Bluebells - just starting

They seem rather late, but finally the bluebells are beginning to bloom.  There are just a few, here and there, making tiny puddles of blue in the garden and local woodlands but it won't be too much longer before the puddles become ponds, the ponds become lakes and finally the lakes join up to make a sea of blue that covers the ground.

Bluebells in our garden, photographed 28th April.

One of the treats of this year's cold spring has been the way in which the primroses are hanging on - giving us a beautiful display of bluebells and primroses together.

Stealing ideas from nature

It's true confession time. When gardening, I steal most of my best ideas from nature. When walking through Views (William) Wood near my Manor Park home I see many pretty sights.  One of my favourites is the mossy old stumps and coppice stools surrounded by dainty wild flowers and ferns.

Wood anemones around the foot of a coppice stool, photographed 14 April 2013

I wanted to make something similar in my garden. Wood anemones, bluebells and wild arum grow naturally there. Maybe the woodland once extended as far as the location of our 1960s home.  

Here's one I made earlier, photographed 14 April 2013

We asked a professional gardener to remove some laurels, giving us a clear space in the shade of our tall birches.  Next, I bought a couple of old coppice stools from Wilderness Wood. My family are always amused by my habit of buying manky old bits of wood but I find they make good garden ornaments without the worry that some light-fingered so-and-so will take a fancy to them.  I got most of the plants by taking pieces of what we already had in the garden. I transplanted seedling wild arums and sprinkled seed from bluebells, cuckoo flower and foxgloves. I supplemented these with ferns, hardy geraniums and a red campion-like plant that I bought from local nurseries and open gardens. I don't stick rigidly to native plants. Sometimes I choose garden species that are similar to local wild flowers. I find that these cope just as well with local conditions, including greedy deer, and extend the options available to me.

The final step was to wait. It will be a year or two before the bluebells are flowering properly but the other flowers and leaves are giving plenty of interest. So that is how I designed my little woodland garden.

A busy night in the garden

I've been putting out a Bushnell trail camera since the start of the year and been pleased to get pictures of foxes and the occasional badger but last night's visitors were special.

Fallow deer buck, photographed 11:52 pm GMT on 7th April 2013.

I supposed I should have expected something like this. One of our neighbours had seen signs of deer around the area for the last couple of weeks but there has been no evidence of them coming into our garden. Then, as I was coming back from picking up the paper, I noticed some poo on the path.

After work, I uploaded my pictures and here's the results:

Time	Species	Comment
7:51 PM	cat	Heads up slope.
10:51 PM	fallow buck	This is a big fellow and I think I recognise him. He has odd antlers - one flattened and one not. He browses round the bottom of the big atlantic cedar for a while then heads down the slope. There appears to be another sitting on the right-hand side of the photo (not shown).
23:29 PM	badger	Moves along foot of hedge towards oak.
00:30 PM	fox	Moves quickly down slope.
01:08 PM	fallow buck	The same buck as before, emerges from behind the Atlantic cedar and heads up the slope.
2:19 PM	badger	Heads up slope towards atlantic cedar.
3:10 AM	cat	Slinks along foot of hedge away from oak.

I've got no idea why we got so many visitors. It was warmer than it has been for a while. The deer have been out and about for some time - so maybe something spooked them and they hid in the garden. Whatever the reason it was a real pleasure to see so many garden visitors.

Spring - rebooting?

In my post I wrote on the 10th of March, I said:

Give or take some forecasted snow and sub-zero temperatures, spring seems to have become an unstoppable force in the Uckfield area. The number of flowers blooming in the garden has increased from a few shy snowdrops to a cascade of daffodils, primroses, hellebores and so many more.

The frogs had spawned and leaf buds were fattening. Then we had the blackthorn winter and everything stopped or went into reverse.

Nearly a month on spring seems to be trying to reboot. This morning there is white frost on the grass but the sun is out. The yellow forsythia buds beginning show colour. Usually this shrub would be in full bloom at the end of February or beginning of March. Round Manor Park I've seen several clumps of sweet violet flowers, their intense purple flowers singing out against the still drab looking grass.

Sweet Violets

Best of all, yesterday afternoon I saw a blue tit inspecting the box. I was a little anxious to see one by itself. Had it's mate died in the cold? But soon enough it was back, with a friend.

The annual cycle seems to be picking up all round. Yesterday, at Uckfield's farmers market I bought some snowdrops "in the green".  This is the best way to plant them, when they have just finished flowering and before they have shrunk back into their bulbs. If you have big clumps already, you can dig some up and move them. Suddenly, I'm feeling enthusiastic about being outside again and looking forward to planting my little treasures.

So, how about you? Have you got any favourite signs of spring?

March 2013 - Garden visitors

In an earlier post, I noted the number of garden visitors I captured on my Bushnell trail camera over February.  Below, I've summarised the visits in the camera captured during the 9 nights I had it out in March. I've allocated each visit to a 2 hour slot as shown below.

Animal visits while the camera was out in March 2013.

The total number of visits (excluding cats) is down from 23 to 14. I am excluding cats from the grand totals because cats visit day and night and I don't often have the camera out in the day time. However, I am including them on the graph because I am interested in when they visit and their encounters (if any) with our wild visitors.

So what have I noticed?

1. Fewer visits by wild mammals. The number of visits was to nearly half - some but not all of this can be accounted for by the camera being out for about for 9 rather than 12 nights. Maybe the rest is down to the unrelenting cold weather.
2. Peak visiting time has shifted from the 11pm - 1am slot to 1pm - 3pm GMT.
3. We have badgers!
4. Most visits are foxes.

One of our foxy visitors near our daffodils.

Although it has been bitterly cold this month I can see that, comparing this month's photo with February's, the daffodils have grown from a couple of inches of leaf to their full size, including a few flowers.