Difficult choices

~ Sam ~ 22 Comments

At the risk of opening a large can of worms… We have two rescue moggies who the children love; who David keeps threatening to make into slippers; and about whom I have extremely conflicting feelings. Being a cat-owner and a nature-lover is not easy. I will let the cats sit on my lap and stroke them, I feed them, take care of their vaccinations, etc, but I absolutely hate their cat ways: despite the fact that they’re extremely well fed, their hunting instinct is strong. They catch creatures and sometimes they kill and eat parts of them and sometimes they bring them indoors still alive and kicking. We found a wood mouse nesting behind the freezer (definitely a cat ‘gift’), we’ve searched for hours for the source of the ‘back of the throat’ smell of dead mouse (if you’ve ever smelt it, you know what I mean), we’ve chased shrews up the stairs (yes, they can climb very well), we’ve been woken up by rustling in our bedroom (another wood mouse), we’ve had newts carefully deposited on the kitchen floor with a puddle of pond water, ditto goldfish, and a rabbit in the garden (see my previous post). We’ve found parts of dead rodents and even slow worms by the back door where the cat flap is.

Worse than all that for me, though, is the fact that they hunt, catch and often kill birds. I’ve found dead baby robins, wrens, blackbirds and even a blackcap. This does not sit well with my ex-RSPB staff credentials at all! In the past month, one cat has carefully carried indoors a robin which it deposited, still very much alive, under our bed and a coal tit (again, alive) which it took into my daughter’s bedroom. Luckily, in both instances, we clocked this happening and managed to open the upstairs windows so the poor creatures could fly out.

As it’s breeding season I’ve added ‘vigilant cat watch’ to my daily list. There are birds nesting in the garden hedges and one pair in particular that we’re on high alert for. Coal tits are nesting in a hole in the wall by the back door where the cat flap is… There are definitely chicks in the nest (we can hear them) and the parents have been diligently feeding them. We’ve watched the adults flit from the cherry tree to the fence, to the honeysuckle that’s overhanging the wall and then, when the coast is clear, zipping into the nest in the wall. The cats, however, know they’re there. They’ve been keeping watch. And every time we notice the cats hanging around, we’re shooing them away in no uncertain terms.

I know we should probably keep them indoors for the next couple of months (or even for the rest of their lives) and dust off the litter tray but they would go bonkers. They are very outdoors cats and no-one is volunteering to deal with the cat poo; it’d be down to me. So, there you have it, I love birds but probably not enough to have to incarcerate the cats and shovel their bodily waste every day. And it’s not that simple. There’s the issue of which cat litter to buy (not sustainable) and how to dispose of it (landfill). What’s more important – protecting a few garden birds from predators or avoiding unsustainable products (litter, bags, etc) and adding to the waste mountain?

Isn’t that a metaphor for the bigger problems in our world – we love the Earth but humans still fly in planes and buy goods wrapped in plastic and use disposable nappies and eat foods containing palm oil that’s farmed on land that used to be pristine rainforest. The latest UN report from an intergovernmental body on biodiversity and ecosystems that flagged up in the strongest terms that the natural world is under threat like never before must surely jolt everyone out of complacency. One million species are at risk of extinction and our wild places are under extreme pressure.

As well as revealing the incredible beauty of Earth, an amazing tv programme is revealing some of the impact humans have on our planet – BBC’s Earth from Space. Have you been watching it? One particular shot of huge fishing boats lighting up the oceans off the coast of Argentina to attract squid (they swim towards the light, which they think is the moon) has stayed with me. Thousands of squid swimming up towards the light only to be caught in massive nets and hauled on board. Thousands and thousands of squid, all to be factory processed and to end up on someone’s plate. Sigh.

There are difficult choices ahead and it’s all bloody complicated but we – governments, companies, people – have to do our best to make the right ones.

 

 

Wildlife

~ Sam ~ 14 Comments

“Look! What’s that?” called David first thing this morning, pointing out of the kitchen window at our bird feeding station. At first I thought it was a small odd-looking jay but then I realised that it was an extremely large finch. I knew this was special, an unusual visitor, but it took a while for my brain to get into gear and flick through tucked away memories. I rushed to grab my glasses and managed a fleeting proper look before it flew off. A hawfinch. Yes, definitely a hawfinch! Wow. I’ve not seen one for years and years. They’re elusive birds and on the Red List (which means there is concern over the number of breeding pairs in the UK) so it was brilliant to see one here and a lovely start to the day. (This isn’t my photo. I am rubbish at taking photos of moving things! I found it on this website.)

Honestly, of all the changes we’ve made to this garden I think putting in a bird feeding ‘station’ has given us the most pleasure. We all stand in the kitchen watching the comings and goings of goldfinches, bluetits, coal tits, great tits, robins, greenfinches, dunnocks, chaffinches etc as we butter our toast. There’s a water spray bottle on the windowsill to blast at the cats when they sit underneath gazing up hopefully…

Talking of cats, a few hours later, I was sitting at my desk and heard a kerfuffle outside. I glanced up to see both cats on the wall, clearly up to no good. Grrr. I stormed outside to shoo them away and found the object of their attentions sheltering in the lavender hedge – a baby rabbit. Goodness knows what that was doing in our garden. I’m sure we haven’t had rabbits in here before so I reckon the pesky cats picked one up on the Leas, the National Trust land just up the road, and carried it back home to play with. The dog soon joined me and was very interested in the cowering rabbit. I called David to stand guard over it while I took the dog back indoors and found some gloves and a box to put the rabbit in. As soon as I returned and we tried to grab the rabbit, it scarpered between our legs and along the hedge into next door’s garden. Hopefully it found its way home. I’ve been keeping a weather eye on our pets ever since.

Later this evening: the hawfinch came back! It sat on the branch of our Heath Robinson bird feeder ‘tree’ for ages having a good look around. Now it knows we’re a good source of food, hopefully it’ll come again 🙂

Have you any plans for the bank holiday weekend? We’ve been invited to a party tomorrow but otherwise we’ll be taxi-ing our children around (the middle ones driving test booked in June!) and doing as much as possible in the garden, weather permitting. Hope you have a lovely one.

 

In a Vase on Monday: flowers for Mum

~ Sam ~ 17 Comments

My Mum is having a couple of weeks of respite care and I’d arranged to visit this morning with the boys so she could hear about one grandson’s Indian adventure and say goodbye to the other before he headed back to uni this evening. I picked a handful of flowers to take for her room and snapped a few quick photos before we left so I could join in with Cathy’s Monday gathering.

The cherry tree in our back garden is heavy with massive pom-poms of pink blossom, so I cut a couple of low-hanging sprigs. Joining the cherry blossom are Cerinthe major, forget-me-nots, tulip Queen of Night, rosemary (I can’t remember which variety this is – the flowers are much pinker than the bog-standard R. officinalis which we have elsewhere in the garden, plus it smells divine), and a few sprigs of Erigeron karvinskianus.

I was a little apprehensive about visiting her but it was lovely to see Mum looking so happy and relaxed and she loved the flowers. We sat in the sunshine in the beautifully planted garden of the home where she’s staying and exchanged news. The time flew and it was soon her lunchtime so we walked with her to the dining room where she introduced us to her friendly fellow diners and we said our goodbyes. Driving away, we all felt relieved that she’s being so well cared for, that she’s having lots of visitors and she seems very happy. It’s all new territory for our family and if I think about it too much it makes my head and my heart hurt. Thank goodness for flowers, hey?

It’s been a funny old Easter here. The day I wrote my previous post – thank goodness I had that glorious calm start to the day – my daughter developed a fever, spent the next 24 hours or so vomiting, then had a swollen and very sore throat for a few days. She’s been properly poorly, poor love, but is thankfully on the mend and will hopefully be ok to go back to school tomorrow. As a result, we had a very low-key weekend with just the five of us but that was fine. In between nursing duties, I exchanged my marigolds for my gardening gloves and spent as much time as I could outside.

My mother-in-law visited us last weekend and waved her magic wand of motivation and, hey presto, we have finally renovated our dilapidated garage. It’s at the bottom of the garden, we can’t see it from the house and it has been a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Suffice to say, we had been putting this big job off for a long time.

This photo was taken after the lintel over the door was repaired by professionals (!) and we’d sanded down the wooden doors (ie it used to look a lot worse). You can see where ivy had grown all over the left-hand side and it had even grown into the render on the right and lifted it away. We had to chip off where it had blown:

And this photo was taken yesterday. Once all the rendering has been sorted out and repainted and and some of the glazing in the doors replaced, it’ll look even better but it’s getting there and our neighbours in the flats below may now start talking to us again!

As well as sorting out the garage, we’ve also done masses of gardening – mostly clearing and weeding but it has been wonderful to be outside getting acquainted with everything again. My wrist has been fully exercised and my arm is definitely getting stronger although, bizarrely, my elbow is really feeling it. It is so good to be (almost) fully functioning again.

Right, there’s a pile of shirts to iron for school tomorrow. It feels a little brutal to be back to normal life so suddenly after the long Easter weekend – we waved David and elder son off earlier, back to work and uni respectively, and the house feels weirdly empty with just the three of us again. I need to move the cat off my lap, remind the two remaining children we’ll need to be out of the house at 7.35am tomorrow (ouch) and set up the ironing board.

Wishing you a good week.

Daybreak

~ Sam ~ 10 Comments

There’s a spot where I sit on the steps down to our front garden where I’m sheltered by the walls on either side but I can see the lower terraces and the sun glistening on the sea on a clear, still morning. I was awake just after 6am, well before anyone else. We’re all ‘on holiday’ this week, everyone is at home – all the children returned from their travels, David off work – and everyone was sound asleep in their beds so I crept downstairs, emptied the dishwasher, cleared up the late-night mess from the teenagers,  made a large mug of tea and headed outside. Sitting on the cold step in my pyjamas, surrounded by birdsong and the sound of the sea in the soft haze of an early morning of a good-weather day, I felt alive, revived and hugely contented and chuffed that I was outside rather than snoozing for another hour in bed. I’m not a natural early riser and so it always feels something of an achievement when I manage to rise and catch this magical part of the day.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. The photos don’t capture the glistening sea – you can just make out a slightly rosy glow behind the trees in the first photo – but they do portray the softness of the light. Sorry you can’t hear the birds singing, though. Right, I must get on with the day. Hope you have a good one.

 

In a Vase on Monday: floral perks

~ Sam ~ 11 Comments

My Monday vases this week are full of flowers that a) I didn’t grow, b) I didn’t pay for, and c) I didn’t even pick. They’re all leftovers from our village Spring Show on Saturday. One of the perks of being on the gardeners’ association committee and helping to put on these shows is that you’re able to give a good home to any unwanted blooms that people leave behind.

I’m completely in love with the large pale pink tulip – it is one of the three stems that won ‘Best Exhibit in the Horticultural Section’ and they drew much admiration on the day. The woman who entered them didn’t know the variety of tulip but I think it could be ‘Pink Impression’. I also love the lily-flowered purple tulip which could be ‘Purple Dream’. If anyone knows for sure which varieties these are, please leave a comment below – thank you.

I was surprised by the number of entries of Narcissi because most of the daffs in my garden have either gone over or failed to flower. Only one of my beloved N. ‘Actaea’ has bloomed so far this year, the rest have come up blind. Talking to fellow gardeners around here, we reckon the very long dry summer last year is to blame. I’m hoping that if I feed and water them well this spring, they’ll recover and flower again next spring. If not, I’ll buy some more. (I’ll probably buy some more anyway!)

There was an impressive variety of beautiful Narcissi shown on Saturday and I was very lucky to bring a few home. They’re filling the room where I sit typing with the most delicious daffodil scent and brightening up a dull corner. There’s a white frilly edged tulip nestled in there, too, which could be ‘Daytona’. Again, if anyone knows, please let me know. I particularly like the pale daffs and have made a note to plant more this autumn. Good white and pale varieties are ‘Thalia’, ‘Elka’ and ‘Pueblo’. There are several multi-headed and highly scented varieties too. When you think of daffodils, it’s usually the traditional yellow version, but it’s amazing just how many varieties there are in all shades and combinations of yellow, cream and white, some with orange centres, tall and short, large flowers and small, single heads and multi-headed. As with most plants, there’s a variety to suit almost everyone.

It’s the school Easter holidays and with my two school-aged children off on their travels, I started the week off by having a lie-in. Bliss. It’s been such a full-on time recently that I’ve decided to take my foot off the pedal a little for a few days, to do as little around the house and as much out in the garden as possible. I hope you have a thoroughly good week, whatever you have planned.

As usual, I’m joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her Monday vase gathering. Do visit her blog where you’ll also find links to other garden bloggers around the world.

In a Vase on Monday: Fool’s Day Flowers

~ Sam ~ 10 Comments

I can’t believe it’s April already. Turning over the calendar this morning, seeing Easter in a few weeks, I almost did a double-take. The garden is about two weeks ahead in terms of flowering compared to this time last year – the daffs are almost over and about half of the tulips are already flowering. I had intended to pick some for my vase but I love seeing them where they are in the garden and decided instead to use more abundant blooms from plants that have spread around of their own accord: Muscari (grape hyacinth), Calendula (marigold) and Cerinthe major (honeywort). I added three ranunculus flowers snipped off the plants I bought on Saturday to add to the jewel-like colours. This colour combination is one that I’m drawn to time and time again – the warmth and richness of orange, red and blue/purple simply makes me happy.

It’s lovely to be joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden and other bloggers for this weekly gathering. Do pop over there to see her vase (she does have tulips) and links to others from around the world.

In other news, we had a packed and thoroughly lovely day in London yesterday. David was racing in the Veterans’ Head of the River Race, on the Boat Race course on the Thames, so my daughter, the Spanish girls and I hitched a lift with him. We left the house early (which felt much earlier), and David dropped us off at Barnes station where we caught a train to Waterloo. First stop was the Royal Festival Hall for a large coffee for me and pastries all round. I used to hang out here often; it’s a great place to meet friends and there is always something going on – yesterday there was an orchestra practicing beautiful ballet music. From there we walked along the Southbank to Tate Modern, stopping frequently to admire street art, street performers or the view. I took them up to the 10th floor of the Tate to see the spectacular views, then we walked over the Millennium Bridge to St Paul’s Cathedral where the organist was practicing for a choral evensong and we were treated to another wall of wonderful sound. After that, we hopped in a black cab to Covent Garden so the girls could look at clothes shops (an experience that I could happily have missed!), then walked along the Strand, through Embankment Station, over Hungerford Bridge back to Waterloo and onto a train to Putney where we met a tired but happy post-race David.

The Spanish girls are lovely – friendly, polite, engaging – but everything (and I mean everything) has to be recorded on their phones and a few times I had to tell them to look around and not at their phones. Crossing roads, for example. The weirdest thing was an impromptu photoshoot at one of the old red phone boxes near St Paul’s. Both took a turn in the phone box with the door held open, on the phone, opening the door, posing this way and that, with no hint of self-consciousness. My daughter took it all in her stride but I found it bizarre. It’s all about the photo. I have never felt more middle-aged and old-fashioned!

Wishing you a good week.

 

 

Springtime goings on

~ Sam ~ 8 Comments

Before I go on, I must say thank you for the lovely comments on my previous post. Sorry I haven’t responded individually. I can’t believe it’s been over two weeks since I wrote it – the days are flying by with little time for blogging or taking photographs. I meant to write this yesterday but here I am, on Saturday evening, tapping at my keyboard.

It’s been the most beautiful couple of days here – blue sky, warm sunshine, birds singing their socks off, butterflies flitting about (brimstones, whites, tortoiseshells) and bees busy in the flowers. It’s the time of year for daily garden inspections, if possible, to see which trees are blossoming, how many buds, say hello to the tulips, pinch off the faded daffodil heads, pull out gigantic weeds (already!), so I took my camera out with me yesterday to take these pictures. I’ve had to be very relaxed about what’s going on (or rather not going on) out there lately. I haven’t sown any seeds at all yet and I’m only part way through cutting back the ornamental grasses and perennials. It doesn’t matter. All the plants carry on regardless and I will catch up.

We will need to start getting our act together in the next few weeks because we are opening our garden again for the local Garden Safari at the end of June. It’s good to have a deadline… In the spirit of perking things up outside and to make a small start, I bought a few pink Bellis and red-pink Ranunculus this morning to plant together in an old stone trough and, amazingly, have tucked them into their new bed already. It was so good to get my hands in the soil again. Gosh, I’ve missed it.

I am itching to spend a good amount of time out there – several hours would be wonderful; hopefully next weekend. It’s a little full-on here chez acoastalplot at the moment. On Thursday morning my younger son flew to Delhi for an 18-day trip, working in a school in West Bengal, then trekking in the Himalayas (not jealous at all…). I won’t bore you with the preparations for that! On Thursday evening, two Spanish exchange students arrived to stay with us for a week and later that night my eldest child returned home from university for the Easter holidays. The Spanish girls lovely, very appreciative and polite and they both seem to get on well with my daughter. There’s lots of laughter and chatter. We’re their tour guides this weekend – today we did the beach, Deal and Dover Castle, tomorrow we’re taking them to London – and they have a packed schedule with their classmates next week. They fly back to Barcelona on Thursday, then my daughter heads off on a long coach trip to Austria on Friday for a school skiing trip. Apparently there is still snow.

For the following 10 days there will be just me, David and one grown-up child here and he mostly does his own thing. It’s going to be quiet and strange but there should be plenty of time for gardening 🙂

Hope you’re having a lovely weekend. Bye for now x

 

 

 

 

 

Fifteen

~ Sam ~ 21 Comments

My youngest child, my third-born and final baby is 15 today. Fifteen…

A couple of years ago her birthday fell on a Monday and I picked thirteen flowers for a Monday vase to celebrate her day. This morning, what with the sunshine and a lull in the raging winds, I decided to see if I could find 15 flowers in the garden to mark the occasion. I cheated slightly – there are two primroses but they are different colours. From left to right above, they are:

Narcissus ‘Carlton’
Narcissus ‘February Gold’
Narcissus ‘Tete-a-tete’
Cerinthe major ‘Purpurascens’ (Honeywort)
Calendula officinalis (Pot marigold)
Calendula officinalis ‘Sunset buff’
Muscari (Grape hyacinth)
Lamium (Dead nettle; wild flower)
Pulmonaria officinalis (Common lungwort)
Primula vulgaris (yellow)
Primula vulgaris (pink)
Osteospermum (African daisy)
Hellebore orientalis (Lenten rose)
Geum rivale (Water avens)
Narcissus ‘Red Devon’

My darling girl, all arms and legs, fizzing with energy and a zest for life, is fast becoming a young woman. She’s 5’8″ to my 5’5″. She fits into my going-out dresses that I’ve been saving in the hope that she’ll one day like to wear them (I can barely squeeze into them these days and I rarely go out). She has long dark hair and a gorgeous smile and, happily for her dad, she’s dismissive of all boys because she has two brothers and she knows what they’re like. No one has so far impressed her. She is fiercely loyal and has a deep sense of justice. She loves music and dancing and her friends and avocado and cake (not all together). She is ridiculously over-enthusiastic about random things in that way that only teenage girls are. She’s a great mimic and is good at languages, numbers and science. She’d love to be a doctor but she can’t stand the sight of blood. She’s completely in touch with her emotions and cries easily; there’s no bottling it up with her. She is often incredibly anxious about new situations, school work and exams and travelling. She’s loving and caring and kind but she knows which buttons to press to wind her brothers up into a fury. Her room is the untidiest in the house – she leaves wet towels on the floor, banana skins on her desk and never puts her clothes away. She and I have that unfortunate clash of female hormones (menstrual and menopausal) and we occasionally fall out but it never lasts long. She’s my daughter and I love her with all my heart.

My three seven years ago when they were 8, 10 and 12. They’d be mortified if I showed photos of them as they are now!

In a Vase on Monday: minimal

~ Sam ~ 10 Comments

There are plenty of flowers in the garden to make a pretty spring bunch for a Monday vase – loads of daffodils, grape hyacinths, pulmonaria, anemones, primroses, etc – but I decided to leave them where they are and instead snip a twig of the Chaenomeles (ornamental quince; not sure which species/variety it is) which arches over our top path.

It has more blossom on it this year than I’ve seen before, possibly because we thinned it out last summer and cut back it’s pushy neighbour, the lilac, letting in more light and air. That’s not saying much, though, because it is not nearly as floriferous as many other Chaenomeles I’ve seen. Maybe we should cut it back harder for more flowers next year. Ornamental quinces produce small, hard, knobbly fruit in the autumn which make a deliciously fragrant jelly with the most beautiful colour. You do need a load of fruit to make a relatively small amount of jelly, though, and our bush has never produced many. That might be a good enough reason to prune it harder this year.

Or perhaps not, as I’m not a fan of this flower colour – it’s an odd ‘salmon’ pink which I don’t usually go for, partly because it doesn’t go with anything (and it’s an incredibly difficult colour to photograph). But I do like the minimal nature of this sprig with its few flowers and buds in this blue spotty jug. I’ve added a couple of apple and pear sticks pruned from the young trees in our mini orchard.

In a Vase on Monday is hosted by Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. Do click on the link to see what she and other bloggers from all over the world have found to put in a vase today.

Have a good week.

 

 

In a Vase on Monday: rule breakers

~ Sam ~ 15 Comments

“Blue and green should never be seen except with something in between”, goes the old saying. What a load of old tosh. Thanks to the commonsense of the plants in my garden, it’s my current favourite colour combination. I think the particular blue of this common Muscari (grape hyacinth) and the zingy chartreuse of the flowers of Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae (wood spurge) go together brilliantly. They’re growing together on the top of the wall by our path (in the third photo) and this is what inspired my simple Monday vase today.

A little rootling around on the internet to find the origin of the saying reveals that it may come from the days of black and white films where blue and green were too tonally similar to distinguish between the two. I suppose it makes sense in that situation. You learn something new every day…

Euphorbias (spurges) are poisonous plants and a drop of the vicious milky sap from any cut stems can burn the skin, so I wore my gardening gloves to snip a few flowers and then seared them in boiling water for a few seconds to seal them. (For goodness’ sake, don’t ever get any near or in your eyes.) Nasty sap aside, Euphorbias are great architectural plants. There are about 2000 species – from annuals and perennials to shrubs, trees and succulents. Some prefer a sunny spot but some thrive in shade; some are tall, others short; you can get purple ones and blue-green ones and chartreuse ones and ones with deep-red flowers. There’s a Euphorbia for every situation – all will add a lovely form and structure to a garden.

By the way, did you by any chance watch Monty Don’s two-parter on Japanese gardens recently? (He has the best job in the world, doesn’t he?) I was blown away by now neat everything is. And how colour-coordinated; all the gardeners seemed to wear the same blue utilitarian jackets (which coordinated beautifully with Monty’s scarves) that look perfectly gorgeous against the backdrop of the green gardens. Joking aside, the programme was a real inspiration and has definitely given me a new appreciation of Japanese design and of the moss in my garden. 

Do visit Cathy’s blog to see what she and others have found to put in a vase today.

Hope you have a lovely week.