Yet More Things!

26 Sun Apr 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, wild birds

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!

IMG_4449Bumblebee on White Dead-nettle (640x480)

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.

IMG_4476Crabapple 'Harry Baker' (640x480)

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!

A Mild Weekend

10 Tue Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, weather, wild birds

≈ 33 Comments

Tags

chaffinches, Coffee morning, daffodils, euonymus, gardening, goldfinches, grass-cutting, green woodpecker, hedge-cutting, honey bees, honeysuckle, ladybird, primulas, Robin, rosemary, weather

These daffodils are only about 8″ tall – I like their delicate yellow colour. The clay soil in the flowerbed had already formed a hard crust when I took this photo.

We had hardly any rain last week and as a strong breeze was blowing most of the time, the ground at last started to dry out and we weren’t sinking into the lawn at every step. We had a few frosts that disappeared very quickly and the temperature rose progressively through the week until at the weekend we had temperatures in the mid teens (Centigrade).

A honey bee on honeysuckle. We have some new neighbours living near us who have bee hives. On Thursday I saw that their bees had ventured out and were enjoying our honeysuckle flowers.

Both Richard and I worked quite hard in the garden this weekend, trying to catch up with the tidying chores that should have been done in the autumn and make a start on the jobs that need to be done in the spring.

Rosemary in flower against the front wall of our house.

Rosemary flowers. Whilst weeding on Sunday I found a number of rosemary seedlings.

The job that Richard was most pleased about was getting the grass cut at last. He has cut it long to start with and next weekend (weather permitting) he will cut it shorter. He had also not been able to finish cutting the Leylandii hedge last autumn and on Sunday he worked on that too. There is only the top to cut now and if the ground continues to dry out he will be able to get on the stepladder without it sinking in a couple of feet and finish that next weekend as well. Hopefully, before the birds start to nest in the hedge! Richard wondered if gardening counts as exercise. The nurse always looks at me in a sceptical way when I suggest that gardening should be classed as exercise. I expect she imagines I wander about doing a little pruning and weeding – no raised heart-rate there, she thinks. However, as most gardeners know, gardening can be very strenuous at times and I do my fair share of digging, raking and other heavy work. Richard worked out that he had walked almost a mile and a half yesterday taking six barrow-loads of hedge clippings to the bonfire heap. We have a large garden.

Richard mowing the grass. The building on the far side of the hedge is the old school house. It is now a private dwelling.

IMG_1925Garden with fruit trees (640x427)

This is where we have planted our fruit trees at the front of the house. The school house beyond the hedge, the corner pond to the right and you can see our grey septic tank cover to the left. You can see from the tracks in the grass, Richard must have been practising his slalom driving.

Elinor didn’t have a good day on Friday and wasn’t able to get out of the car when I took her to college. I brought her home again and she slept for a few hours and felt a little better when she woke. She has had three out of four results for her mock GCSE exams so far. Psychology A, English A and Maths E. An E is only just a pass but we are pleased that she did as well as she did with only having attended half a dozen classes at college. She is determined to do better and really wants to get at least a C grade.

Richard and I went to the church coffee morning on Saturday which was held at the Rector’s house. The Rector is still recovering from heart surgery and was pale and thin but gamely hosted the gathering. We won a picture frame in the raffle and I bought a delicious sticky tea bread and some more of the Rector’s home-made marmalade. We indulged in the usual chat and gossip. There are a few events coming up soon. Cordelia is holding her annual Daffodil Day (on Palm Sunday this year), when we admire her beautiful garden and buy food and goods from stalls in aid of church funds. Our other friends, Pam and Ian are holding an Open Garden on Easter Monday also in aid of church funds and their garden is always a joy to visit too.

Ladybird on Euonymus

I had a migraine on Saturday so wasn’t able to take advantage of the fine weather. Sunday started very fair but by the time we left church it was starting to cloud over and we had a little drizzle then rain showers during the afternoon. The weather didn’t stop us working outside as it was so mild.