The Garden In September

Climbing rose 'Golden Showers'.

Dahlia.

This morning really felt like autumn, with fog in the air and dewdrop-beaded spider webs on the lawn. But come afternoon a warm sun shone, and insects reappeared as if by magic, making the most of what could be the last day of this Indian summer. Bees, hoverflies and Small Cabbage White butterflies busied themselves on the asters, the fuchsias and the lavenders — harvesting pollen and nectar in one last mad rush. 

Peering closely I found yet more spider webs festooned vertically between the aster and lavender stalks. A spider guarded the centre of one web, gloating over what looked like a small hoverfly shrouded in gossamer. I blew the web very gently, and she scurried along the outermost strand of silk to take camouflaged refuge in a flower head. When satisfied things were safe, she traced the same route back to her prey.

Because of the dry summer, and because I hadn't watered nearly enough, many plants had withered weeks ago. But the 'Golden Showers' climbing rose was still putting out blooms — always the first rose to flower and the last to succumb — and some of the dahlias were still going strong. At the bottom end of the garden the plums were now picked, or had fallen or shrivelled on the branch, and Red Admiral and Comma butterflies gorged on the scanty, squelchy remains.

   

Two Comma butterflies in the plum tree. The one in the top left-hand corner, disturbed by a shadow or vibration, has folded its raggy-edged wings. What perfect camouflage! 

Garden Diary (3)

Digging the first crop of second early potatoes (Charlotte variety) . . . Next to them in the trug are some freshly-picked, tender rocket leaves. A salad beckons! 

The tomatoes still have some way to go . . .

. . . but the runner beans will be ready in a week or two. The other vegetables in this raised bed are Brussels sprouts, rocket, parsnips and leeks.

Though a garden's not just about vegetables. These calendulas are appreciating the recent sunshine . . .

. . .  as are these lilies . . .

I always find water lilies magical and quite unreal, as if made out of wax . . . On the pond's surface and underneath the lily pads is a host of insect life.  Also some tadpoles remain, refusing to change into frogs. They'll have to be quick or they'll get eaten like all the rest. I've only seen one froglet so far — smaller than my fingernail.

Garden Diary (2)

Zen pond. From left to right: petunia, nasturtium, azalea, hosta, Buddha.

The middle of May — probably my favourite month — and I'm feeling giddy with the colour and beauty and freshness of it all. A few warm sunny days in a row and everything is bursting with vigorous life. The swifts have returned from Africa and are skydiving over house and garden. It's such a joy to see them again. And a barbecue tomorrow — how good is that! I'm relishing it while it lasts. Focusing on each day as it comes, but trying not to cling too much, as all is transient.

The first rose.

Allium alley.

Hot rhododendron.

Garden Diary (1)

Bee fly.

Early this morning I heard a knocking noise coming from the kitchen. I ignored it, thinking it was the central heating pipes. But when I finally went to investigate I found it was a male chaffinch flying persistently at the window pane. I'm sure it was attacking its own reflection in the glass, believing it to be a rival bird vying for territory.

Out in the garden more and more spring flowers are opening. In the semi-wild shady area at the bottom of the yew hedge honesty, forget-me-not and yellow archangel are in bloom. Bluebells, tulips and daffodils — including the stunning pheasant's eye, or poet's daffodil, which some believe was the first cultivated narcissus — border the wooden fence opposite the hedge, and clumps of wallflowers crowd the base of an ornamental cherry. The cherry's pink and white blossom faded quickly — as it always does — a few weeks ago.

The clematis growing up the fence is just beginning to reveal its delicate white flowers, and the creeping stems of the greater periwinkle create ground cover. The periwinkles' purple corollas contrast strikingly with their dark, waxy-green leaves.

Under the kitchen window stands a container of quince, its crimson flowers now past their best, and naturalised ivy-leaved toadflax creeps prolifically up the red-brick kitchen wall, happily disguising an unsightly network of downpipes and drains.

The hellebores and cyclamen have been blooming all winter, and are flowering still. But the white blooms of the camellia, so abundant this spring, turn brown and wither almost immediately. At the end of tough but flexible straight stalks the flower heads of the allium will remain tightly closed until May. They look like tiny onions.

Just over a month ago, around the time of the full moon, our pond was full of mating frogs. The frogs departed, leaving behind jellied masses of spawn. The tadpoles developed, and now there are thousands of them, wriggling in the depths like spermatozoa or sunning themselves on the bricks supporting the aquatic flower baskets. Some surface for a gulp of air, their lungs already forming.

Bees, ladybirds and other insects have been on the move for several weeks, including pond-loving whirligig beetles, water boatmen and pond skaters. I've also been delighted to spot bee flies, which have the wings of a fly but the body of a bee. They have a long proboscis for drinking nectar, and are important pollinators. I've seen early butterflies too — Brimstone, Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock and Holly Blue.

Holly Blue.

(Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the pictures.)

Single And Double

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. CICERO

One world in two, both intertwined: / A double helix of grace and love. . . THE SOLITARY WALKER Two Worlds in One

Poet's daffodils newly opened.

Narcissus poeticus (Poet's daffodil, Nargis, Pheasant's eye, Findern flower or Pinkster lily) was one of the first daffodils to be cultivated, and is frequently identified as the narcissus of ancient times — often associated with the Greek legend of Narcissus. WIKIPEDIA

The intertwined trunks of our crab apple tree.

Unlike many trees, the crab apple grows singly, and sometimes woods will only have one tree. . .

. . . Crab apples have long been associated with love and marriage. It was said that if you throw the pips into the fire while saying the name of your love, the love is true if the pips explode. Apple wood was burned by the Celts during fertility rites and festivals, and Shakespeare makes reference to crab apples in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Love's Labour Lost. THE WOODLAND TRUST

Contemporary Garden

Zen pond.

Crab apple blossom against a rare blue sky.

Wallflower Meditation

Inspired by English cottage gardens and cottage gardeners.

Wallflowers may be old-fashioned, and may not get asked to dance as often as they should, but they are no shrinking violets, and will put on a sexy springtime display given half a chance. They are some of my favourite garden flowers.

Flowering Quince Meditation

Inspired by Talking 37th Dream (Rumors of Peace).

A Promise Of Spring

Frogs doing what comes naturally. (Click on the pic for a closer view!)

There's a promise of spring in the garden: the first butterfly yesterday; the first bee today; robins singing; water boatmen, whirligig beetles and frogs in the pond.

Frogspawn, looking for all the world like tapioca pudding.

Hardening off foxgloves grown from seed. On the right are mail-order scabiosa about to be planted.

Colour In The Winter Garden

             If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

           In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. WILLIAM BLAKE

            One kind word can warm three winter months. JAPANESE PROVERB

Hellebore.

Primulas.

Primulas and winter jasmine.

Acacia and a wintry sunset.

Butterflies And Moths

It's been a great year for butterflies in the garden. Here's a Red Admiral on the plum tree. Red Admirals and Commas were attracted by the fallen, fermenting fruit.

Right now there are lots of Small Tortoiseshells, bees, hoverflies and other insects on the asters.

And here's a Comma sunning its wings on a plum tree leaf.

I know there are Hummingbird Hawk Moths in the area. In fact, only yesterday the village butcher told me he'd seen one hovering over his hanging basket. I think I spotted one in our own garden too, but it flew away so fast I couldn't identify it with complete accuracy.

(All photos are The Solitary Walker's except for the last one, which is sourced from Wikimedia Commons and credited to Umberto Salvagnin.)

Garden Pleasures

Il faut cultiver notre jardin. VOLTAIRE

We've seen whirligig beetles, pond skaters, water boatmen and other bugs in our newly-refurbished pond — plus the first frog yesterday evening — so it seems to be in good health. A water lily leaf shot up from the bottom in just a week. It still looks a bit sparse, but it's early days yet... 

Roses are some of my favourite garden flowers, especially climbing roses...

I've been spending a lot of time in the garden recently — as an escape from stress, I think. Gardening is such a relaxing and pleasurable activity. (Now, I wouldn't have said that when I was younger!)

Kind Of Spring

When we moved into our hundred-year-old house fourteen years ago, we knew the garden would eventually need some serious reconstruction. It had been neglected by the previous owners for decades. Everything was the matter with it. Trees and bushes grew in the wrong places and were too crowded together. The pond was matted with dense vegetation and strangled with interlocking roots and pine cones. Ground elder, cleavers and other vigorous and pervasive weeds had taken over the borders and the shrubberies. The lawn was a ragged carpet of moss and dandelions. We struggled over the years to keep on top of things. With both of us working, this was a difficult task.

Cut to a year ago when at long last we were able to start hacking back the wilderness. A Corsican pine which was squeezing everything else out of the garden had to be felled. (It's sad to cut down a tree, but this variety is common in the countryside round here, and they are hardly garden trees anyway.) The leaking pond at its foot was relined and re-edged. The lawn was extended and returfed. The weeds were attacked. A new patio was laid. And much else. 

We didn't do a lot in the garden over winter, and have been reluctant to do much so far during this year's so-called spring. It's just been so cold and windy. And of course there's still a huge amount to do: potatoes to plant, beds to dig and compost, perennials to establish. There's always something to do in a garden.

It's no news to anyone that spring has come much later than normal this year. In fact it barely seems to have arrived here in the English Midlands. According to photographic and other records it's about a month behind. Plants need several days of continuous warmth as a signal for them to bud and flower with abandon. But the days have been cold with north-easterly winds, late snowfalls and little sun.

I heard a cuckoo a week ago, but the willow warblers and chiffchaffs have yet to land. The blackthorn's snow-white blossom has been on show for a week, and dandelions are popping up, but I saw the first daisies only this afternoon. There's a great crop of grape hyacinths, but the cherry tree seemed to flower then fade in a jiffy. Some of our daffodils and tulips are out, but others not...

Today I managed to cut the grass, and to plant three rhododendrons and a pieris, but was glad to scurry back indoors to coffee and the computer. (Incidentally, I was pleased to see quite a few bees flying over the lawn, which I identified as mining bees, and found some of their burrowed nests in the cropped turf.)

I'm now looking through the study window at yards of empty earth waiting to be colonised, jazzed up, beautified. No doubt it will happen in nature's own good time. Meanwhile, there are always pots of gaudy primulas to lift the spirits...              

I've read that when spring finally does arrive in all its glory, it will be short but intensely vibrant and stunningly colourful. We can but hope...

An Autumn Day On The Viking Way

Gardener at work.

We're completely redesigning and replanting our garden at the moment — a project that won't be finished until the spring. If such things are ever finished, as gardening is an ongoing labour. But a labour of love, I hope.

We couldn't have done this without Phil, a seventy-four year old local tree surgeon, landscape gardener and expert in all things horticultural. He's the same person who felled our rogue Corsican pine tree here. His knowledge, industry, meticulousness and wiry strength put me to shame. He's hacked away the jungle of our back garden, renovated the overgrown pond, returfed the lawn, constructed a raised bed for vegetables and put up a compost bin. Carmen and I have been busy too (he added guiltily) at the front and side of the house — digging, weeding, painting fences, planting bulbs.   

A naked pond crying out for some pond plants.

I thought it was high time the Solitary Walker took another solitary walk and escaped the domestic confines for a while. So, yesterday afternoon, I hiked another stretch of the Viking Way. I left the car at Fiskerton east of Lincoln, walked the seven miles to Bardney, then returned to the car by bus. It wasn't the prettiest stretch of the route, but I tried hard to find some magic in the black, ploughed earth and the flat, featureless landscape. Though it was difficult. Perhaps I was tired. Or perhaps it was my mood. Anyhow, no matter. Accept what is, what was, how you feel, how you felt. You can't force the magic. It will come again when you're least expecting it.

Drunken sign on the Viking Way.

Planting the crops: tractor with seed drill.

These fields and others close by were at one time the site of Fiskerton Airfield. It was from this airfield that Lancaster bomber crews of 576 Squadron attacked Hitler's 'Eagle's Nest' at Berchtesgaden in their last mission of World War II. 

The hedgerows were stippled with hips and haws, the fruits of the wild rose and the hawthorn bush. These are rosehips.

The rich, black earth of Lincolnshire.

Bracket fungus in an elder tree with colourful lichen.

All that remains of Barlings Abbey, one of the former nine religious houses of the area.  In the twelfth century the region was marshy with low, isolated islands — ideal terrain for sheep farming, a major source of income for monastic communities. I skirted the abbey field and was watched the whole time by a bull, which fortunately stayed where it was. 

A pair of mute swans, their cygnet brood fledged and gone.

Arriving home in the late afternoon sunlight, I spotted this small tortoiseshell butterfly on the garden asters. 

Final Hug

The Corsican pine in our garden, planted short-sightedly by the people who lived here before us, was getting bigger every year. Already 40 ft tall, it could have reached 120. It's not really a garden tree - unless you have some kind of country estate. It's more of a shelter belt or forestry tree. It was leaching all the goodness out of the soil and sucking up tons of moisture (the soil's dry and sandy enough, anyhow, here on the Trent valley flood plain). The garden was getting darker and shadier, stifled by the ever spreading, ever thickening branches. We were becoming restricted in what we could plant. And the pond at its foot was permanently clogged with pine needles and cones. It was no good. It was the wrong tree in the wrong place. It had to go. So we sought permission from the County Council. We checked there were no birds' nests. Then we called in the Tree Man.

There was time for one last hug ...

    

... before the Tree Man ascended in full tree climbing gear, chainsaw dangling ...

This guy is in his seventies. Hope I'm as fit as him at his age ...

Nearly there ...

Topped!

The tree trunk rings showed it was twenty-five years old.