It’s fox eviction time!

It has been on the cards for a while; I think I have been patient – very patient to be honest. The fox cub is now an unruly 'teenager' and old enough to leave home, the mum has left the den long ago, the sibling cub is long gone or has passed away – mortality is about 50% among urban foxes - thankfully – or else we would be swamped with foxes! So 2 weeks ago one of my garden helpers and her husband were here and we dismantled the smallest of my shed to get access to the large void behind it to clear all the bramble and Virginia creeper behind it.

The longest month of the year

The longest month of the year – January – is over, it has been dark, unusually cold and unusually dry. We still haven’t had any substantial rain, only a little bit here and there, but the coming week is promising a bit of rain now and then so it might help. If we don’t get a couple of WEEKS of rain soon, I fear we will be in trouble by mid-summer.

I have braved the cold weather – which has been almost down to freezing for a couple of weeks....I must have been living for too long here in London, temperatures like 2-3 plus in January (35 F) would have been considered absolutely balmy years ago, now I think it’s pretty cold. But I can’t keep away from my garden for too long so in true Norwegian spirit of ‘There’s no bad weather, just bad clothing’ – I have been out in the garden a couple of hours most days during January.

Happy New Year 2017 from the Serendipity Garden!

The weather is important for a gardener, too much of this that and the other and the whole balance gets skewed - and things get out of order. Last spring we had a lot of rain, much more than usual, but it ended in June and here in London we have not really had any substantial rain at all since June and only a few days with any rain at all. It might be winter on the calendar, and it has been rather cold the last couple of days (just below freezing – which is cold in London!) – but gardening never stops for a bit of night frost, not in my garden. In fact, winter is the busiest time of year in terms of planning, planting and getting new ideas into action. That is – if we could just get some rain! The ground is still too hard to manage any planting so I am planting bulbs in pots and containers for now and hoping for some rain. Soon please!

Gently, gently into autumn – GBBD October 2016

Autumn has arrived in my garden, the nights are getting colder with 8-12 degrees C and the day temperatures are around 14-18 degrees C (46-53/57-64 F). My garden has had to mostly take care of itself the last 2 weeks as I have been battling a very persistent cold that just doesn’t want to go away. I have neglected my garden, my blog and just about everything else I should have done, but I have managed to pull myself outside to water a few times. My goodness I look forward to when it starts raining again!! Two weeks ago I treated all my plants to wine weevil nematodes as yes....I got vine weevils in many pots yet again. A bane of container gardening and with over 500 pots and containers it just seems to be unavoidable. I missed the spring treatment as that coincided with when I had my slipped disks in my back so it is a whole year since last treatment and probably my own fault for the return of the yucky grubs. Once the nematodes are applied, the pots have to be kept moist at all times for the next 3 weeks until the nematodes have done their deed, or they will die. The day after I watered in the nematodes I got the cold. Sods law. I hope the pots have had enough water, another week and I can tip out some of the pots and see if the grubs are dead or still alive. Each treatment cost about £25 so it’s of course vital to not have to repeat it more than necessary. I have joined a subscription scheme so I will be sent nematodes twice a year from now on, a good reminder to get it done once in early spring and once in the autumn. 

Goodbye summer – EOMV September 2016

Here in London we have had a lovely September and a great end to an amazing summer. The late, cold spring and early summer is now a bleak memory and hardly worth thinking of - everything after 16th July has more than made up for the cold period before. Tomorrow we are promised a whole day of rain and showers. Yippy! That will do my garden good. There is no rain on the forecast for the next 10 days after tomorrow so I hope it rains buckets.

Endless London summer – EOMV 2016

It’s the last day of August, the last day of summer and autumn is officially starting tomorrow – but here in London the summer is far from over. We have had the best summer for years, once it finally got going, and the reminiscences of the unusually cold spring and early part of the summer is now a bleak memory. The good weather started on 16th July and today, nearly 7 weeks later I can look back on several short heatwaves with well over 30 degrees and the rest has been in the mid to high 20s. Last week we had 34 degrees a couple of days and for me that’s a bit too high, I am happier in the garden with around 25 degrees C. Despite having had some rain forecasted a couple of times we have only had proper rain once and it was a welcome 24 hours of rain – but that was back in July. Everything is really dry and the ghost of mildew is hovering over my garden, threatening to invade. So far I have managed to stay clear but all the watering is taking its toll. I wouldn’t mind 3-4 days of non-stop rain....

Naming my garden - GBBD April 2016

As a foreigner living in Britain, English is a language I am still learning – even after 17 years here in London. I still bump into words I have absolutely no idea what means and I love looking them up and see their meaning and history. Some words just jump up and down and do a little dance for me when I see them, some words are just hilarious whilst others give me a lump in my throat. Have you heard the word ‘Discombobulate’ before? What a lovely word! And what about haberdashery?? I absolutely love that word too. OK, so the title of this post is naming my garden. I have thought about doing that for a while. Well, to be honest, I have thought about it for many years, but I never really found a good name. I know it is quite common here in Britain to name your house, at least if you live in a countryside cottage or in a somewhat grand house. Naming your house in a council terraced 2-up-2-down in East London would probably have raised some eyebrows, so that was never on my agenda. But my garden? The most important room in my house? Sure! ....But what?

EOMV February 2016

In some places around the world, spring lasts about a week, it is an explosion in nature, the snow melts in record time and suddenly everything is bursting out in green and colours everywhere. In London it is a rather drawn-out affair that lasts about....well, I would say it lasts about 6 months or so, since most years we don’t really get a winter to talk about. Autumn usually ends beginning of December and although it says winter on the calendar, it goes straight into spring mode with spring plants and bulbs emerging from there on. And the official spring starts from 1st March so now I can look back at what kind of ‘winter’ we had: no snow on the ground, and 10 minutes of a few flurries in the air one very late night. That was the snow. As for frost - one frost night in November and one in February where it dipped just barely below freezing in my garden. We might get another frost night next week, but it will probably be another one just barely below freezing, if at all. I realise that London is an exception, just a few miles from here it has been much colder and places like Oxford and Cambridge has had down to minus 7C many times this winter. The day temperature has been lower in February than in December and January, which was unusually mild. It all evens out in the end!

GBBD from a cold January London

Did anyone think we could have summer temperatures to last us all winter?? Well, one can only hope – but alas, all good things come to an end and the last week it has been cold in Britain, bitterly cold. Not just low temperatures but the bone chilling wind here in London makes the around 5 plus Celsius feel like well below zero. To be honest I would rather have proper cold winter weather like in Norway than this raw, cold wind in London. Or, at least your average winter weather in Norway. Mind you, the other day I spoke to a friend who lives in Northern Norway where I used to live from I was 7 until I was 16, that day it was minus 27C there (-16.6F) - ordinary winter weather for January for that area. I suppose everything’s relative! I remember what that kind of weather was like, the coldest I ever experienced was a winter when I was 11 or 12 or so when we had 5 days of minus 40-43 degrees C (43 C is 45.4F). We all went to school, people went to work, life went on pretty much as normal. It was winter. Here in Britain they have huge warning campaigns on TV and radio every time it is about to rain more than a few mm and if there is even the slightest hint of a snow flurry, the amber and red warning signs are flagged up everywhere. I think people get desensitised to all the warnings. They should be used when there is an unusual or dangerous weather event, not just because it will snow or rain. Anyway, that was my way of telling myself that perhaps it hasn’t been so cold after all. Who am I kidding, yesterday it was sooooo cold I didn’t even go outside, I filmed and took photos of the birds in the garden through my kitchen window despite beautiful sunny weather!

Happy New Year from London!

On the list of the most stressful things people do in their life, moving house and staying in hospital come quite high up. I had two hospital stays and moved house and garden, all in the space of 6 months between April and October 2015. I can confirm it really is stressful! I am still not finished in the house, but I finally got kitchen curtains up a week before Christmas, after having been here in my new house for 7 months. The garden will take a lot more time and I have no idea when the last plant will be planted in the ground – it’s just going to take as long as it takes. But I am happy I moved and the new house is much more suitable for me as it is a bungalow so no more stairs to climb and no stairs out to the garden.

EOMV– from a stormy London

November has already had 2 storms here and a lot of bad weather, and UK is now gearing up for a third storm, apparently a really bad one, named Clodagh. First came Abigail and Barney, then we had frost for the first time in....I can’t remember how long ago....2 years? 3 years, perhaps more? To be honest, I can’t remember a frost this early ever before. All my dahlias just blackened and went to mush from one day to the next. I can’t remember that happen ever, if we have had frost it has usually been much later, more like February. Clodagh has already arrived on the west coast, and is said to bring strong winds, rain and snow, here in London it’s just been windy today and I don’t think it will make much impact here, certainly not in my sheltered garden. And there won’t be any snow, the forecast is for 10-14 degrees C at daytime and 5-11 at night. But the wind is bad enough to make gardening a rather chilly experience.

Colourful October in London

Today has been yet another fine October day with lots of crisp sunshine and that slight chill in the air where you are not really sure if you need a jacket or not. I have been outside for a couple of hours and I must have taken my cardigan on and off about 10 times. Towards the end we got a slight drizzle and my cat jumped down from the bench where he had been sleeping and came up to me looking rather indignantly as if it was me who had started the rain. He convinced me to pack up and go inside with him, most likely so that he could get fed slightly earlier than usual. Since my last post I haven’t done much in the garden, to be honest I have hardly been out here as I have been recovering from yet another operation. I am better now, but taking my eye off things for a short while, even just for 10 days, can make a huge difference in my garden.

GBBD - 2 months in my new garden

I don’t really know where the last 2 months have gone, in any case they have gone very quickly! Since moving house I have tried to keep up with all the things that comes with switching address, and despite only moving 2.3 miles down the road, it is an astonishing amount of work involved. Add to that all the things this house has thrown at me since moving in – currently I have no working shower as the pump isn't working properly and I am waiting for a plumber/electrician to fix it, last week the sewer was blocked for the whole street and Thames Water had to come out in the evening and unblock it. What will be next....I just want a shower and a hair wash. Soon.

The sweetest mice for a garden

We have had a nice week of quite warm weather and sunny spells, top temperature of 23 degrees C, not exactly summer but a very nice change from the below 10 we had for weeks on end.

A bird obsession looming?

Over the years I have seen so many impressive photos of birds on people’s gardening blogs, and I would really like to take some myself - would make a nice change from all the flower photos I usually take in my garden. I have realised that in order to take successful bird photos you also need to feed them, as by feeding the birds you have a way of getting the birds come to you.

The Big Garden Birdwatch 2013

The Birdwatch was announced as the week-end of the year when gardeners all over Britain could help and get involved in something that really counts – counting birds in our gardens. I haven’t participated before, I haven’t even had bird feeders out in my garden before, but just after Christmas I decided that I wanted to try catch some nice photos of the birds I can hear around here, but never really see. I bought a bird feeder and some nice all-year bird food and waited for the birds to come running – flying.

Where are the birds?

Over the last 2 years I have visited and become friends with many bloggers around the world, and many of them take photos of birds in their gardens and surroundings. I must admit I don’t know much about birds – very little in fact. But I have often admired the wonderful photos of feeding birds in other people’s gardens and wished I could take similar photos. So, one of my plans for 2013 was to do something about that.