In My Garden

JULY

Waking up to sunshine is always a good start to the day, made better still by the heart-warming sight of baby birds helping themselves to sunflower seeds from the bird feeder, The adult birds feed in their species specific ways. The tiny blue tits and coal tits zip in and are off again as quickly as they can, while the greenfinches and goldfinches take their time over breakfast. The blackbirds and robins seem surprised that the new feeder we have allows them to perch on it too. Throughout all the comings and goings, wood pigeons sit patiently in the grass. From our human perspective, they appear lazy but, in reality, they are conserving precious energy, waiting for seed to fall and come to them. No wonder they are a successful and increasing species.

The fledglings haven’t all got the hang of things yet. Some sit fluttering waiting to be fed. One of the blue tits hangs upside down beneath the feeder, no doubt wondering how on earth he can get to the food, while others are making the most of their newly learned skill and feed themselves. Successful broods are a pleasure to watch and well worth a few slightly ravaged box plants. Big juicy box moth caterpillars had begun to colonise the box balls. As they seem to have now disappeared, I guess they helped fatten the baby birds in their nests. 

My early spring worries over aphids on the roses now look to have been unfounded. Perhaps the parent birds had been out looking for them before me. As long as I provide the habitats the insects need to thrive, the birds will take care of themselves, but they do like the sunflower seeds too!

JUNE

I’ve been reading an article by one of my favourite nature writers, Simon Barnes, about how he became disconnected from his childhood passion for nature during his teenage years as he tried to fit in at school by being what he thought he should be, ordinary. Luckily, he later realised that being boring wasn’t his true nature and he once again embraced his inner nerd. Being a nerd isn’t cool, at school or anywhere else, but it is really interesting; nerds are passionate, often knowledgeable about their chosen subject and I’m delighted to call myself a garden nerd.

Who wants a boring, ordinary garden lacking passion? Sadly, all too often our gardens are just that as we desperately try not to offend the neighbours or stray from perceived good gardening advice. Grass frontages mown to within an inch of their lives, bare soil you could eat your dinner off, and worse, regimented evergreen shrubs rising through a weed suppressing membrane and thick gravel mulch.

Well, my inner nerd is having none of it, she’s out of the closet, loud and proud. My garden borders are as full of weeds as the raspberry patch is; the lawn grass is two feet high and we can hardly fit down the paths for wayward plants. But when we have visitors, they describe my garden as an oasis. They use words like beautiful, peaceful and relaxing. There are butterflies, bees and birds in the air, newts in the pond and hedgehog calling cards left regularly. It’s absolutely full of life and isn’t that what gardens should be? I think we should all embrace our inner nerd.

MAY

Today the weather is perfect – not a phrase often spoken by the British, especially the gardening variety – but I have to say that, today, my garden and I are very pleased with it. I’m sitting enjoying warm sunshine watching little skaters zip over the surface of the pond. A blue butterfly, the third today, has just floated past on the pleasant breeze. An orange tip was here earlier and a speckled wood. The sun has encouraged them. 

The birds are in full song and every open flower is shining. 

My garden is growing back into its true self, a joyful jumble of the intentionally planted, the spontaneously arrived and the germinating of the random seed bank mix of soil long gardened. It’s now left largely to grow its own choice of plants but that’s not to say that I don’t make a few choices of my own, I am as much a part of my garden’s nature as every other living thing it nurtures. This year I’m making a concerted effort to grow more vegetables and to look after them more dutifully than in previous years. So, I have also been pulling nettles from the chicken run. The two remaining girls have been given fresh quarters and my plan is that the fertile soil they have so kindly enriched for the past few years, will make a very good potato bed. The seed potatoes are just about ready to go in; a nice blanket of compost over the top and my new no dig bed will be ready.

Spring will soon turn to summer. The weather is improving and all is well in my garden. What can possibly go wrong?!

APRIL

I always think of April as the greenest month, as our gardens and the landscapes around them burst with greens of every shade. Newly unfurled, every leaf is fresh, vibrant and perfectly formed No caterpillar holes in them yet, although they must be so succulent and tasty. 

I am very tempted to pick the salad leaves I sowed in the greenhouse last month. Micro greens may look great on a plate but they don’t go very far in a family meal. What I do need to catch quickly are the free pickings of wild garlic, dandelion leaves and nettle tops before they go past their tender best, I love the idea of foraging from my garden and I use these new leaves in the kitchen every spring. This year, I intend to branch out a bit and try young hawthorn and beech leaves for a free and very fresh salad with a complete absence of pesticide residue and food miles reduced to the few steps between the back door and boundary hedge. A few more steps across the path to the meadow lawn and I can add daisy, sorrel and yarrow leaves to the mix.

Another month or so and the elderflowers will be ready to make a cordial to rival any posh bought bottle. As spring is followed by summer and the warming sun ripens them, there will be wild strawberries, cherry plums, blackberries, crab apples and sloes. A few leaves may make meagre pickings but what’s to come will help make a feast, I can’t wait!

MARCH

There’s a scattering of the first fallen cherry blossom over the surface of the pond and a pair of mallards, up from the river, are bobbing politely to each other as, below them, a turmoil of mating frogs churns the water. Below the surface, I can see the fresh new leaves of the spearwort heading for the light, like us and every other plant and animal in the garden, it’s sensed a longed for and very welcome change.The spring equinox tips us over the edge, away from winter, and it seems as if the whole garden has taken off the brakes. The little woodland flowers are rushing to beat the trees’ leaves into growth and the closing of the canopy above. Primroses, pulmonaria, hellebores and violets sit among the dainty filigree foliage of ferns and cow parsley and the thrusting spears of bluebell and wild garlic leaves in an intricate and beautiful tapestry.

Out in the open, the grass of the meadow lawn is shooting up to hide the tiny crocus and snowdrop flowers. As they fade, a constellation of silver daisy stars and blazing dandelion suns follows. I peer down between them, eager to see if any of last year’s lavish sowings of yellow rattle have germinated, the dog’s daily addition of liquid nitrogen frustrates my attempts to keep the fertility of the soil and vigour of the grass low. A good clear out of last year’s old growth from the borders reveals my favourite plant, bush vetch. Solitary bees love its purple flowers as much as I do. 

I must try to teach the dog to ‘go’ in the borders instead of the lawn!

February

I think we’ve all had enough of winter by February. As well as our coldest month, it’s also our shortest, but it does seem to drag its feet. I wish it would hurry along but, as always, nature has a way of helping me appreciate my garden, even in this month. February sees the return of the frogs to their pond; the full moon on the 24th should be a good time for them to make their move. Each year I’m as excited as I was as a five- year-old when I collected a jam jar full of slippery shiny spawn from a local field pond to take back home to live through hatching and metamorphosis in my mum’s mixing bowl miniature pond.

Now, as I dip my hands into the freezing cold water of my much larger and much more suitable frog spawning habitat, the feel of the freshly laid, silky smooth and wobbly mass is an unmissable, if painful, pleasure. It’s also a pertinent reminder that our gardens are responding to increasing light levels and day length. The first of spring’s flowers are opening themselves up to the earliest insects. Cherry plum, crocus, cyclamen, primrose, muscari, snowdrops and winter aconites await their pollinators as hazel catkins dangle in the wind hoping their pollen will land miraculously on a female hazel flower.

My garden is gearing itself up for spring and so should I. Time to stop grumbling about winter and look forward to the pleasures of spring to come!

JANUARY

My garden and I are waiting patiently. While it remains tucked up under its blanket of fallen leaves, I make the most of any dry spells and weak sun to potter about searching for reassurance that beneath the gently decaying vegetation, the hellebores are budding and the nose tips of bulbs have broken through the dank soil’s surface. My thickly gloved hands itch to do something practical to help my garden make itself ready for spring. Despite the new calendar year and a powerful urge to begin cutting back dead stems and heaving out armfuls of soggy stuff, I know very well that any perceived help now would actually be a hindrance. Exposing the crowns of plants to harsh frost, taking away small creatures’ shelter and compacting the soil underfoot is just not what my garden and its inhabitants need.

So I console myself with seed selection. I imagine how beautiful the annuals I choose will look in combination, how much their flowers will benefit the insects, which vegetables I can best use in my cooking and which should grow well together in each other’s company. As always, this time of year brings different bird species to our gardens. Right now, they now they are our strongest link to the natural world pulling our gaze out of the window with their colours and lively movement. Just like us they’re doing their best to keep warm, dry and well fed, patiently waiting for spriNG

DECEMBER

In our human world, where time is ordered into diaries and calendars, this tired old year is coming to an end and a shiny new one is about to begin. In the natural world, of which our gardens and we too are part, there are no stops and restarts, no deadlines of the ‘I must get this done before Christmas’ kind. There is just the ebb and flow of the cycles of life; the seasonal changes we see in our part of the planet as it responds to the oblique angle of its orbit around the sun.

Now is the time of the winter equinox, when we are tilted to face away from our sun and into the cold dark depths of deep space. But even as these short days deprive us of light and warmth, we know that our earth’s turning, however slow it might seem, will cause our days to stretch out as the hours of light lengthen. With them, will come all the things we love our gardens for: fresh new growth, spring’s first flowers, glorious birdsong and the return of the frogs to spawn.

In the meantime, our December gardens have lots to enjoy. Even on cold, grey days indoors we can still appreciate our views through windows. There are more small birds visiting seed heads and feeders now as resident goldfinches, blue and great tits are joined by black caps, siskins and redpolls. Blackbirds feasting on berries in the trees are joined by migrating redwings and fieldfares. When the sun does shine, its low slanting rays make the beech leaves glow golden, Cornus stems gleam vivid red and the dew drop grass heads sparkle. The garden in December can lift the spirits more than at any other time and it reminds us, even in our darkest days, that nature is reliable when nothing else seems to be. The light will return.

Cheryl and I are hanging up our trowels this month. You can follow Cheryl’s Wild Garden Blog at https://cherylcummingswildgardenwriting.co.uk/blog

NOVEMBER

November’s lengthening nights, shorter days and cooling temperatures are so at odds with the increasingly fiery colours of the foliage heating up my garden, its plants are responding with leaves of every shade of scarlet and crimson red. Cornus mas, Euonymus planipes, Cercis ‘Forest Pansy’and Acer palmatum were planted intentionally, especially for this season, when they are at their most interesting and noticeable. Wild purple loosestrife, which has sown itself around the edges of the pond and has now wandered off on to drier land, is rising like rusty red towers through less flamboyant perennials.

All seems reassuringly as it should for the season, apart from something being not quite right with a fastigiate yew. A flame of disturbing orange is appearing amongst the deep green, as it did last autumn. As spring came, the orange faded and normal colour returned. But here it is again, as if the branch has been scorched by a blowtorch. A puzzle I’ll try to solve  I seem to find my garden full of questions - like why did the pyramidal orchids suddenly disappear?

As I wander around and ponder, the fungi are popping up everywhere; new ones daily. They remind me to value their importance to my garden and remember their mycelium spreading unseen in the dark beneath my feet, underpinning its growth. Perhaps the answer to the orchid question lies with them and their displeasure at the dog and his daily doings. Orchids really need the mycoorrhizal fungi. Perhaps the yew tree doesn’t. I’ll go out now and look for fungi round its roots!

OCTOBER

Forecasters call our weather ‘changeable’, an understatement if ever there was one! One day of continuous drizzle interspersed with heavy showers had me in the greenhouse sowing the last of the saved wildflower seed into trays to plant out later as plugs. Next day, the sun through the glass was so hot I hung up the wet washing in there, not just to get it dry, but also to shade the seed trays and put humidity into the air.

Today, the sun beaming through thin whisps of barely-there cloud eat gives the perfect degree of warmth to my face as I sit overlooking the pond enjoying the Molinia and Panicum heads swaying gently in an almost imperceptible breeze. Ornamental grasses are at their very best in autumn, diamond dusted by morning dew, their linear leaves rise flame like through dark red Persicaria and deep gold Rudbeckia flowers. With the sky blue stars of Aster for contrast, they more than earn their place in anyone’s garden.

A southern hawker dragonfly zooms past and takes my attention to a carder bee not an inch from my elbow, and a peacock butterfly. As I watch, it touches down softly on the wall behind me where two conehead crickets are basking in its reflected warmth. I carefully reach for my phone to capture its vibrant colours against the pure white wall but it lifts off again. We play this cat and mouse game until a flock of small birds flits and twitters into the hedgand I’m distracted yet again by the life that shares the garden with me.

The weather may be changeable, but whatever it’s doing and whatever the season, there is always something to enjoy and appreciate in my garden

SEPTEMBER 

Summer’s time is almost up. The apples are reddening and ripening; the blackberries are large and luscious; and the plums are the very best and biggest I’ve ever seen them. Deep and dusky purple, they are falling from laden branches thick and fast. Gathering them up from where they’ve landed, I suddenly realise what is different this year - there are no wasps, not one.

I’m missing our game of chicken to see who will back off the juicy fruit first. I’m also missing their presence on the persicaria by the front door where they usually gather in noisily humming numbers, working their way methodically around the many tiny flowers. It’s a relief to know that wasps are still making themselves at home in other gardens. Their absence here will help the new swarm of honey bees which came uninvited, but very welcome, to the old empty hive. They won’t have to battle with wasps this year and will hopefully manage to feed their babies, themselves and have enough honey to see them through the winter.The wasps may have had a bad year here, but the similarly coloured stripy coated cinnabar moth caterpillars have thrived. Having munched their way through every last ragwort leaf, dozens now sit decorating the skeletal stems and crawling over the soil getting ready to pupate beneath it.

Perhaps next year the wasps will return and do as well. I’d better make the most of the plums while I can!

AUGUST

We gardeners tend to be optimistic, whatever the weather. I took the opportunity of a wet July week to sow some wildflower mixes into the sad remains of what once was my lovely wildflower meadow. For the past couple of years, I’ve blamed its demise on the dog and his personal brand of high nitrogen fertilizer.  I have now come to the conclusion that the summer before last, when we had prolonged heat and little rain, had not just temporarily browned off the lawn and its matrix of species, but had in fact permanently destroyed it. So now, as my own ecosystem engineer, I have a plan to kick start a return to a more diverse sward. Thanks to the unexpectedly fast growth of a once coppiced myrobalan plum and some seedling hawthorns, my once wildflower meadow is becoming woodland, as they all would without intervention. Now, with no pre-existing species to lose, I’m helping it along with one packet of wildflower seed for deep shade, one for hedgerow and semi-shade and one labelled ‘restoration mix’.

Encouraging a more diverse range of species in what is now becoming a more diverse habitat seems sensible to me, especially in our rapidly changing climate.   I’m interacting with it now, not as a farmer would have done with a meadow, as I used to, but as a herd of herbivores, cutting small patches at a time before they’re moved on.

Well, that’s the theory. I’ll let you know how well it went next year

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