Happy 2018…

01/01/2018flowers, grass, stumperyJackie Elwin

Happy New Year to all who read my little blog. It has been a strange start to the New Year; I have had the lurgy for weeks now and haven’t been out much at all but today I went out for some fresh air and to see if storm Dylan had caused any damage in the garden. Lots of fallen twigs but nothing too big thankfully. I did notice a few flowers about to open like red spidery ones on the witch hazel (Hamamelis inter.Diane), and the creamy-green of the Corsican hellebore (Helleborous argutifolius) but I will wait until they are open to get pictures. There are tiny catkins forming on the corkscrew hazel (Corylus avellana Contorta) and there are bulbs a plenty poking through the soil. What was strange though was seeing flowers open on the native primrose (Primula vulgaris). I thought they just flowered in spring? Well they are food for the slugs I guess by the look of those nibbles. I just love the bright stripey colours of the upright Golden Japanese Rush (Acornus Ogon). Not sure why they call it upright as all of mine tend to lean sideways. No matter.

Primula vulgaris in flower Jan 2018

Acornus Ogon

Fabulous fungi…

23/12/2017fungiJackie Elwin

I have been finding more and more fungi in the garden over the years with all the garden renovations and new plants being added. I am no expert so I can’t identify them properly but I have had a go by researching on the internet and buying a good book. When we brought the logs in to the garden we didn’t know the tree varieties and some fungi are tree specific so I have just had to have a guess. This first one was on a log we found just behind the wall of the garden and we put it in front of the patio where we were planting some ferns. It is some kind of large bracket fungus and it was there for ages until something started taking nibbles out of it. It never came back. The next one is an Earth star (Geastrum) but I am not sure if it is a collared one or not. Next there is coral fungi but I am not sure if it is Ramaria stricta or maybe flaccida. I even found some brilliant yellow fungi (Leucocoprimus birnbaumii) at the base of my Beaucarnea recurvata (pony tail plant or elephant foot) in the conservatory. On the mossy logs in the stumpery I found some common bonnet or clustered bonnet and they are so pretty. Also near the stumpery were a couple of common morels (Morchella esculent) but I didn’t try and eat these as I was unsure. I have a cherry tree planted in a half barrel on the patio with moss growing in places on the barrel and a few tiny orange fungi popped up which might be Rickenella fibula. In among the borders I found a very strange looking dark grey fungus and I think it might be Elfin saddle (Helvella lacunosa). There have been other fungi but they don’t hang around for long and I have missed a few by thinking I did’t have time to take a photo that day and that I would do it the following day only to find they had disappeared. I do hope they come back.

large bracket fungus

Geastrum (triplex?)

Ramaria (stricta?)

Leucocoprimus birnbaumii

Mycena (galericulata or inclinata?)

Myceana ?

Morchela esculenta

Rickenella fibula?

Helvella lacunosa

The new pond 2014…

22/12/2017pondJackie Elwin

The old pond was in need of a revamp even though the birds and frogs still enjoyed their visits to it. Gardens by Water Gems did all the work and the initial planting and I love it! We just wanted it in the same position as the old one but we needed one wider and deeper with a few shelves for planting.
In the old pond the frogs would spawn at the right hand side. The birds would bathe at the left hand side and they didn’t disturb the frogs so the frogs would get a chance to hang about with their pals at the surface of the pond in amongst the plants. In the new pond the frogs now spawn on the left hand side and the birds bathe on both sides so the poor frogs don’t hang about as much but we still get loads of frog spawn in the spring. I don’t particularly like the pigeons bathing in it as they tend to leave a grey scum on the surface. Hey ho. A couple of years on and we are still wondering what to do with the wall area behind the pond. In the summer it has Purple loosestrife growing in front of it but after that has died down the wall looks very bare and scruffy.There used to be ivy covering that area and although it looked great (I have even seen frogs climbing up it) it just dropped debris and leaves into the pond and we were always trying to stop it growing into the pond. I could possibly put some sort of screen over it but there is very little room between the Purple loosetrife and the wall. Don’t know. The Water soldiers can be a bit thuggish so they are constantly being pulled out but there is always one or two babies that come back. The duckweed can also get out of hand unless I skim it off regularly.

The stumpery..

21/12/2017stumperyJackie Elwin

So… the stumpery! It only has one stump in it and that is not for lack of trying. I phoned around loads of places that you would expect to have stumps but alas only one to be found. I did however manage to get some lovely mossy logs from Gosford (with their kind permission) as the backbones for the new area – which used to have the greenhouse and vegetable patches on it.The basic design was a kind of reverse ‘D’ shape; the path wide enough for my wheelchair to get through once it has plants tumbling over the edges. The lovely Gardens by Water Gems did the hard landscaping (and the pond but that is another story) and I love how it has turned out and it is great to be able to keep adding new plants to it. The area is now a jumble of mostly woodland plants and I have to say the birds just love it. I know the logs will eventually decay but I can always replace them. I am still making mistakes with my planting though. What I thought was wild garlic turned out to be few flowered leek and I am still ripping the stuff out. I wanted some lovely red campion but it grew massive and overcrowded everything else around it. I would like proper bluebells in there but I am waiting until I get all the the non-native ones out first which may take a while yet. The Vancouvera hexandra is a bit of a thug now so I need to take more of that out. Can’t wait till spring as it has loads of spring flowers in it.

The conservatory…

20/12/2017conservatoryJackie Elwin

This little room is my favourite room during the spring and summer. It has changed over the years along with the garden. I used to keep gardening books in there but the slugs and snail would find their way in and eat the covers and pages resulting in paper mache poos. The books also got a little damp as it is an old design of conservatory that has little gaps between the roof and windows (which are only single glazed) leaving the place rather chilly too during the winter months. It would get too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter so I have tried a few different heaters over the years and now have a small greenhouse fan heater to keep at a frost setting when the temperature outside gets too low. I put up a thin cloth shade which keeps the direct sun off the plants. I used to have the place crammed full of plants but they would take forever to water. It was especially difficult to get someone to water the plants when we went away as it could take hours to do the patio, greenhouse , house plants and conservatory – it was a big ask. Sadly the grape vine succumbed to scale insect and I have not been able to eradicate the scale from the room entirely. Vine weevil got some of the succulents and cacti and greenfly caused havoc with the herbs. Once the greenhouse found a new home I started to use the conservatory to house the seedlings, and over wintering pots hence the extra table. Now it is almost Christmas and I have a few decorations up and on boxing day it is used as the drinks table as the whole family and a few friends come over.

Goodbye greenhouse…

19/12/2017greenhouseJackie Elwin

I did have a lot of fun with the greenhouse but it does take a lot of hard work keeping it clean both inside and outside and all that watering too. I grew all sorts of things in there and even sweet corn (don’t know why I took that photo at night) and it was a great place to overwinter any tender things and keep the cuttings ans seedlings. Tomatoes used to take up one entire side. It had an automatic window on the roof and the smaller birds would be able to get in and potter about catching spiders but couldn’t find their way out again and it was really sad to come across their little bodies the next day so we tried putting netting over it and that worked. I remember once going in and getting slapped in the face with a cold, wet slug dangling from the roof by it’s sticky thread. One other time a wasp manged to free itself from the sticky yellow paper traps and it landed in my hair – I freaked out because it was getting more and more tangled in my hair as it struggled to get out. In the early years the greenhouse got quite a bit of sun as it passed over, almost all morning until just after lunchtime (you see all that blue sky to the left and behind it) but our neighbour decided to grow large shrubs and we just got more and more shade in that area. That, along with the trees in the golf course getting taller and spreading out more over the back of our garden was depleting the amount of sunshine getting to the greenhouse and the vegetable gardens so we changed the furthest away veg plot to a small woodland area with shade loving plants. Later as my shoulders became more troublesome I decided that I no longer wanted the greenhouse and vegetable gardens so we gave the greenhouse away to Duddingston Conservation Society and it is now in their paddock area getting well used. Hmmm what to do with that area now then? I think I will make a stumpery said I.

now at Duddingston Conservation Society

That winter of 2010/11…

18/12/2017snow, winterJackie Elwin

Goodness it just kept on snowing that winter and we are usually pretty sheltered here. I was stuck in the house for days on end. Harry was constantly digging the snow away so that he could get to work and he helped me keep a path clear on the patio in order to feed and water the birds. Even letting the dog out during the day was a problem as the doors open outwards and the snow was in the way. It does look great though and I love that sound of absolute silence when the snow is falling slowly and heavily with huge snowflakes..

Wildlife in my garden…

17/12/2017frog, wildlifeJackie Elwin

My garden is my sanctuary where I can just sit and just be. I don’t need to think about anything in particular but instead just watch, feel and listen to what is going on in the
garden. The sounds are mostly the birds different songs and swishing of the leaves in the wind or maybe splashing of birds having a bath. The squirrels bark at each other and you can hear them leaping through the branches. Birds can be heard rustling through the dried leaves in autumn looking for creepy crawlies, frogs can be heard croaking in the spring looking for a mate. High above are the calls of the sparrow hawk and in summer when the swifts arrive they scream over the gardens catching a meal on the way. I love to hear the
constant chatter of the sparrows congregating in the Cotoneaster over next door’s garage roof. I used to hear crickets and had fun trying to find them but sadly I haven’t seen or heard them for a few years now. I plant lots of flowers for bees and love the differences in the deep, low buzz of the huge bumble bees to the fast , ever busy, buzz of the smaller bees and wasps. The buzz changes as they enter the big flowers of the foxglove. Then there is that strange scraping noise some wasps make when scraping the wood for their
hive. The pigeons make a strange almost whistle noise with their wings when they take off. The magpies and jackdaws can be very noisy creatures cackling away to each other as can the starlings. The colours I choose are not jarring or too bright but are the more gentle pinks and mauves with a few splashes of white or even yellow for highlights. You will see dark purples and burgundy running through too but mostly it is green. I am drawn towards plants with texture like ferns and grasses to run your hands over of soft plants like the feathery fennel to brush over your face. I have made areas with different habitats: logs, grasses, sun, shade, pond, shrubs, and ground cover to entice the wildlife in and I do try not to use chemicals and if I do use any at all I make sure it is at a time that won’t harm the wildlife. I get such a buzz of excitement when I spot some new visitor in the garden with the exception of things like New Zealand flatworms and Spanish slugs. I do go on early morning patrols to get rid of these as I haven’t heard of any native predator that will help out. Please excuse the photos – I have a new camera and will hopefully do better in the future.

Brimstone moths

Lime-speck moth caterpillar

Larch ladybird

Long-horn beetle

Orange tip female

Spanish slug

Mouse

Small Red damselfly

Frogs

Baby frog

Our feathered friends…

15/12/2017birds, wildlifeJackie Elwin

I have always had the notion that I would befriend the wildlife in the garden and they would become tame enough feed by hand. Our dogs didn’t share that notion though especially our latest one. He does not want to share the garden with any of them.
The smaller birds he tolerates but he will see off pigeons, crows and the likes. At one point we did manage to get tame pigeons by keeping the dogs indoors at bird feeding times but that kind of back fired on us because every time I went out to the garden I was followed
around by a flock of pigeons. So we stopped feeding them from our hands and only put the food out in bird feeders and on a small tray. Well now, my photographs can look a bit grainy if I have taken them from behind a dirty window and they are all different sizes but hey ho I am not trying to win any photography prizes. We have most of the usual suspects visiting the garden: tits, sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds, crows, magpies, jackdaws, wrens, robins, haw finches, bullfinches, goldfinches, chaffinches, starlings, wood pigeons, feral pigeons, collared doves, chiff-chaffs, black caps, nuthatches, tree creepers, greater spotted woodpeckers, swifts or fly catchers, tawny owls (heard only and found pellets but have never seen one yet) and even a gold crest, a grey wagtail, siskin, sparrowhawk, herons and pheasants. Some of the birds go for the frogs and tadpoles. The magpies and crows flip out the tadpoles onto the slabs then pick them off. The robins come down to the pond when I am clearing the weeds from the surface and pick out any creepy crawlies and any unfortunate tadpoles. The herons sit on the garage roof where they get a great view of the pond and surrounding area and they can be seen have a wander all around the garden in search of frogs. One poor sparrow photographed had a deformed beak but managed to eat the bird seed ok. One or two blackbirds had partial loss of pigment (leucism) ie. a white tail feather. We even had a lost racing pigeon wander into the house but that was a missed photo opportunity.

Chirping bluetit.

Lots of sparrows.

Sparrow with strange beak.

Doves with youngster.

Wren hiding.

Pigeon bathing.

Robin in snow.

Feeding pigeon.

Cock pheasant.

Hen pheasant.

Blackbird bathing.

Nuthatch – a bit dazed after flying into window.

Woodpecker feeding youngster.

Heron.

Heron looking for frogs.

Heron on lookout.

Magpies fishing for tadpoles.

Let’s talk about squirrels…

14/12/2017squirrel, squirrels, wildlifeJackie Elwin

Squirrels – do you love then or hate them? I love seeing them but they can be quite
annoying when they dig up newly planted bulbs and plants, knock over plant
pots, eat the veg and raspberries and strawberries, and tease the dog. They used to try the strawberries before they were ripe so I would find them pulled off the plant and just nibbled (but maybe that was the mice). I do wish they were the red squirrels and not the big grey ones, but then I would have even more problems with them getting into the bird feeders. I have tried quit a few so called squirrel-proof bird feeders over the years but they don’t stop the baby squirrels getting into them. The gaps in the cages have to be big enough to let the birds in after all. I have to site the bird feeders low enough for me to fill them up daily and as I use a wheelchair that can’t be very high. The patio is the easiest area for me to access to enable me to feed and water them even in the frozen weather so I do have to compromise a bit where I site the feeder and how large a feeder I can use. The smaller ones come with plastic feeder ports where the birds sit on a small peg and feed
but the young squirrels can easily get into the cage and destroy these. Metal feeding ports would be much better but are only on the larger feeders. The squirrels also manage to
get the tops off and get into the bird seed that way. I even rammed a couple of bits of wood on top to try and prevent that but as you see below that didn’t quite work. I then tried a wooden bung but that swelled too much when wet that I couldn’t get it out until it dried off again. They even worked out that if they shoved the whole feeder up and over they could get it right off the hook and it would fall into the flower bed below scattering the seed. On a small peanut feeder I resorted to hooking a chain from one side right over the top and into the other side to keep the lid on. I have been told that if you mix chili powder with the bird seed the squirrels will leave it alone and it won’t harm the birds but I haven’t tried that. The next time I need a new feeder I might try the ones that shut the feeding ports when a heavy bird or squirrel lands on it. But they are kind of cute to watch.