Well the wind has continued to pummel the garden and we had another elderberry blow over in the Trod, though this time we have just had the height reduced rather than remove it completely. Elder is not deeply rooted and with a lot of ivy growth adding to a wind-sail effect it is susceptible to toppling. I’m pleased to report that my young un-staked fruit trees are still upright; the tall daffodils of course are not! I am increasingly moving these daffs to either the back of borders or very close to the hedges, though if this will help them stay upright remains to be seen. The rooks seem to have started their nest building later this year, whether that has been due to the storms is hard to say, but they don’t appear to had much dislodged by the gales, I’ve only found one fallen nest in the compost area below.
There has been much bird activity this last month – I counted ten Greenfinches (yes, really!) as a group in the garden early one afternoon, four in the ground feeder cage and six feeding at the sunflower feeders. Our flock of sparrows has increased in size too; one morning there were at least fifteen in the beech hedge, nicely camouflaged by the brown leaves as they sat waiting for the all clear to come across to the feeders. I’ve taken to throwing some bird seed each morning into the hedge bottom to enable the little guys to feed free from the hoovering woodpigeons; however one or two big birds sometimes venture further than I’d like so I need to reinforce and reduce the size of gaps to keep them out. We have a kestrel or sparrow hawk that I occasionally see circling the garden feeders. Recently I watched it fly round and land momentarily on the fence before a magpie came and chased it off and round the garden. Not seen that happen before! I have no qualms over birds of prey catching small birds because they are feeding themselves or their family but cats are a whole different matter! We once had a neighbour who when she witnessed a hawk snatch a pigeon, ran outside, rescued the pigeon and nursed it back to health! As well as feeding the birds this lady also fed feral cats, hedgehogs and foxes – her husband reckoned they ate better than him and he was probably right! Unfortunately around the same time the local allotment holders suffered from a lot of fox wanton killing of their poultry and geese. We have at least two cats that visit our garden and I caught one of them with its paw inside the ground feeder cage having pulled the dish from the middle to the very edge! Yes, I did chase it away!
Sadly one of the two male pheasants that visit our garden is dead. I was shocked to see it lying motionless on the front lawn, wings outstretched, as though it had flown in from the field – a mystery to me how it had happened and when.
That is until Cliff (forget Cadfael or Father Brown!) searched back through the CCTV and discovered that the pheasant had flown across the road, was hit by a car and at 10.39am it stumbled up our drive, fatally injured, fluttering onto the lawn before collapsing. My previous burial plot in the garden was too small to accommodate this large and elegant bird so I had to create a new area as its final resting place.
You know that spring is finally here when the sound of a lawn mower is once more is heard! I have edged the front lawns and Cliff cut them at the highest blade height and we hope to be able to cut the back lawns soon. I am still moving bulbs (in the green) and preparing to add the ones that I had to pot up back in December plus some of the hardy annual seeds that I sowed back in January are starting to grow now. There’s a lovely splash of sapphire in the front from the various scilla blue bells, assorted grape hyacinths as well as hyacinths in the blue bed. The delicate snakes head fritillaries are through the ground and starting to increase in height, while the crown imperial fritillary is almost fully grown, whereas fritillary persica is just showing as a glaucous green bud.
The Primulas that I planted back in the autumn are beginning to really stand out in bold colours of purple, blue, yellow and white though there is an odd salmon pink one too. The hellebores are flowering well and there’s blossom on the cherry plum and Japanese cherry, while the usually winter flowering viburnum shrubs are only now coming into bloom and the winter flowering clematis ‘jingle bells’ is doing the same!
We’ve had our first pick of rhubarb and finally pulled the carrots that our grandson had sown back at the end of August – they were tiny but tasty! Time to start sowing some lettuce and this year I’m going to try some vegetables like cabbage, French beans, peas, maybe squash and definitely more carrots. A new challenge!
Jane.
St Hilda's Church, Halifax 