A January Walk

Tags

All Saints church, Ash, beech, bramble, common reeds, cow parsley, Down the Garden Path by Beverley Nichols, Holly, ivy, January, muddy lanes, primrose, St Margaret South Elmham church, Suffolk, walking, white bryony, white deadnettle, Winter Heliotrope

Let me take you back to the 1st of January…….

We don’t celebrate New Year in this house; we usually (but not always) stay up till midnight on New Year’s Eve, listen to fireworks being let off in the surrounding farms and villages and then make our way to bed.  We have a relaxed New Year’s Day with a late breakfast and then watch/listen to the New Year’s Day Concert from Vienna on the kitchen TV while we read, drink coffee, do the ironing, chat, think about lunch etc. Often, we go for a walk and this year yes, we went for a walk.

We left it too late to travel to a place to walk so we set off from the front door and did our usual circuit of the lanes round St. Margaret village.

After just a few yards I turned around and looked back the way we’d come. We have such long shadows in January!

Richard and I enjoy this walk as it is familiar, is only a couple of miles and gives us plenty to look at.

Looking across the fields to our left as we walked along we saw All Saint’s church.

There were still plenty of leaves on the brambles (Rubus fruticosus agg.).

I enjoyed seeing the bright pink and apricot colours on this leaf while many of the other leaves were still green.  The stems of bramble are grey and lavender and very prickly.

White Deadnettle (Lamium album) in flower.

Our post box. It is growing quite a good crop of lichen on it.

Cattle shed

Our very muddy lane.

A dead tree fell during one of the recent storms and has crushed part of the hedge.

A glowing rose leaf (Rosa canina).

Holly (Ilex aquifolium) growing in the hedge.

Ash saplings (Fraxinus excelsior) with their black buds.

White Bryony berries (Bryonia dioica) decorate the trees.

A close-up of the bryony berries; a little shrivelled and past their best.

Cottages on the lane from Bateman’s Barn to St Margaret, looking back towards Bateman’s Barn.

The reeds (Phragmites australis) at the side of the lane have been cut recently leaving just these few at the base of a telegraph pole.

Ivy (Hedera helix) climbing up tree trunks in the hedgerow.

A view across the fields to distant woods on a slight knoll.

I love the muted shades of the countryside in winter.

Winter Heliotrope (Petasites fragrans) in flower with myriad Goosegrass or Cleavers (Galium aparine) seedlings.

Winter Heliotrope has the most delicious scent!  On a mild winter’s day the air is filled with its sweet perfume.  It is an invasive alien and takes over large areas of hedgerow to the detriment of all the native plants but…. nothing else has such bright green leaves and such flowers at this time of year.  One of the books I am reading currently is ‘Down the Garden Path’ by Beverley Nichols written in 1932.  He enthuses about Winter Heliotrope!

‘If you want to begin with something that is quite foolproof, you cannot do better than invest in a few roots of Petasites fragrans which has the pretty English name of winter heliotrope.  Some people sneer at the winter heliotrope.  They say the flower is dingy, and that the roots have abominable habits, being inclined to spread indiscriminately into the garden next door.  The people next door should be grateful if the roots do spread into their garden.  For the flower is not dingy at all … it is a little pale and humble … that is all.  Besides, one does not grow the winter heliotrope for its beauty of form.  One grows it for its beauty of scent.  It has a most exquisite fragrance.  If you cut it and carry it indoors it will scent a whole room.’

Quantities of Beech mast (Fagus sylvatica) covered the path to the church.

Young primrose leaf-whorls (Primula vulgaris) with a few Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) seedlings in the churchyard.

St Margaret South Elmham church. I have been cleaning this church regularly since last February.

A large beech tree in the churchyard.

A very twisted Ash tree in the churchyard.

Richard waiting for me at the church gate.

Richard.

Some small mushrooms discovered on the grass verge.

The fern-like leaves of Cow Parsley waiting for spring.

Our house seen across the field.

Home for a cup of tea!

As many of you will have realised, I have been trying to catch-up with all of your posts.  I considered missing all the posts out and just starting afresh but then I found I needed to know what you have been up to for the past few weeks.  I wanted to admire all your photos and read your poems and stories.  I haven’t commented very often for which I apologise, but I have definitely read all you have written and I have enjoyed it all!  I am nearly caught up and I will be back to commenting regularly again.

May’s End – Part 1

Tags

Ash, Bush Vetch, Common Vetch, cow parsley, cut-leaved crane's-bill, English Elm, garden, Germander Speedwell, horse chestnut, ivy, Muntjac fawn, Red Clover, Ribwort Plantain, Scots Pine, Small-leaved Lime, Suffolk, Thyme-leaved Speedwell, trees, white dead-nettle, wild flowers

Where has this year gone!  It is nearly June already and I have been so busy and concerned for my family that I have been largely unaware of the passing of time.   If it wasn’t for the photographs I have been able to take periodically I would think I had done nothing and gone nowhere.

This post will record the wild plants and trees I have in the garden.  I haven’t been able to photograph any birds successfully for a few weeks and, because of the cool temperatures, there has been a distinct lack of insects other than a few hardy bees.

Common Vetch (Vicia sativa)

Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium)

Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris)

English Elm (Ulmus procera)

We have a number of English Elm saplings in our garden.  The Elm has a suckering habit so we have groups of them in the scrub area near our big pond.  When we first moved here in 2006 there were a few 20′ trees but those have since succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease.  I can just remember the countryside when we had beautiful, stately Elm trees everywhere with their wide, domed crowns.  Many of the trees had gaps where branches had been lost so they looked as though the trunks had leafy clouds on them.  Not a good description I know but maybe those of you who remember Elms will know what I mean.  My mother was always warned not to shelter under an Elm tree as they tended to lose branches easily.

Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris)

The Scots Pine is another tree that loses branches easily.  This is a little sapling we planted some years ago and hoped that it would be quite tall by now.  Unfortunately it is still only about 3 foot tall and for some time we couldn’t understand why it wasn’t growing.  We now believe that deer have been eating the new tips of the branches and have been pruning it.  We are trying to protect it with a tall ring of mesh.

Ivy (Hedera helix)

I love the look of ivy.  The different shades of green of the new and older leaves, the pale veins and the exciting leaf-shape.  The upper leaves are oval and many people don’t believe they belong to the same plant.  It is such a useful plant to have in the garden.  It provides food and shelter to so many creatures and is useful greenery when I reluctantly have to provide flowers for church.

Ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata)

The seedheads are food for Goldfinches and other seed eaters.

This flowerhead has a visiting insect – a type of sawfly I think.

White Dead-nettle (Lamium album)

Wild flowers. In this small patch there is Common Vetch, Creeping Buttercup, Heart’s-ease, Red Clover, Ground Ivy, Greater Plantain leaves and grasses.

The Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is flowering well. The flowers are scented.

Thyme-leaved Speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia) The flowers are tiny!

Germander Speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys)

Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill (Geranium dissectum)

This is a little plant that is often over-looked but the leaves alone are quite beautiful.

Ash (Fraxinus excelsior). The Ash tree is one of the last trees to come into leaf.

Red Clover (Trifolium pratense)

Small-leaved Lime (Tilia cordata)

We have four small Small-leaved Lime trees which were a birthday present to me a couple of years ago.  I think the red buds are lovely.

The final photo is a Muntjac fawn we saw a few evenings ago.  It was alone and only stayed for a few minutes.

As you can see it was only as tall as my daffodils that needed dead-heading.

Thank-you for visiting!

Yet More Things!

Tags

amelanchier, Ash, ash keys, bristly ox-tongue, clematis montana, crabapple 'Harry Baker', euonymus, garden, greylag, pasque flower, pieris, red-legged partridge, rosemary, saxifrage, spring, Suffolk, tulip, viburnum bodnantense, white dead-nettle, wild cherry

I was surprised to see two Red-legged Partridges (Alectoris rufa) in my garden one morning as I opened the kitchen blinds.

This one had obviously had a bad night.

Please ignore the weedy flowerbed – I have since tidied it up.

Shortly after I took this photo they both flew away.

The variagated Euonymus is looking bright with new leaves.

The Pieris ‘Forest Fire’ has tiny new pink leaves

The Clematis montana ‘Rubens’ I cut back a few weeks ago is showing me that it won’t be beaten.

The Rosemary is still flowering beautifully

The Ash trees (Fraxinus excelsior) are flowering.

The flowers are very small and a warm purple colour. Ash trees have separate male and female flowers, mainly on separate trees but there are a few trees that have both male and female flowers but on separate branches! The trees around us are all females and produce thousands of Ash ‘keys’, winged seeds that hang from the trees in bunches in the autumn. My mother has plenty of Ash trees near her house but all hers are males – so no ‘keys’.

A reflective Greylag!

A bumblebee on White Dead-nettle (Lamium album)

A very over-grown corner of our garden. This ditch doesn’t belong to us but is part of the common land between our garden and the road. I expect that no-one will take responsibility for looking after this but if there is a problem with it in the future we will no doubt be asked to deal with it!

The Amelanchier is blossoming.

The Viburnum bodnantense produces dark pink flowers in the spring and pale pink or white flowers during the winter

Wild Cherry blossom (Prunus avium)

Wild Cherry

Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris)

Red Saxifrage

A soft pink Tulip

It looks so different depending on the angle from which I photograph it

Tulips

The new leaves of Bristly Ox-tongue (Picris echioides).  Another member of the Daisy family.

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’ flower buds

I had an on-line conversation with a member of the WordPress team a week or so ago and asked about my missing posts.  The person who dealt with my enquiry was extremely helpful but was unable to retrieve them.  He would have been able to retrieve three old posts I had deleted on purpose but was unable to find the ones that had disappeared!  Fortunately, a very dear friend who is an e-mail follower has been saving my posts and has sent all the missing ones to me.  When I have the time I may post a page with them on for anyones information.

Thank-you for visiting!

In My Garden

Tags

Ash, birds, blackthorn, catkins, Christmas box, crocus, flying mallards, garden plants, goldfinch, hazel, hazel gall, horse chestnut, ice, iris reticulata, lichen, Mahonia, moon, pond, reflections, silver birch, song thrush, Suffolk, trees, winter-flowering honeysuckle, witch-hazel

This is a post featuring a few of the things I have noticed in our garden recently.  A large part of the garden is exposed to the prevailing south-westerly wind and we find plants here are slower to grow and flower than those in other gardens near us.  I have seen large carpets of Winter Aconites in other peoples gardens but there is no sign of them here at all.   The beds around the house and near the hedge are more sheltered and this is where we see the first signs of spring.

Buds on the Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior)

I like the Ash’s black, conical buds – they look a little like deer hooves.  So far, we haven’t found any sign of ‘Ash die-back’ in our garden yet.  This is caused by the Hymenoscyphus fraxineus fungus.  East Anglia is badly affected and has lost many of its Ash trees already.

Horse-chestnut sticky buds (Aesculus hippocastanum)

Little red buds on the Blackthorn in the hedge (Prunus spinosa)

While I was photographing these I looked up and found a Barn Owl was flying straight towards me.  I don’t know who was more surprised, the owl or me!  I tried to photograph it before it veered away from me but I couldn’t focus in time.

Lichen in the hedge

 Hazel male catkins (Corylus avellana)

 

Hazel female catkins with their tiny red petals

Hazel bud

 

 

Hazel buds.

I wondered what these were on our hazel trees as I had never noticed them before.  None of my books mentioned buds looking like this so I googled for information and discovered a photograph that looked like mine on ramblingsofanaturalist.blogspot.com.  The author says that these are bud galls made by the mite Phytoptus avellanae.  He also talks about unopened brown catkins which have been attacked by either the mite Phyllocoptes coryli or the Cedidomyid midge Contarinia coryli.   I had also seen distorted brown catkins and had wondered about them too but had been unable to get a clear photo of them.

Reflection of sky and cloud in our big pond

Flying ducks

Our Silver Birch tree (Betula pendula) is also growing its catkins.

Thin ice on the pond. Hail has got frozen onto the ice that was already there.

The icy pond

The Witch-hazel (Hamamelis) is flowering in its large pot next to the front door and on mild days fills the porch with scent.

The Christmas Box (Sarcococca) is also scenting the garden.

Another scented shrub – the Winter-flowering Honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima)

This shrub Honeysuckle is a real favourite of mine.  Its small flowers are powerfully scented and it flowers from mid-winter until well into spring hardly stopping except in the harshest of weathers.  It is virtually evergreen and the flowers are followed by bright red heart-shaped berries loved by Blackbirds.

The Mahonia (Mahonia x media ‘Charity’) with its Lily-of-the-Valley scent has been flowering since the end of October.

The first of my miniature Iris Reticulata bloomed today

A tiny crocus has appeared in the rough grass under one of the crabapple trees.

I found some more – paler ones this time. I hope the birds don’t rip them up and the mole doesn’t dig them up.

 

 

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos)

Finally, here is the setting full moon seen on the morning of 4th February.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!