Feathered Visitors & Poor Beginings

These two wood pigeons have taken to my leafless Gleditsia. They sit here no matter what the weather throws at them, preferring it to their normal countryside location – why they don’t seek better shelter during the day, I don’t know. At sundown they disappear, but are back almost at first light next day. I don’t feed them and they do no damage, they just sit together – they chat occasionally, but more often they just sit.

If you see a bunch of bargains in your local nursery or, more often, your local garden centre, give them a good look over and if you can’t see anything much wrong, grab them – I do. I bought a misshapen little Acer “no-name” some seven years ago and gradually discovered an Osakazuki. I now have a beautiful tree that performs every year. The same happened with a camellia – little more than a single stem, but what there was was healthy and for just a couple of pounds I now have a Camellia that flowers reliably every year in early spring. I’m not sure what its name is but I don’t mind that – it’s beautiful and I love it – the only essential with it is to water through the summer, don’t, whatever you do let them dry out or the buds will fall in the spring and you’ll have to wait another year. I always feed mine in spring, when it’s flowered, and replenish the ericaceous compost. Cheapies and freebies may start out in poverty, but with a little training and TLC they do very well indeed.

Native Ivy
It’s good to see Monty Don (Daily Mail Weekend Mag) extolling the virtues of native ivy. The bees adore it as do the butterflies and unsurprisingly the wasps, but at least they’re not around for quite so long. With the hawthorn/native hedge always comes native ivy and whilst it’s tempting to try to get rid of it, in a native hedge it accounts for a degree of thickening to promote privacy at eye level while fulfilling it’s role as friendly to wildlife and essential to insects. The trick is to gently keep it tidy and never ever “slash and burn” because if you do you’ll probably do it at the wrong time of year, and frankly that’s almost any time of year. All it needs is a regular gentle and careful tidy so that you’re not cutting off the flowers or the berries – easier said than done? absolutely, but entirely possible if you just take care.

Pests
If there’s one pest I’ve tried doggedly to deal with over the last three to four years it’s the Red Lilly Beetle (Lilioceris lilii). I can usually live and let live (maybe with the exception of the Vine Weevil grub) but these creatures hardly possess a redeeming feature, except perhaps their colour, and how adept they are at avoiding capture – they simply plummet into the greenery and are gone! So in the new year I’m accepting defeat, up to a point, mainly to protect my snakeshead fritillaries, which have survived up to now. I’ve removed most of my lilies from the ground except a clump of very pretty pink and yellow day-lilies and I’ve potted my favourite blousy Casa Blanca (the one that smells like a tarts boudoir) and popped it in the greenhouse where I’ll attempt to protect it until it’s time to put it outside again. Maybe with fewer specimens to attack, the beetles that escaped a crushing this year, will clear off and plague my neighbours instead.

Cold Autumn

Even with the cold weather creeping over the garden, there are always the stalwarts, last vestiges of summer and autumn that hang on, bravely flowering to their final breath. The last rose, the last Kaffir lily (Schizostylis), even the last of the basket fuchsias, basket cases maybe, cling on gamely and reward the odd resistant bumblebee with a feed of late nectar. This one managed to rev its engine sufficiently to take off and locate a fat blousy fuchsia, which still survives, sheltered by a warm wall. But this hanging basket fuchsia, Fuchsia South-gate is lasting extremely well on the south-facing wall at the rear of the house and is still producing buds! But I wonder for how long. I move this one around because it sulks in the heat. It spends the summer shaded under the pergola, but at this time of year it is glad of the sun and scant warmth. I don’t think it’s meant to be quite so hardy, but it survives the winter in the greenhouse (6 years now) and is cut back to stubble at the first sign of shoots in the spring – it is rarely fed and intermittently watered through summer and probably survives in spite of me, than because of. Gardening is not an exact science, so don’t let the gurus tell you it is, some plants survive no matter what you do to them (within reason), others turn up their toes regardless of the amount of care and attention they receive, but if you’re a beginner the trick is never to give up, if there’s something you fancy growing give it a try, it might thank you for it.

As for bumblebees, Springwatch and others pronounced it a bad year for them, but there’s always an exception, and the ones that frequent my garden have been plentiful, in fact there were far fewer here last year than this year. That’s not to say Springwatch et al were wrong – on the contrary. “My” bumblebees start early and finish late perhaps because they’re provided with a bit of room, undisturbed, around the log pile and ivy and years worth of fallen leaves beneath the hawthorn hedge at the back of the garage – they can get quite irritated if I forget and disturb things. Maybe the secret with the old bumblebees, bless them, is to provide something for them at all times of year, whether active or inactive, otherwise, they won’t pay you the privilege of sticking around – try Erica arboria (late winter/early spring flowers) Hellebores (that never seem to die down anymore) wild violets and cowslips if you have them and, though I know a lot of folks pull them out, forget-me-nots.

Oh and if the tits (blue, great and long-tail) arrive mob-handed to help you out with over-wintering insects, don’t forget to reward them with some well-placed tasty treats on bird tables or in feeders.

Autumn Blackbirds

It's a sure sign of autumn when male blackbirds retire to the shadows, perch on a half-hidden branch and practise their song for next spring. Well, maybe not practise exactly, but I like to think that's what they're doing. I only noticed about three years ago, while tending my tiny wild area behind the garage, beneath a native hawthorn hedge, (where Buddha sits in contemplation) a male blackbird was quietly whistling to himself. Working there in the half-light of a dull afternoon in November I fancied the song was coming from a distance, until he stopped, and our eyes met, so to speak, through the few remaining leaves. He was little more than four feet away and when he thought my attention was elsewhere he continued his song, so very quietly, but still recognisably, a blackbird song. It was as if he was singing for himself and I was just an accidental beneficiary. In autumn since, I've listened for these private blackbirds and I invariably find one, trying out a few new phrases perhaps, just to see if something works.

Not a big fan of summer though...

I love autumn and spring; the light is so fresh and clean on a clear day and the outlines and colours so clearly defined. With just a small garden, here, in the heart of the Wiltshire traffic jam, sorry, countryside, it's difficult to find room for the plants on my wish-list, indeed, with soil that would not disgrace the clay pot industry, a good proportion of my wish-list is impossible to grow, unless I plant in pots...and trees, a priority for me, don't take so kindly to pots - added to which, the necessity of regular watering, means they are difficult to leave - I used to have a watering system, but they were banned here last year, and this year, for some reason, I didn't need it! I could put it back next year, but 'sods law' says as soon as it stops raining they'll be banned again.

It doesn't take a gardening guru to tell us that this autumn has been and still is being spectacular. My own few Acers have been a pleasure to behold and if you haven't managed to see the Acers at Westonbirt you missed a treat and if you have managed to see them you know what I mean.