Hints of spring, EOMV January -16

It’s still stormy season on the British Isles and storm Gertrude has just passed whilst storm Henry is waiting in the wings and will land on us on Monday. Here in the relatively quiet corner of the South-East we are not so affected by bad weather in general and storms in particular and although it is windy every time we have a new storm, nothing has been damaged in my garden and I have had no flooding issues to worry about. But parts of my garden seem to have rather bad drainage and are now so soggy after all the rain that I try not to walk in those beds for now. Other parts of my garden, especially under the two tall ceanothus’ trees are still bone dry and will need to be watered as soon as I get some plants in the ground. When that will be is an open question....work has been slow the last month. It has been cold and wet and the number of days possible to work outside rather few and far between. Hopefully February will bring more good days – I don’t mind it being cold, that’s just a question of putting on the right type of clothes – it’s the rain I can’t cope with, getting wet makes me too cold. When it rains I am stuck inside watching my garden through my windows, just aching to get outside again.

The sunshine Saturday was very welcome, it was like a nice spring day and I can already feel the sun taking a bit better than a month ago.

I have started cutting down my roses, not got round to all of them yet, but they are shooting like mad so it’s not a day too early. Hopefully I will get the rest of them done this week, but I always feel sad about the buds going in the compost bin. There is no point where I could prune my roses without sacrificing flower buds so it’s best to just get on with it – must be done!

I am still pondering about what to do with this area in front of the two raised beds, it is in prime, sunny position, but very close to the apple tree so I don’t want to plant anything with very invasive root system. It is also right next to the seating area so should be pretty and full of flowers all year round. Still pondering what to put here.... :-)

And next to that area, actually right under the apple tree is a group of Helleborus niger and some cyclamens I have raised from seed.

The hellebores are basking in the sunshine and have been flowering for weeks now.

Someone else basking in the sunshine is the neighbour’s cat. He has become a frequent guest here since my own cat died 7 weeks ago. I know cats can detect a lot of information about other cats from the smell they leave – like how old the cat is, their gender and how long ago it is since the cat was there. I guess my neighbour’s cat now feels free to come into the garden again since my cat is no longer here – and I don’t mind as long as he stays outside, I am not adopting an adult cat, even though he is quite friendly :-)

My strawberries are growing well, those that hasn’t been damaged, destroyed or simply nicked by the squirrels! Here the other day I was outside and I suddenly saw a squirrel with its head buried in one of my pots of strawberry cuttings. I went towards it to shoo it away, and the squirrel stopped for a moment and looked at me as to think ‘what do I do know?’ And instead of just running away, it took the whole little strawberry plant OUT OF THE POT and took it away. I stamped my foot and charged towards the squirrel to get it to drop my little strawberry cutting, but the squirrel took the cutting in one hand, ran up the big cherry tree and sat there on a branch, looking at me while munching on the new shoot of the strawberry cutting. Little ba****d!

I have finished ONE bed in my garden since last EOMV post, this little bed has been a work in progress since last summer – but now it’s finally finished. I inherited the lilac in this bed, it was a tall, straggly lilac in the middle of the lawn that was here originally. Last autumn I pruned the lilac down to half and I intend to keep it at this height. The solar powered blossom tree will probably be moved when the bed against the wall is ready, but it can stay here for now.

Towards the back I have planted 10 heucheras, I have picked off all dead leaves and some of them have no leaves left so you can’t really see them all on this distance – but there are 10 here.

At the front I planted 8 daylilies last autumn and they are either evergreen and have been here all winter, or on their way up now. In between there are many hundred crocuses in blue, white and blue/white stripe – there are also 12 hyacinths and many hundred snowdrops too, both single and double.

I have planted all the spring bulbs rather deep in the hope that they will be left mainly in peace by the squirrels, the bulbs are therefore rather slow to come up compared to those in pots – which the squirrels have decimated to extinction in terms of the crocuses. In this bed are also two large dahlias to emerge later in the spring and they will flower all summer and autumn until first frost. This is a bed for 52 weeks flowering and will never be empty, just like I used to plant in my previous garden.

The first crocuses are here, nothing sets me in the right mood for spring like cheery crocuses!

Not much has happened in this area since last time, but all the plants to the left are destined for the bed to the right.

There is just a small matter of some plants that were here before – and their huge roots that need digging out. In this bed there are 5 plants from before, most of them have probably been here more than 10 years, most of them tall shrubs, taller than me - so the roots are probably quite big. A huge task for my achy joints and I need to do just a little bit now and then to cope with the work. I usually pour a bucket or two of water into the hole when I go outside and then I do something else for an hour or two, when I come back to the hole it’s easier to sit on my garden stool and dig a bit further as the ground has softened up. On this photo is what I have been digging out on 2 different days, at this rate you can see why I have still only got 3 roots out of the ground in my garden. But I will get there eventually!

Here in this shade bed under the ceanothus’ I have planned for all the hellebores to go, along with the rest of the woodland plants. Helleborus hybridus 'Picotee' is already planted here.

A cyclamen is enjoying the sunshine, I do too!

It is the big birdwatch weekend in UK right now, it’s amazing to see the difference between birds in my garden here and in my previous garden – only 2.3 miles away. I have lots of birds here in my new garden, birds in all sizes, blue tit,  great tit, robins, sparrows, dunnock, blackbird and magpie. In my previous house I had 6-7 collared doves on my roof all the time, all year round. I do wonder if they scared the smaller birds from landing in my garden. Mind you, the doves are here too, sitting in the big cherry tree next to my garden.

They remind me a bit of vultures, perching like this, permanently looking down and watching everything going on in the garden. They are frequent guests at the birdfeeder on the ground and I hope that when I remove it later in the spring, the doves and pigeons will go somewhere else. The larger birds do some damage now and then, but not as much as the squirrels though.

I do wonder who’s taking a liking to my plant labels though?! I never had this problem in my previous garden but here they are disappearing at an astonishing rate! I end up with pots I have no idea what is and now I have resorted to put labels like this into those I can’t even guess what is, just so I won’t plant them until I am completely sure – I just have to wait for flowers, or possibly just some leaves and I will know, but at the moment I haven’t got a clue.

I had another count of pots here the other day, just wanted to know the final count after getting rid of all my fuchsias and planting up all the strawberry plants in December, and losing plants to vine weevils over the summer and autumn – mind you, I am STILL finding pots with vine weevil grubs, those nematodes are not exactly a wonder cure – well, since moving house and arriving with almost 700 pots there has been a lot of loss but some gain too. Counting all the pots and planters, from the largest with my magnolia tree to the smallest seedling pots I have now got 572 pots. And I have planted lots already of the original amount I took with me, lots of plants and lots and lots of pots with spring bulbs. I definitely need to speed up planting, I am NOT watering 572 pots another summer. But the plants still left to go in the ground are mostly doing well, I will do another run of vine weevil nematodes in March when the soil is warm enough, and this time I think I will do it twice with 3 weeks apart, never done that before, but that will get rid of any unhatched eggs that didn’t die the first time. Might be well spent money, nematodes are expensive, but I can’t keep losing plants like this ever again.

Mind you, when I said most plants are doing well....I turned my back to these 20 pots of primroses for a moment, and look what happened. They were all fine 6 weeks ago. The tiny slugs are terrible at this time of year so I might have to pop in some slug pellets in these pots to keep them from being decimated. And they all need to be picked down to bare minimum, off with all the old, the brown and the dead bits and they will soon be flowering and look nice. After I have finished with the roses this will be my next task.

And finally, an update since my last post – my apple tree looks exactly the same. I will try to find someone to help me with this, but I realise I will have to do this soon if I am to do any pruning at all this year.

The top branch in this photo is from the apple tree, the bottom branch is from the plum tree, these two trees are at opposite ends of the garden, but I have merged the two photos in Photoshop. As you can see it won’t be long before they are getting their leaves out – what better sign of spring! I can’t wait to have apple blossoms in my garden for the very first time.

As this is my End of Month View there is a movie from my garden today too, I filmed it Saturday the 30th January, in glorious sunshine and I could just smell spring all around me. Today, Sunday as I am writing this, it is exactly 4 weeks and 2 days until we officially have spring according to the meteorological calendar, and that date is what fits best for London where I live. The movie is showing the emerging growth and buds in my garden and the plants in flower right now, note for example the lilies emerging 3 months too early, and all the herbaceous daylilies well on their way up. - absolutely best viewed in HD and full screen.

I hope you enjoyed the beautiful music, it was Salve Regina by Hermann of Reichenau, sung by a choir called Lyric Singers. I am linking today’s post to Helen at The Patient Gardener’s Weblog.

Until next time, take care.