A bright sunny day! And mild too! We just had to spend it in the garden clearing away old leaves and flower stems of perennials, finishing pruning the climbing roses and as the grass was dry giving it a quick skim over with the mower. A bit of early Spring cleaning. As we worked our way around we sere periodically stopped in our tracks by the sight of colourful flowers.
My blog reporting on “A January Wander around the Allotments” was all about the cold, as my wander then was on a bright, sunny but cold day with the thermometer registering minus five. Today my wander was a real treat, with temperatures of plus seven, it felt so mild. The sky however was grey and produced the occasional bout of drizzle. The bird life definitely appreciated the improvement, with so many to see and hear.
My walk over to our plot was halted by the whoosh of wings and the sight of a Kestrel in full hunting mode, its grey and rufus back curling low through the plots in search of its favourite prey, Field Voles. In a matter of a few minutes it had covered half the site, stopping occasionally to peer from a post or shed roof. The birdsong didn’t diminish with its presence but later when a Sparrow Hawk appeared, in threatening mode over the plots, silence reigned.
As I went to open up the shed I noticed how the recent freezing weather had shattered the little orange glazed dish I keep shells in on our coffee table, exposing the white china below its glaze.
The feeders on our plot needed topping up before I set to work. My first task was to prune the Autumn fruiting raspberries, so pulled back their hay mulch and cut each stem down to just a few inches above the ground. Then their warm mulch blanket was replaced ready for the next cold spell.
After tidying the edge of the plot where Calendulas had died down messily, I cut down perennials in the “Bug Border” alongside our central path, Sedum spectabile “Autumn Joy”, Linaria and several different Marjoram, all grown for the butterflies and hoverflies. As I pruned down the Sedum a few “slips” came away which I popped into my trug to be potted up at home.
A coffee break was called for to rest an aching back. A chance to do some bird spotting and listening out for their calls and songs. It was noticeable how some had moved on from calls to songs with the changing light of February. The Great Tit was giving a good performance repeatedly calling out “Teacher Teacher” just as it says in the books, but I often think it sounds more like the squeak of a tyre foot pump in need of lubrication. Its smaller cousin the Blue Tit sang gently from all around the site.
The peace was shattered as soon as the Rooks from the rookery on the northern boundary lifted as one and poured overhead, a cacophony of “cawing” and “rarking”. They are busy now restructuring last year’s nests. When one returned to the tree tops with twig in beak all its neighbours objected vocally craning their necks threatening and warning others to keep their distance. They live together in huge nesting groups but argue all the time! Their little corvid cousins, the Jackdaw, are quieter and more social. They pass overhead without any argument.
Signs of things to come! New growth is appearing at the base of perennials and the Globe Artichoke plants. Disappointingly the green manures have grown very little but just manage to cover the bare soil.
Buds are fattening on the Black Currants and the Blackberries. Promises of autumn bounty.
So once the work on our Plot 37 was completed I wandered off around the site, with wheelbarrow loaded – secateurs for pruning the roses in the Summer Garden, camera to take shots, surgical gloves and step-ladder to clear out nest boxes. As I walked along the established hedgerows flocks of chattering finches moved away, keeping close top the hedge and to each other – Goldfinches, Linnets and Greenfinches. A surprise sighting was a flock of about 15 Yellow Hammers, the first time they have been seen here. Unfortunately one of the loudest noises was the dry screech of my wheelbarrow’s wheel! A quick detour to the shed for a squirt of penetrating oil cured it.
Where the hedge has been left uncut for several years (where the council flailing machines can’t reach) the bushes are tall and busy with finches and tits. A Song Thrush was throwing leaves and under-hedge debris out onto the path searching for its lunch. The calls of Nuthatches and Great Spotted Woodpeckers echoed around the allotments all the time I was on site, but one call was unexpected. It stopped me in my tracks. I had never heard the piping call of a Bullfinch up here before. It wasn’t hard to find – a male with its pink, almost cerise breast glowing from a tall Hawthorn.
Nestbox cleaning can be a painful business if the nests have been colonised by nest fleas, hence the surgical gloves. Luckily none in residence today! Four of the five tit boxes had been used last year. The open-fronted Robin boxes were ignored by our population of redbreasts.
This photo shows how the Great Tits who nested here used their tails for added balance when feeding their young through the hole. The wood stain has been worn away.
The box in the photo below was used three times in 2011, but the third attempt was thwarted by cold wet weather in the early autumn, so the clutch of eggs remains. When I emptied out the nesting materials I could see the three layers of nesting material. When I had emptied all the boxes the old nests were put in the compost heap.
In the meadow areas seedlings cover the ground, so our plan for self seeding meadows seems to be working out. In one meadow area a lone cornflower continues to throw up an odd bloom of the most beautiful blue.
A river wanders through the parkland at the National Trust’s Attingham Park, sometimes in viscous flood, sometimes in slow motion. Today it was slow and cold.
It felt oh so good today to be sowing the first seeds of the year! And to make things even better it was warm and cosy in the greenhouse. There are so many seeds waiting in my tin all organised in sowing date order.
So today I sowed seeds of tomatoes, peppers (sweet, cayenne and hot), basil, parsley and leeks.
We always sow a variety of tomatoes to ensure lots of different colours, textures and flavours, so for 2012 we have Gardeners Delight, Moneymaker, Red Cherry, Black Cherry, Harbinger and a heritage variety called Potentate. Of course to go with tomatoes we need basil so we have sown Basil Sweet Genovase.
All the seeds sown today need warmth to germinate so we have put them in my home-made propagator which gives bottom heat and maintains an average 20 degrees celsius. Here they are in their special warm environment waiting for the lid to be closed.
And the seed potatoes are “chitting” away in their egg trays. So the allotment year has been launched and it feels good!!
Today as the weather has warmed up and the sun is seeping through a thin cloud layer, we decided to take a twenty-minute drive out to Attingham Park for a walk through the woodlands where snowdrops are the stars in February. It was half-term so the woods were colourful, bright coloured anoraks, scarves and hats as families took to the paths. Every child seemed to have found a suitable rustic walking stick from the undergrowth. It was great to see young families out enjoying the natural world.
As we passed through the stable block the sound of vigorous hammering filled the air echoing around us. A noisy coffee break but we enjoyed watching youngsters wielding hammers busily constructing nest boxes. A great idea from the National Trust. Every family leaving Attingham today has at least one child clutching proudly a newly built nest box.
Once into the wood itself we seemed to be guided along by Robins who entertained us with their songs.
The snowdrops are small this year and very slow to develop. Many are just at the early bud stage and those that have come our sport small blooms. The swathes under the tall bare deciduous trees were far less vibrant than expected so the beauty was to be found in the little clumps hidden away deeper into the woods.
But there was far more to the woods than Snowdrops and the temptation to photograph the textures and patterns found there was easily given in to.
The earliest of woodland shade loving plants are beginning to appear taking advantage of the light filtering through the veil of bare branches above them. The arrow shaped leaves of the Cuckoo Pint are glossy and shine out amongst in the monochrome leaf litter.
Leaving the woodland we took a track across the Deer Park. A warden appeared on a mini tractor closely followed by herds of excited deer. The tractor was pulling a trailer full of feed! This was an unexpected opportunity to see the park’s deer close up.
The deer may be the biggest and most obvious creatures here but the littlest are also of equal importance. Where the trust have been clearing dead and damaged trees they have taken the opportunity of creating habitats such as log piles, brash stacks etc to attract insects and invertebrates and small mammals. The woods here are now well-known for the population of Lesser Stag Beetles. In some places fallen branches and larger trunks are left to rot away to become hosts to fungi and multitudes of minibeasts.
This fungus seems to be leaking from the cracks in the dead bark, like woodworker’s glue seeping from a joint.
This dead tree left standing for fungi, invertebrates and insects looks dramatic alone in a clear area of parkland. Woodpeckers will enjoy attacking the peeling bark and rotting wood in search of tasty morsels.
What a strange experience you get when you visit Gigrin Farm, a Red Kite feeding station in the Welsh Hills. Hundreds of them swirling overhead, hundreds of Kite, a bird which a sighting of a single specimen would set the heart pumping anywhere else. We get occasional glimpses of one passing over our heads when gardening and we regularly see an odd one or two as we drive around Shropshire. There are now signs that they are breeding in our county, but until recently we had to travel into the hills of mid-Wales to enjoy them.
When our children were young, a few decades ago now, we would drive for a few hours into the hill country of Mid-Wales, along a pretty inaccessible road into a valley where we knew we could find the Red Kite. Half a dozen were beginning to get established there and we revelled in watching them soaring in the thermals on the steep hillsides and feeding on the slopes. They came back from the brink, a handful of individuals, to a healthy and spreading population in the hundreds.
Visit the feeding station at Gilgrin, where the farmer feeds beef from the back of his tractor, and you will be able to watch them feed right in front of the hides. they are fed at the same time each day and know when that is. Travelling for miles to get here they stack up in the thermals on warm days or sit in trees and hedges and even on the ground in anticipation.
There is a definite hierarchy with the oldest birds coming in first as the others wait their turn in the pecking order. The youngest and most inexperienced wait patiently for three quarters of an hour or so for their food.
Buzzards come too, but they seem wiser. As the kite expend energy diving and swooping for a morsel of meat, never landing to grasp it in their talons, the Buzzards settle themselves on the grass amongst the meat and feed effortlessly, taking no notice whatsoever of the melee of feeding Kite around them. The odd Raven, Magpie, Crow and Jackdaw also grab an opportunistic lunch.
In flight above the feeding ground the colous of the Kites’ plumage becomes apparent, rich russets, browns, fawns and black. We were treated to a sight of an all-white individual.
With such close views we appreciated the graceful nature of their flight, we watch as wings and tails curled and constantly re-shaped themselves to aid manoevrability. They appeared to have fingers to give the finesse needed when flying in such large groups.
One of the highlights of enjoying your garden in winter is noticing things that you take for granted the rest of the year. Little special details. Lichen, mosses and algae.
In our Japanese Garden the low rays of the winter sun brighten up lichen, mosses and algae on the lanterns. The greens and greys create a mosaic of soft textures.
Tints of green add interest to the greys of our specimen slate stones.
Even the Buddha is given a splattering of green emphasising the shapes of the fabric folds of the robe and curls of hair.
Lush green mosses find perfect conditions to flourish in side a terra-cotta flower-pot.
The greenhouse is a true haven when the temperatures drop so low that your hands feel the cold even with your gloves on and the top of your head feels it through your hat. We have just switched on the propagating units allowing the temperature in them to settle around the 18 degree mark in readiness for seed sowing. This should start in earnest any day now. The veggie seeds are all in their air-tight tin in sowing order. It won’t be long before we are transplanting some into the prepared soil on the allotment – just a couple of months!
But the main function for the protection the greenhouse affords us is to look after our less delicate specimens. With night-time temperatures varying from minus 1 to minus 12 this overwintering security is essential. Working away in the heated end of the greenhouse is a real relief from the cold outside. The unheated end still gives plenty of protection for half-hardy plants but still requires coats for the gardeners.
The Euphorbia mellifera enjoys having glass and bubblewrap over its head. This is our second Honey Spurge as we lost one even under cover last winter. We hope to keep it this year so that we can enjoy its wonderful honey scent when we return it to its place in the Secret Garden.
Aeonium and Echeveria keep us on tenterhooks through the winter months, as we have lost them so many times. Aeoniums are succulent sub-shrubs and those we have now are the largest and most long-lived we have ever had. The green leaved Aeoniums below are a variety inknow to us before we found these so we are unsure of their hardiness. We bought them as single rosettes – they have flourished in the Rill Garden. They are possibly Aeonium haworthii and if so we have every right to pamper them in winter as they hail from The Canary Isles.
The black leaved version is Aeonium arboreum “Zwartkop”, is a native of Morroco. The leaves get blacker as the summer gets hotter and drier, so as it rests in the greenhouse after a long dry summer it looks very dark. The early morning sun streaming in through the glass lights the rosettes from behind and tuens them fleshy red.
In a heated propagator cuttings are also being protected. this gives us another chance to keep delicate plants over winter. Salvias, tender Buddleia and the odd houseplant such as Kalenchoe.
Outside, salad leaf seedlings sown in December, are holding on until warmer weather. We cover them each night with fleece. Once better light and warmer temperatures arrive they will be triggered into rapid growth. We look forward to tasty, colourful mixed leaf salads.
So whenever it is too cold or the ground too frozen solid outside we always have the welcome of a warm greenhouse. After all the greenhouse isn’t just for overwintering plants, it overwinters the gardeners too! Hopefully within the next few days we shall revel in sowing seeds in there.
Today dawned bright, Robins sang and the blue colour of the sky coupled with a forecast of a dry day ahead, tempted us out for a countryside walk. A short 10 minute drive along winding lanes saw us park up at the start of the walk. This car park must have one of the best views in Shropshire, a view presenting a huge panorama. Snow on the hills and iced water in the furrows of the ploughed fields below reminded us that whatever the day looked like it is still winter.
Beneath our feet the muddy track was frozen solid a few millimetres down and this made for a tense start. We walked slowly along the ridge tempted repeatedly to glance leftward at the hazy view. Thin clouds were building. The hedge to our right was mostly of Hawthorn and Holly over which Brambles clambered. Blackbirds aplenty sought out the last of the hedge’s berries, and a pair of silhouetted Carrion Crow gorged on Ivy berries as black as themselves. They went about their business in silence. Crows are rarely silent.
We enjoyed the view of Yellow Hammers, birds that are sadly declining so rapidly from our hedgerows. A trio flitted amongst the uppermost branches of the taller Hawthorns calling continuously. It was good to see them. Small noisy flocks of Linnets frequently passed over our heads. We were relieved to leave our frozen footway and enter a tiny coppiced area alive with the calls of Great Tits, Bluetits and Longtailed Tits. We attempted the sloping footpath down through the copse and slid our way down a few yards before giving up and were forced to carry on along a rough roadway alongside a few houses. The conifers in their gardens added Coal Tit to the titmice collection and Jays squawked in their topmost branches.
Our cold noses were subjected to the unpleasant odour of male fox which had crossed our path an hour or two before probably as dawn light was announcing the day. The odour hung in our nostrils for several minutes as we walked on.
We were glad that this hard man-made surface lasted such a short while because we were to enter a beautiful coppice of old oaks, dotted with occasional Rowan and Beech. Their under-storey was of Holly and Bramble and here Dunnock, Robin and Wren skulked, given away by their calls. Lichen and algae coloured the trunks of the old once-managed oaks. These would have been cut to the ground every few years to encourage rapid upright growth which could be harvested. But we are enjoying the habitat created after years of neglect, a habitat equally appreciated by wildlife. The oaks are gnarled and eccentrically shaped, covered in lichen, algae and mosses.
Sounds are carried freely through the coppice. The tapping of a Great spotted Woodpecker. The liquid whistlings of Nuthatches. The “chatting” of Wren. And an unidentified “churring” sound – we had no idea what bird might have made that call. Woodpeckers and nuthatches had been busy digging in the softness of rotting wood on dead trees. This chip of bark had been lifted by a Woodpecker’s powerful beak to extract a morsel of food, some beetle or grub which the bird had heard beneath the bark.
New leaves sprouted on the honeysuckles that entwined the lower trunk of the Oaks where there must be a little protection, a little extra warmth.
Little clumps or bunches of Ladybirds have managed to find refuges from the ravages of winter. By looking carefully shining wing cases of orange and red, spotted black could be spied. They looked so precarious but they must have some confidence in the security of their hideouts.
There was so much variety in the colour and texture of the tree trunks. Lichens and mosses clung to the roughness and painted over the brown bark. Silvery blues. Hot flame colours. Gentle greens.
We followed the circular route through the coppice and made our way back down the track, the light weakening and the temperature cooling. We shall return in spring when the summer migrants are back, when the coppice should reverberate to the song of warblers and Swallows accompany us along the ridge.
We love the humble Houseleeks. We grow them in pots, on the slate scree bed, in alpine troughs, on our old oak stump and even on an old brick. They are so simple, really just spiky little cabbages, but they have something special about them. Is it the subtle nature of their colours? Is it their reliability? Is it because they are there to delight the eye all year round? Or is it simply the variety? It certainly isn’t the flowers which grow up on oversized stalks and then make the plant fall over. They are called Houseleeks because people grew them on the roofs of their outside privies as they will tolerate such dry growing conditions. Perhaps the extra insulation helped too!
Just like the first Ford cars which you could buy in any colour as along as it was black, so with the Houseleeks you can have them in any colour as long as it is green. Green with varying depths and hints of red, black, purple or blue. And of course we mustn’t forget brown! Being succulents they like it dry and their colours seem richer in late summer when it is often at its driest in the garden.
The correct name for the Houseleek is Sempervivum and they originate from Europe and Asia. There are hundreds of named varieties but we choose them for their interesting colour or texture, not by name, as so many of them are so similar. We buy what we fancy. Some we choose because of their colours but others for their white spider’s web covering or fringing of bristles. Favourites are those with dark colours towards the points of the leaves.
All the pictures in this blog were taken in February which shows how useful an addition to the winter garden these little plants are. There can’t be many succulents that are useful plants with winter interest. The first couple of photos show the Sempervivums growing on our stump, the first enjoying the company of an icy green lichen and the second with the dead brown fronds of a fern.
When a Sempervivum flowers, sending the tall stem from the centre of a rosette, it dies, but the dead rosette is soon replaced with new offsets. This plant on the slate scree bed is still holding on to its flower stem surging from the now-dead rosette. Soon we shall pull it out and in the spring new rosettes will fill the gap. We leave late flower stems on the plants as they provide interesting structure. The subtle colouring of its rosettes work beautifully with its slate grey background.
Now we take a photographic journey around the garden in search of more Houseleeks.
Awaiting planting, still in their pots, sit four new varieties. Will we ever stop being tempted?
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