New Year, New Growth

Wildlife water bowl.

It's been another wet week.  All this rain gave me plenty of opportunity to see posts about what's growing in other gardens.  Between showers, I compared notes to my own space.

While the freesia are still asleep & the clematis has no noticeable new growth, there are a few things happening out there.




1.  I admit, I've been worried about my witch hazel.  When it dropped its leaves early last year, I told myself the move had changed its signals.  Then all these great photos of yellow & orange & red squigglies appeared in my Twitter feed, convincing me my tree had died.

But hello!

Witch hazel tutu blooms.

2.  The leucojum has had its first blossom.

Leucojum not yet fully open.

3.  I've been keeping an eye on the sweet peas, self seeded & . . .

Self seeded sweet pea next to the toadflax.

. . . 2017 survivor.

Old man pea.

4.  The greatest joy of week, proof positive the daffs have survived Brer Fox.  (You can read about our Neighbour From Hell saga here & here.)

The Brer Fox repellant worked!

5.  The kerria surprised me with a blossom in the middle of its many wands.  The smudged yellowgreen bits below the horizontal stem are leaf knobs getting ready to open.  This is the kerria overshadowed by the elder tree, which I've been pruning back, so hopefully there'll be more vertical & less horizontal this year.

Oh kerria, you yellow face delights us.

6.  Mlle DoodleFace pointed out a new hole under the fence, this one too small for Brer Fox.  I keep filling it in & it keeps getting opened again, sometimes by Mlle DoodleFace herself.

The new rat-sized hole.

Mizzy BunnyButt (who tends all things rodent) sent a memo about some big heavy stone to be lodged in there quite soon.  (As you can see in this photo, there were no blossoms on the witch hazel earlier this week, so WOW, eh?)

Mizzy BB inspects.

All these new things in our new year.

So once again, thanks for stopping to see my Six on Saturday.  Please be sure to visit The Propagator for his SoS plus links to many other garden peeks.

Tuckered Mlle DoodleFace.

The Night Before the Night Before

Spirit of the season.

At last, the penultimate Saturday of the year.

This past week, the chard lovers among you sent in all sorts of tempting recipes, broadening my ideas about what I can do with the stuff. To you, I'm most grateful.

Thinking chard thoughts made me realise my antipathy towards it was laced with guilt over not eating my greens.  Or purples.  Or reds, as the case may be.  So while I'll indeed be trying your yummy ideas, next year I'll allow myself to simply enjoy seeing colourful chard jostle the other inhabitants of the flowerbed.


Now, my Six on Saturday.  This week, I'm including some chores that refuse to be put to the side simply because there's eggnog in the house.  Gardening magic does not come to those who do no chores.

1.  First chore, replanting bulbs uprooted by young Brer Fox for the 2nd time.  There are 3 or 4 regular fox who visit our street every night.  I suspect Brer Fox is the young kit who jumps from wall to wall until he gets our resident Doodle's attention.  Once Doodle sounds the alarm, Brer Fox alternates between grooming himself & making delicious eye contact with her.  A most aggressive act in the canine community.

This bedlam, I can endure.  Digging up my bulbs, I cannot.  Hopefully the new defence system'll slow Brer Fox down.

Battling Brer Fox.

2.  Pruning of the rapacious elder has begun.  My chronic fatigue means this has to be done in many, many stages.  Although there's currently a pile of branches in the middle of the lawn, both the kerria & the lilac will now be able to grow vertically, even if I were to overdose on eggnogg this very night.  The acer (discussed here), not so much improved.  I'm fairly sure it'll stay the hunched & wizened hag of my garden.

The great elder cull begins.

3.  This orchid waited a long time for some attention.  A castaway from my son's undergraduate days, it's been a prolific bloomer until this new house.  That's one drawback of frequent moves - houseplants get very attached to their particular windowsills & pout when they lose them.  Here's hoping in a week or two m'lady'll be back to her gorgeous self.

Sulking orchid pair, mother & daughter.

4.  Then there's a previous chore.  Two hollyhocks'd somehow seeded themselves in the lawn.  Not at the edge, but about 18" inside the grass, brazenly taunting mower & dogs.  All summer, I told myself that once they reached their mature height in a year or two, they'd be too obvious to get themselves murdered.  In late November, I lost my nerve & transplanted them near their parents, fairly certain my cowardice would result in their death.

Newly transplanted hollyhocks.

They not only survived that abuse, but met their first frost with courage . . .

First frost!

. . . braved the snow that followed, & scoffed at this week's hard frost.

And a hard frost.

Enough of chores.  Let's end with a pair of lovelies.

5.  Yonks ago, I lived in a 17th century rectory, the type of house that sucks all the moisture from the ground.  Our landlady (who knew ALL the Latin plant names, which impressed this rough holler dweller to no end) filled the surrounding flowerbeds with drought resistant plants.

And thus, I met curry plant.  Helichrysum italicum, to the rest of you.  It propagates easily, so I took a bit of it with me on every subsequent move, but the curry in my last house died for some reason.  So this is my very own, not stolen/not relocated/not cut-&-dragged-from-house-to-house curry plant.

This beauty sits near the back door, giving off its gorgeously savoury smell.  I love it to bits.

Helichrysum italicum - curry plant.

6.  I've admitted my rapture over creeping thyme before.  It smells great, covers a multitude of sins, looks wonderful 3 seasons out of the year.  Here it is in its Cinderella finery after the frost.

Frosted creeping thyme.

Winter largesse.

Once again, we're at the end of my Six on Saturday.  Be sure to visit The Propagator for not only his Six, but links to other gardeners rounding up a special half dozen for you.

Enjoy your holiday celebrations, whatever they may be!

Four Seasons in a Week?

They'd rather be outside.

Before emigrating to the UK, I lived with four discernible seasons.  In winter, the snow'd get mid-thigh, so I'd let the springer spaniel break a glee-inspired crooked path through the snow to the car. 

This week in my garden, the temps are decidedly winter, but visually, one could argue 4 seasons co-exist here.





1.  In the spring category, bulbs known & unknown are coming up.  Although called summer snowflakes by their friends, the leucojum aestivum took the best photo.  Here, you can see a winter jasmine checking them out.  The yellow leaves against the wall = grasping wisteria that escaped pruning.

Leucogjum aestivum, aka summer snowflake.

2.  For my faux summer, there's still a lot of bloom in the garden - snap dragon, lavender, bergenia, hesperantha, some purple thing I can never remember the name of because I don't really like it but the rest of my family does.  And of course, my good friend calendula.

Calendula.

3.  Clematis seeds represent late summer, early autumn.  It's self-seeded in various cracks & pots over the summer, so I should dead head it, but they're so lovely to look at, I'm being rather foolish about them.

Clematis seed heads.

This clematis was here before us, so identity unknown.  Comparing a bad photo of it in early autumn with Google Images gave me several options, all of which look alike to my untrained eye.  Maybe western white clematis - clematis ligusticifolia - which apparently is native to the west coast of North America.

Last of the clematis blooms.

4.  For something well into autumn, weigela.  I got this one by layering an old shrub in my previous garden.  That house was built in the 1970s, the garden still containing much of the original landscaping, so this guy could be from that era.  It's leaves are unveriegated, the blossoms pinky purple.  Not much to go on, in terms of identification, but that's what it is.  I rather like the old guy.

Weigela photobombed by the cotoneaster.

5.  For all this pretend-season foolduggery, one (me) must admit it's actually winter.  This week we got the dread snow, which I'd hoped would kill off the chard. 

Please let it die.

As written previously, this chard came under the guise of a Christmas present in seed form.  Despite our best efforts, none of us enjoyed eating it, though the colours were pretty stunning.

Post snow photo.

The snow did kill off the cosmos next to it, though.  When I removed the cosmos, I found this sneaky little chard growing to beat the band.  You can see it behind the grown-up chard in the post snow photo.

Really purple chard.

So my love-hate of chard continues.  Its colour may win a permanent place in the flowerbed.

6.  Tales of Brer Fox.  I've been watching his antics in the back garden via my wildlife cam.  One of his regular habits is to stand in pots to get a better look at things before exiting the garden.  The snow revealed that a certain Doodle (who shall remain nameless), tracks his every move.

Doodle tiptoeing through the garlic.

This is the first time since last spring that Brer Fox dug anything up, though.  Hopefully this was one raucous night that won't be repeated.

Very glad Brer Fox left the bulbs for replanting.

Mizzy BunnyButt scouring for next week's SoS.

Thus ends the four seasons pretence.  Please be sure to hop over to The Propagator for his Six, plus links in his comment section to other Six on Saturday garden blogs.  New blogs come up over the weekend, so be sure to follow #SixonSaturday on Twitter as well.

See you next week!

Critturs & Thangs

Snow-loving Doodle.

I know you're out there, you folk committing wintery exploits in your gardens.  After a snow flurry on Thursday, I've kept to my warm living room.  However, there's critturs & other thangs in that garden of mine, let me tell you.

But let's start with what's not there.












1.  There's always been owls swooping through my gardens of the last 25 years or so.  Sitting in the trees.  Me at the base & them looking down on said inferior being.  Silent & calling.  Silent & calling.

Until now.  In this garden, I hear no owls, so my son got me this old woman of the night.

The only owl of the moment.

She faces the house rather than the garden, & can be seen through the downstairs bathroom window.

Watching through the window.

2.  Spiders were welcomed in my mother's house, their cobwebs untouched during house cleaning.  I, too, like a good spider, inside the house or out.  This gal in the next photo was in my garden but isn't now.

There were several of them conspicuously hanging around before the snow, stringing webs across footpaths, thinking they could catch me & make a tasty snack.  This lady in the picture below lived outside the dining room window.  I'd eat my breakfast & watch her lay in wait for hers.  Round about Wednesday, she disappeared.  When the spider goes, snow is coming, & that lady is gone gone.

Madam Window Friend

2.  There are few things that upset me as much as disrespecting my precious garlic babies.  As you can see, something's been a tad rough with them.  In the larger garlic planters, actual paw prints can be discerned.

Poor little abused garlic chillen.

Fortunately, this past spring, I bought a wildlife camera because there were some strange noises coming from the abandoned lot next door, coupled with a familiar musk on the morning air.

Now, thanks to that camera, I could track down suspects in the Great 2017 Garlic Babies Travesty.

3.  First, the vagabond cats.  Yes, despite Mizzy BunnyButt's most severe glares, some of these dared show their faces in the daylight.

The brazen ginger tom.

The more elusive feline intruders came at night.

The rare black & white fluff lion.

The greater spotted leopard tiger.

4.  Then Mizzy BunnyButt, curator of all things, pointed out a breach in the perimeter, perhaps connected to those musky spring sounds.

As Mizzy BB demonstrates, there's a tunnel under the fence.

5.  Which brings us to this fella.

Brer Fox

Footage shows that before Brer Fox ends his nightly visits, he hops up on various pots to inspect the garden from a higher vantage point.

As much as I love my garlic chillen, I love Brer Fox more.  His visits will be tolerated, but there'll be some sticks tucked in among the garlic to dissuade him from those pots.

Those are my six offerings for the week.  Thanks for stopping by.  Be sure to check out The Propagator for his Six & for other Six on Saturday links in his comment section.

See you next week!  Stay warm until then.