Who's been eating the Tulips?

Last weekend - lovely, calm and very warm for mid-March - I noticed a lot of holes in the grass. This is fairly normal up in the orchard. We're surrounded by fields and get rabbits, mice, occasional foxes and of course squirrels. The squirrels plunder the hazel trees and bury nuts all over, so at the end of the winter they are busy digging them up. There has also been digging around tree roots especially the roots of the now-dead Dawn Redwood. The redwood died a few years ago but we keep it because the birds love to sit at the top and sing, the wood-peckers still find grubs and stuff under the soft bark and the squirrels play up there and also use it as an escape from the neighbourhood cats.

However, the earthworks are much more extensive than usual. On Saturday I was admiring a group of tulips emerging from the grass below the big cherry tree. On Monday morning they had gone - just a muddy pit and shredded leaves and bits of bulbs. The tulip thieves have made  a real mess of the bed outside the kitchen window, where there are some beautiful red and yellow tulips which delight us every year. The holes are about 10 ins deep and across and nothing left. Although the bed is full of all kinds of bulbs - hyacinths, crocusses, bluebells - they seem to have targeted the tulips.

I consulted the Collins pests and diseases book about eaten tulip bulbs and they suggested only one culprit - SQUIRRELS. We've been here nearly 10 years and they've never done this before. Maybe with the mild weather they've started breeding early and are hungry. It's interesting that they seem to know where the tulips are from the leaves - they don't dig all over.

Anyway, on the basis they may be hungry I put out some seeds and nuts. But they are hardly touched this morning.

Maybe just a memory!

Dominant species?

Beautiful sunny weekend! Great to be out in the warm sun for a couple of hours without risking frostbite. Two little blue tits were playing in the last year's fennel stems not bothered by me working. A buzzard was soaring above with the inevitable couple of crows mocking it. Two collar doves have been cuddling up on a branch of the redwood for two whole days popping down to the bird table every so often for a quick snack.

There's so much to do - weeding, tidying, cutting back. The fallen leaves and old flower stems have gone soggy with all the rain we've had so it's a messy job. There's loads of couch grass which, with the wet soil, comes up by the yard. But despite my efforts there are hundreds more green shoots where I cleared last week. I can't help feeling that human beings are really not the top species on this planet. We slave away trying to impose our idea of  "tidy" and the couch grass and ground elder and bindweed just keep going without any apparent effort. "Lilies of the field" I suppose.

Squirrels

Four grey squirrels have been treating us to a fine display of acrobatics and fun. I know they are supposed to be pests but they are very entertaining. They chase each other around the bird-table, the rose frame, summer house roof and the dead redwood. They sit on the stubby, broken branches in typical squirrel pose, tail erect and curled up over their backs. Last year there were 3 babies - 2 quite big and the other smaller with a thin tail. Looks like the family are doing well!

Up on the roof

The weekend was hot and sunny with a gentle warm breeze - our last chance of a summer. Back to cold, wind and rain now. Still, I do remember some years when October has been quite hot ... so here's hoping!

We spent the weekend on the roof painting the new render on the chimney. At least Chas did - I'm a scaredy cat with heights but I did make my shaking legs get me up there one time because, while we have the scaffolding, it's the only chance I'll get.

These are some of the photos from our roof:

Across Yew Tree House and looking towards Griffydam

Looking across Billy's field with our two walnut trees on the right

Billy's field and the old ash tree- home to many pigeons and occasional little owl

Our garden with the rockery in the front and the summer house
almost swamped by the variagated maple

Our garden witht he dead dawn redwood looking stark and the lush silver birch on the right.
Centre front is a bamboo which each year generates several new supports for our tomatoes.

Nuthatches, woodpeckers & squirrels

There are two nuthatches on the birdfeeders, eating upside down as usual! The bird table has been pretty much monopolised by the baby squirrels   playing, fighting and trying to work out how to dismantle the feeders.
At lunch we saw a young woodpecker - with a red beret - chasing off the small birds but then too shy to feed. Eventually daddy woodpecker arrived and got stuck straight in to the nuts. Then the youngster took a quick peck and flew off with a peanut to the dawn redwood - their favourite place to finish off their haul.

Rain, Rain!

It's been raining solidly since Tuesday night. We really, really need this. In addition to our 4 butts I've been collecting water overflowing from a blocked gutter in a big plastic dustbin. They have been threatening further drought and possible hosepipe bans so want to keep every drop for the crops in summer.
The situation is serious. The press has been full of pictures of dry river beds and reservoirs only half full. The little stream that runs through the field surrounding our garden (Billy's Field) is absolutely dry. Not even a slight squelch when I walked along it. No sign of water gushing from the many springs either. Last year we lost nearly all our fruit after a bumper blossom in April and May and our Dawn Redwood died 2 years ago. We suspect this might be related to lack of water.

Weekend in the garden.

It's been a beautiful, warm and sunny weekend so I abandoned any desk-work and went out and pottered.

Some of our 2010 potato crop

I planted up 4 large tubs with 2 potatoes each and covered them with 6 inches of compost. As the shoots appear I'll cover up a little more until the whole pot is full. This encourages more potatoes to form from the roots at each level. I used Santes saved from last year's crop. Last year's harvest wasn't very good because of the dry weather and they didn't keep well because it has been a warm winter. The potatoes left in store in the garage are already sprouting and aren't much good to eat so they may as well start off the new season's crop. May do some more in compost bags if I have time. It'll provide some nice new potatoes well before the main crop and in pots they tend to be clean and pest-free.

The weathermen are forecasting continued drought - dire warnings about hosepipe bans etc. It certainly is a big problem with the water table very low. The stream in the neighbouring filed is just a trickle. I suspect lack of water might have contributed to the demise of our Dawn Redwood which needs a lot of water.

I did a lot of tidying, dead-heading and pruning. The fern garden was overrun with spurge which was hiding the smaller ferns and snowdrops and helibores. I cleared out a lot of the spurge and also some bracken than had taken hold there.

The last job was to pick some sprouts to eat with the roast chicken for Sunday dinner and pulled the first rhubarb. The stems were only about 6ins but I could resist no longer. Delicious just baked with a sprinkling of sugar, served with custard and cream!

Dying conifers?

We have an ornamental hedge with an arch made from conifers - not actually leylandii but similar. Last year one side started going brown We thought it might be because of the very dry conditions. But even with the wet autumn the brown patches have now extended to the other side. A single conifer bush also went brown and died two years ago and I noticed one or two other conifers in local gardens appear to have a similar problem.

Maybe related - but probably not since they are a different species:  in the spring of 2010 our prized Dawn Redwood failed to flourish. It's deciduous and it just produced a few stubby little leaves in the spring instead of the usual lush green needles then it died completely. I know the redwood needs lots of water so could be the result of drought. It is apparently not susceptible to diseases of conifers (which it resembles but isn't the same species).