Birds vs Bully Cats

Do you happen to have a pair of birds that are... just friendly? (The Birds 1963)

I might try feeding the birds this winter as I have never seen any in our garden. It's not entirely altruistic as I read that they will help considerably with pest control over the winter.

The lack of birds (LOB) situation on our locale, is not that surprising, because of the Lack of Trees (LOT) but more importantly, the high feline-count in our neighbourhood. The main culprits I suspect are the pair of Bully Cats that use our fence as part of an assault course. Said bullies were once a sweet-looking pair of fluffy tabby kittens that slept in our tall weeds. They have matured into nasty, starring, hissing beasts, that we renamed, 'Ronnie and Reggie'. Their crimes include chewing the Osteospermums, digging up the Passiflora twice and making the otherwise slow old ginger cat Ollie run-scared. Pitch Puppy agrees that they are pure evil. I know this because Ronnie and Reggie are the only creatures that make Puppy buck on his hindlegs, race from the house skidding and barking "Ro-ro Ro!" to defend his territory.

I digress. Back to feeding birds: I'll put a feeder out with sunflower seeds out, in a place where they hopefully cannot be bullied by the Kray Twin Cats, and join the ranks of 60% of British garden owners who feed birds 60,000 tons annually. Cor, that's a thousand tons per percentage point.






Apparently greenfinch, house and tree sparrows will flock in.

Jack Frost

Don't you just love frost in the mornings? A cold morning used to make me miserable as I didn't wear enough layers years ago, but now the sight of white crispy plants makes me smile.

From inside my warm house.

Bulbs

It's the surprise element I like so much about bulbs while we are still in winter. I'm actually very excited about them arriving in 3-5 months time.

Little purple crocus, early yellow trumpet Daffs, late bloomin' orange centered Narcissi, one huge giant Allium and 10 smaller white ones. When and where will they turn up? I literally don't know where they were planted as this was done by 'the men' who came to spread the tonne of mulch as the garden's final touch, back in October.

2 or 3 have come up already in the sunniest corner. These green spikes, 3 inches out of the ground, will be watched and guarded closely from Puppy teeth. Of course they could be weeds but I'm hoping.

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Shrub # 6 Pittosporum Arundel Green

A pretty green shrub with lots of tiny leaves, in the densely detailed way I love.

However, I am starting to think this one may be filler, unless it miraculously flowers a riot next year. It's a waiting game isn't it.

This Pittosporum is at 9am on the clockface of the garden and we have a second plant at 5pm in a much sunnier spot. They started much the same size so we'll have to chart their progress. The 5pm plant did get squashed by a blown fence panel the day after being planted so does lean a lot. It's currently tied to a stake by a piece of green Christmas ribbon, so we'll see how he does when I take his stablisers off.

Shrub # 5 Griselinia Littoralis

Dixon's Cream.

I have a thing about not liking variegated plants, they seem so artificial and manufactured to me, but the creamy colours of the Dixon's Cream, native to New Zealand are so gorgeous that I'll make an exception.

Weeding before breakfast

For some reason, weeding before 8am seems to suit me best.

The morning routine runs thus: boil kettle, let Puppy out, prepare Puppy breakfast, take coffee into garden and start weeding grass seeds and tiny split leaf clover things. These are quite pretty but as I didn't personally plant them I'm deeming them Damn Interloping Weeds.

I love my weeding time but thank goodness the garden isn't really overlooked as neighbours might see a woman in a white dressing gown and slippers crouching over the borders, accompanied a black furry sniffing helper at 7.33am!

Shrub # 4 - Phototina x Fraseri

Latin name : Phototina x Fraseri 'Red Robin'
Common Name: Christmas Berry
Dear Husband's name: Frazar's bush

Shrub # 3 - Cornus Alba Elegantissima

Shrub # 2 - Amelanchier Lamarckii

Next in line at 8pm on the clockwise planting compass and 2nd from the front when looking at the left border, I planted one of the few deciduous plants, Amelanchier Lamarckii - or Snowy Mespilus. A very beautiful, small, North American tree.

When I planted it, it had pink edged leaves, and currently it leafless with the fine shoots making a satisfying, dense shape.

I'm told that Autumn is the perfect time for container grown trees to thrive. So I dug a wide hole, twice the size of the pot and slightly deeper. The soil was nice and loose with all my digging. After putting the tree in the centre, I made sure the top of the rootball was level with topsoil. I then filled the hole with a compost and soil mixture. I should have pressed more firmly, as when i watered it, the spil level dropped so I had to clear away the mulch bark chipping from the top and add more soil, and cover with bark mulch once again.

All good so far.

A few weeks later, Dear Husband started to worry that Puppy had chewed off all the leaves but I reassured him that this was meant to happen in November. It's still standing, so Spring will show how well it likes the soil, position and my planting techniques. I'm looking forward to its white star-shaped flowers unfolding and its summer berries.

Shrub # 1 - Choisya Ternata Sundance

Cycling through the garden (metaphorically - it's not THAT big), clockwise from bottom left, I have planted a Choisya Sundance for its glossy yellow evergreen leaves, almost lime coloured new growth, and soft prolific divided 3 leaflets.

Apparently also known as 'Mexican Orange Blossom', it has fragrant, showy clusters of white flowers later on.

This is the first plant we can see out of the upstairs window along the line of the left border. It's also quite a shady spot due the nieghbour's high fence but the Choisya looks quite low maintenance to me.

Onto shrubs, the shrubbery.

(Question - is Monty Python so deeply ingrained in the English pysche that I can only say this with a speech impediment, as in Shwubwery!)

I've chosen 10 different shrubs and trees for a medium and long-term effect, autumn and winter colour and summer flowers.

So here's the thing I was surprised to learn: new gardeners have to learn a whole new language. Latin plants names. I obviously knew about Latin garden names and even remember genus, phyllum, species, family name, colliquial names sub divisions from school but I genuinely thought that this was just for tweed and pearl wearing stately home owning gardeners. But in order to look up the needs of the plants, the soil type preferences, it's sun habits, and planting months and so on, I need to know the Latin names.

Que sera sera. Qui veux peux.

I didn't think gardening would stray into the intellectual but I'm glad it has, being the eternal student type. (A bit more about me: I enjoy setting myself little goals, in the last 4 years, redundancy led to learning Thai cookery and making biscuits, offset with getting into running , which led to meeting Dear Husband! Working again, the year after was about painting walls, woodwork and other DIY for the first time. Then came a 3 month massage course with 9 months consumed by wedding arrangements. Then Pitch Puppy came along who needed a garden to play in.

So the next few posts will include all the latin and common names for the shrubs, Cornus Alba Elegantissima sounds much better than Dogwood, doesn't it? I'll try to include Dear Husband's clever little names too - just because they make me laugh. Dogwood to him are the sticks we throw that Puppy doesn't bring back (yet), and the Cornus in the garden are 'The Ones With Red Twigs'

First baby steps into the world of gardening

What do you do with a space at the back of an English city terraced house?

Deck the lot? How nineties. No, all-wood deck, pots and spiky tropicals are not my style one bit.

Grass and Borders is the way forward - Grass for the puppy to sit on and chew his beef knuckle bones, and wide borders crammed with evergreen shrubs and flowers planted in a sensuous cottage-garden-style, for my soul.


(This is Pitch Puppy, our 16 month old Labrador in a rare still moment on the lawn.)

Due to space limitations and the extra cost, I ignored Dear Husband's request for a shed. My fear that he'd simply stuff it full due to his hoarding tendencies, and the fact he may wa nt to actually live it, had nothing to do with it, Nothing at all.