backpack than I had. He didn't take a lot of interest in the rest of the contents of the backpack except when I suggested we tried to catch something in the bug catcher.  He found a spider in one of the bird hides but my attempt to catch it resulted in it being squashed.  He lost interest after that and I was not very popular.

The 11 year old was put in charge of doing the 'love birds trail' which was the children's activity for that day. We had to find the information boards for various birds and find out what their mating activity was ie sound, food, movement. That was easy.

We walked along the reed bed paths which led to the bird hides, followed at first by several pheasants.  We recognised various birds along the way, spotted nest boxes on trees, a hedgehog home and noticed how branches had been piled up in places to provide homes for wildlife.  I've done that at home in the garden and at the allotment so was pleased to see I was doing things right.

After a time walking and checking out the bird hides I could see the children were losing interest.  Hunger was taking over and we needed to get back to the car for our picnic lunch.  There were picnic benches close to the centre but it was not a day to eat outside.  It was cold, damp and the benches were wet so we settled for eating in the car.

After lunch we explored the garden area and all agreed it would look lovely later on in the year when things were growing properly. I liked this area, there was plenty to interest the children. There was a big bird feeding area where we watched the birds and the squirrel on the feeders.  The children walked through a willow tunnel structure and then sat inside a big tepee made out of thick branches under the trees. We thought we could copy that idea in the woodland den back at the allotment. There was a big bug hotel called 'Bugingham Palace' It was much bigger than our bug hotel at the allotment.

After another walk we went into the shop.  The children had some money to spend and each chose a fluffy bird which made a bird noise when pressed and a bird pen.  They had a blue tit and an owl which made very realistic noises.  I was worried that we would have to suffer these bird calls on the journey home but thankfully both children fell asleep. We must have tired them out.

Watching and waiting

There's a lot of watching and waiting going on in the garden and the allotment  at the moment. I'm watching the weather each day to see if it's OK to dig or hoe the soil. Can't do that if the soil is frozen. I'm watching the weather reports --waiting for the weather to warm up, planning the week ahead--can we go to the allotment? Is it going to be dry? We 've actually had some really lovely dry days this last week . Cold but not enough to stop us working, and sunny too. There's so much I want to do but it's too early. But there are other things I can do while I'm waiting.

I've been watching for signs of Spring--new shoots emerging . And I've seen them! In the woodland garden at home the crocus are there almost ready to flower, the hellebores are flowering and the daffodils are poking their heads through the soil. So are the bluebells, but that's a few months away yet. At the allotment the primroses are flowering under the big tree and the bulbs pots I planted last year are emerging again--mini daffodils, crocus, snowdrops.

I've been watching the birds. There are lots about in the garden and the allotment. I have put up some bird feeders on the allotments. Plot 8 is just so full of birds it's wonderful to watch them in the hedge and on the feeders. There are sparrows in the privet behind the shed--so much activity there. There are birds in the shed roof too, we can hear them. I joined the RSPB after I'd done the Big Garden Bird Watch and I got a bird nest box as part of my new members pack. Richard fixed it to the big tree so we will be watching for signs of activity in there.

Watching and waiting. The allotments are quiet at the moment but there is a feeling that something will happen soon. The weather will warm up and work will begin. This waiting time is good in a way because it gives us chance to catch up with other jobs which sometimes get neglected when there's a lot of sowing, planting and growing to do. This week I have been cutting back a spirea which grows  against the fence in different places around the plot. In some places it's a bit of a nuisance, it seems to have taken over and gets in the way when we are working. So I've cut it right back and I'm going to plant something like a clematis or honeysuckle which will scramble along the fence between ours and the next door plot. I've also done some work in the woodland garden at home, clearing up debris, cutting back and planting  snowdrops. My next job is to clean out the growhouses.

Soon everything will burst into life and all the hard work will begin, in the meantime I'm enjoying the peace and calm that the watching and waiting brings.

 

Raspberry time

This morning on my garden walk about, I noticed the first raspberries were ripe. Time to get out there and pick them before the birds do, I thought. Time to pick them before the grandchildren spot them too. I don't mind sharing with either of them, but I like to get a good amount, some to eat fresh, some to freeze. So for the next two or three weeks I will be checking daily for ripe raspberries.  I scrambled about amongst the swaying branches thinking they seemed to have grown an awful lot recently and realised I'd not tied the canes to the frame which Richard had made earlier this year. That's another job to add to my 'to do' list.

I got a small amount of raspberries from these first pickings. I gave them to the grandchildren as an after school treat with ice cream. I think they will love me forever.

Wildlife on the allotment

I thought our garden had a lot of wildlife, but our allotments are even better. Plot 8 has hedging all around the boundaries and a big sycamore tree at the top.  All of this provides shelter and food for the birds.  Outside and across the lane is the woods, which must be heaving with wildlife. We often sit with a cup of tea, quietly watching and bird spotting. We have seen, long tailed tits, blue tits, greenfinches, goldfinches, even grouse. The robin follows us around as we work, there are sparrows, blackbirds and chaffinches.  There are frogs and toads which we often come across when weeding, hiding under bricks or sheltering in a clump of big weeds. The pond has tadpoles early on, but our disappointment is always when we get a spell of dry weather and the pond dries up.

Plot 10b doesn't have much  in the way of hedging, although there is a buddleia and a holly, both of which are good shrubs to attract wildlife.  We are planting up a border there with perennial plants which will attract bees and butterflies and have put some climbing shrubs--ivy, honeysuckle, cotoneaster and clematis along the front to climb against the wire fence.  There are nettles and brambles on both plots, I get rid of those which encroach on our space, but like to leave a clump or two up near the fences where we don't grow anything.

The plots are buzzing with bees at the moment, there are ladybirds and we have started to spot butterflies.  At the moment we are seeing the orange tip butterfly which is mostly seen during May.  I often wonder what happens to it after May because we don't see it later on in the year.

Some of our wildlife though is not as welcome.  We have recently been troubled with moles and on arrival at the plots usually have a look around to see where they have dug up overnight. Their latest atrocity has been the seed beds where I have sown flowers for my cut flower patch.

Even more unwelcome visitors are the rats.  There have been lots of them recently. We see them in the communal manure heap on the lane, but also on our own plots around the compost bins. They have got very cheeky and don't seem the least bit frightened of us. It's good to see though that Ziggy our allotment cat is earning her keep--nearly every day last week we found a dead rat on the path.

Another unwelcome bit of  wildlife was spotted this week in the shed on plot 8.  It was a tiny grey ball like structure with a hole in the base, situated up near the ceiling of the shed.  We soon realised it was a wasp's nest after seeing a wasp going in through the hole.  It was carefully removed by my brave husband and placed in the woods across the lane well away from the plot.

After a week of seeing all these 'nasty' creatures, I was finally cheered up firstly by a pretty lacewing which flew gracefully past me into the sycamore tree, looking like a little fairy with its bright, lime green body and delicate, translucent wings. Secondly  I went to look at the pond and was overjoyed to see it was full of water again and there were the tadpoles swimming around happily, having grown much bigger since the last time I saw them.

Cutting down the tree

We've had some work done this week on a couple of our trees.  The main job was to cut down a leylandii conifer which had grown too tall. We'd been thinking for a while that it needed to go.  It was casting a lot of shade across the top of the garden and was taking moisture from the soil around. Trying to grow plants in this dry shade was proving quite difficult.

I was surprised at how quickly the tree came down. I thought about how long it had been in our garden. We'd planted it about 25 years ago, a few years after we'd moved in to the house. It had become a nuisance in recent years and we knew it had to go. But suddenly I became quite sad to lose it. And what about the space left? Well I would have a new planting area, that would be good, I told myself.  Once it had gone, I could see sky where it had been.  I should have been glad about all that light, but I felt exposed, too open.  That's silly, I know, because I'm sure I will love all that extra light when I get used to it. I will be able to grow so much more.

We knew there was an old bird's nest in there and the tree man showed me after the tree had come down. It had been a magpie's nest and it was made up of masses of bits of wire, probably collected from some nearby building work. They seemed to be all wound up together, those magpies must be very skillful.

The tree man cut up some pieces of the trunk for me. My husband is going to hollow them out a bit for me so that I can grow things like sedums in them.  This is an idea I got from other gardens we've visited.  I also want to use some of the smaller cut up branches to make a bug house and a log pile for wildlife.

The apple tree which you can just about see on the right in this photo was getting a bit squashed by the conifer. It can now be pruned into a better shape, the raspberries will also get more light, so maybe we'll get more fruit from them.

 That's plenty of new projects to keep us busy  for the next few months.

Happy birds

There's a blackbird in our garden who is very brave and hops onto the bird table as I'm putting the bird food out every morning. I always say 'hello' to him and then he gets a bit scared and shoots off into the hedge. There's a robin too who follows me around when I'm gardening. I see him perching on the wheelbarrow or pecking away at the newly weeded soil and he makes me feel quite happy, like he's looking after me.

The robin and the blackbird are just two of the many birds who visit our garden every day.  There are some collared doves  who arrive as a group, they're fairly calm and quiet. Unlike the very greedy starlings who seem always to be squabbling. The  magpies are like bovver boys, strutting across the lawn, wobetide anyone who gets in their way!  The  woodpigeon is another scary bird who will perch on the nearby garden chair or table surveying the scene as if he owns the place.  There are blue tits, coal tits, long tailed tits, sparrows, dunnets, a chaffinch and the robin, who wait until the big birds have gone before they come to feed on the remaining food.  Then there are the occasional visits we get from a thrush, a couple of nuthatches, a jay and some goldfinches ( I wish they would stay, I really do).

I suppose I feel like all these birds are part of our family, because I know them so well. They seem to be very happy, as my daughter commented the other day when she heard the noise of twittering birds coming from the holly tree. Because they seem so happy and because there are so many of them  makes me think that I must be doing all the right things. Well I spend a lot of money on food for them. My husband says they are better fed than we are!

We have feeders in various places around the garden.  Some are in the apple tree at the top end of the garden. There is a bird table with feeders on nearer the house and another feeding area, a stone platform which was originally intended to be a seat for us but the birds took it over (sigh).

The garden itself has plenty of mature trees, shrubs, and a hedge where the birds can hide, nest and feel secure.  The apple tree provides enough apples for us to share, we leave a lot of the fruit where they fall. There are plenty of perennial plants in the borders which I don't cut back in the autumn.  I leave them until late winter, so that the birds can find food in the winter from the seedheads and insects.

I put out sunflower hearts ( not the black sunflower seeds which make a lot of mess), dried mealworms, suet pellets and the 'no mess' bird seed. There are feeders filled with peanuts, mixed seed, niger seed (for the goldfinches) and fat balls. Feeding areas need to be kept clean because birds can get all sorts of disease, so I clean the feeders and feeding areas with disinfectant every so often.

We get a really good view of the birds from our dining room window and I love to sit there with a cup of tea watching them.  There are squirrels too, their antics are quite amusing, but we could do without them really, they eat a lot of the birds' food and dig up the garden.

Next weekend I am taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch. If you want to take part just click on this link   http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/

For more information about feeding the birds in your garden click on this link
http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/feeding/

or  :http://www.wildaboutgardens.org/thingstodo/allyearround/feed-the-birds.aspx

The holly tree

We have a holly tree in our garden, which I am keeping a close eye on at the moment.  It's more of a big bush than a tree. I don't know how old it is but  it was well established when we moved here 27 years ago.  It's become quite a character in the family's eyes. It sits there outside, a few feet from the dining room window. Over the years it's been cut back from time to time when it's got so big it's obscured our view of the garden.  One year we decided to cut out the lower branches, which made it look more like a tree than a bush and we discovered we had a whole new area of garden to work on underneath.  So I under planted it with euphorbias, vinca and ferns. The neighbour's cat hides amongst the undergrowth and Dave the hamster is buried there.

There has never been very many  berries until a few years ago when it suddenly decided to produce them in abundance every year. I've heard it said that it's a sign of a bad winter if there are lots of berries on the holly bushes. Well the last 3 winters have been  pretty bad here in Lancashire and probably everywhere else in the country.  That seems to have coincided with the holly berry production.

It's not just our family who love our holly tree.  It's also loved by the birds.  There is always lots of activity around the tree.  Birds fly in and out and inside there seems to be always lots of rustling and  twittering. It also provides food for them. No doubt there are lots of insects in there, but also there are the berries, the birds love the berries. This year there seems to be more berries than usual.

That is why I am watching the bush very carefully.  Every day I look at the holly and admire the clusters of berries which I have watched gradually turn from pale green to orange and now  to red.  They are beautiful and I keep thinking how wonderful it would be at Christmas to cut some of those branches and bring them in the house to arrange in a big jug or vase.  I dream of seasonal evergreen arrangements, a wreath on the front door, a table decoration maybe.  But I know it's going to be a race between me and the birds.  Who will get to the berries first? Probably the birds will.  By mid December the branches could be stripped of those juicy berries.

But I live in hope and as soon as December arrives I shall be out there with my secateurs. I will leave some berried branches for the birds. I wonder if they would leave any for me.

What a difference 2 weeks makes

I was longing to see the garden again as we returned from holiday a few days ago.  There were some lovely surprises, the sunflowers, dahlias, heleniums, anthemis, liatris were all flowering.  The helenium and dahlias were new plants this year so it was good to welcome them into the garden.

The pink border was looking pink and the yellow border was was looking yellow, so they were behaving themselves well and I could see gaps where more colour was needed. There are still more plants to flower, like the sedums and the rudbekia which will enhance the colour schemes.  I'm quite pleased that the colour effects I'm trying to achieve seem to be working. Maybe a trip to the garden centre is needed to fill in those gaps.  Some plants looked as if they had grown about 2 feet taller, like the marguerites and the phlox.

At first as I wandered around I thought there was loads of work to do,  2 weeks growth, made the garden a bit jungle like and overgrown.  But on closer inspection everything was doing well and all that is needed is some deadheading.

The only casualty seems to be my 'Margaret Merrill' rose whose leaves have  gone brown and another one 'English Miss' whose leaves are going a strange colour. Don't know what's going on there, but I've never been very good with roses.

The birds seemed to have deserted us.  Before we went away the garden was full of bird life--on the feeders and tables, in the hedge and trees and generally hopping about everywhere.  Obviously once they'd emptied the feeders, they went to find food elsewhere.  But in the last few days since we've returned there are birds gradually coming back.  I've seen blue tits, the robin, the sparrows, doves and the magpie.  And as I write this blog, I can see a lot of activity on the bird table and a female blackbird perched on the garden chair.

There seem to be a lot of butterflies about now, peacocks especially.  We have a buddleia bush which they love and there are other flowers soon to bloom which will attract more.

So generally, everything in the garden is looking good and we can do what one should do at this time of year--wait for the sunshine and sit back and enjoy!