Sparrowhawk

Quite a common visitor to the garden. We have watched this Sparrowhawk pluck its prey on the lawn – at least, I guess it’s the same one. The prey seems to be mainly Collar Dove of which we have an abundance.

The photo below was taken early this morning from the kitchen and through a window that probably needs cleaning!

Having studied our bird book, I have decided it is a female and I’m now trying to think of a suitable name for her.

I am constantly surprised by the wildlife that lives in and visits this town garden – frogs, newts, kingfishers, sparrowhawks. What next? Perhaps a stoat!

Clocks Go Forwards!

Clocks go forward, sun shines and daffodils flower . . .

sometimes out of focus . . . .

March Night

March night (15th): The photograph below shows the old dry stems of Miscanthus sinensis 'Malepartus', the Tree Fern: Dicksonia antarctica with in the background Phyllostachys nigra (Black Bamboo) and Aucuba japonica ‘Crotonifolia’.

The weather has, at last, warmed up and now feels like Spring. It is surprising how good this group of plants look despite the cold winter and late Spring.

Miscanthus sinensis 'Malepartus'

I’ve grown this grass for many years now and have to restrict its spread each year. The photo above shows the dead stems and flower heads of last year’s growth. Very soon I will cut down the old dead canes to enable the new growth to come through. But I leave this as late as possible as I rather like the white, almost ghostly dead stuff. In fact, the grass is highlighted by an exterior spotlight and looks good from the windows of the house. When cut-back there will be only a few short weeks when this plant is not earning its keep in the garden. It grows to about 2 metres with a fountain of leaves and produces its flower hears in late summer. The top growth dies with the onset of winter and usually I pull out the dead leaves, partly to stop them falling into the pond below but also to expose the canes.

Dicksonia Antarctica (Tree Fern)

With fronds like these . . . . As the photo above shows, the fronds of this Tree Fern have been scorched by the frosts but I still think it looks good. I’ve stuffed some old dry fronds into the crown of the trunk to give it some protection from the cold – I don’t know yet if this has worked but I’m quietly confident. When new growth resumes (if!), I will probably cut out the fronds killed by the frost and leave any looking healthy.

Background
The Bamboo Phyllostachys nigra and Aucuba japonica ‘Crotonifolia’ are both great ‘all year’ plants and go well with the Tree Fern and Miscanthus. In Spring and Summer they are joined by Hydrangea aspera and various Ferns and Hostas.

Frog Count - Weds 5:30 pm, 12C . . . 52 FROGS

At least!

Frog Count - Mon 5:30 pm, 12C . . . 30 FROGS

The best so far!

Brugmansia - The Late Show

Brugmansia - the late show - 2
Originally uploaded by emagen


Brumansia flowering 12th December 2009. . . . Early winter gave no hint of what was to come! The photo shows a Brugmansia in full flower in mid December, above it are leaves of the banana Musa sikkimensis.
The reason why this plant is flowering so late is that I planted it out in very fertile ground and it spent most of the summer feeling very contented and thus only decided to flower very late in the year. I usually wedge these plants into small pockets of soil as I know this encourages flowering. In truth, this overwintered plant was so big that I could think of nowhere else to put it. It had 3 main stems each one about 2m tall..
As I said in an earlier post the late onset of winter caught me out. I had intended to dig it up, pot it and put it into the plastic greenhouse for winter. But it looked so good in full flower and the weather was so mild and by the time winter hit about 5 days later, I was about to drive to SW France for Christmas and New Year and had run out of time.
I did pot it up in January but I'm pretty certain that it was too late - it is quietly going mouldy in the greenhouse. I think it will sprout from the root and I will have to take long path of training it to produce tall stems.
It is worth training Brugmansias to grow as standard trees and it is quite easy. Their enormous fragrant flowers hang down so they are best seen from below or at least from the same level. To get extra height I cram one of the plants into the raised wall bed which gives it extra height and the lack of space for it to spread its roots encourage it to flower.

Frog Count - Sun 1:00 pm, 12C . . . 24 FROGS

Going up!

Kingfisher visits the pond

For some years a Kingfisher has occasionally been visiting the garden pond. I suppose it is attracted by the breeding herd of minnows that inhabit the pond. A few years ago the herd had become very large due to very successful breeding the previous Spring but was soon reduced by the attention of the Kingfisher. I watched from the kitchen window as it feasted on minnows! The minnow population needed reducing and I was happy that this was done to the benefit of this beautiful bird.

In September last year (2009) I saw the Kingfisher sitting on the post by the pond and tried to take some photos through the window, the result of this can be seen in the last photo below. When the bird flew away, I quickly set the camera on a tripod as close as possible to the post and attached a radio shutter release (only about £18 from eBay). The camera was not very disguised and I doubted the Kingfisher would return. But within 10 minutes of returning inside it appeared again and I was able to take a series of shots triggering the camera with the radio remote. The camera’s shutter makes quite a noise which the bird obviously noticed but must have decided offered no threat.

Frogs - A sign of Spring?

If frogs are a sign of Spring then Spring has finally sprung. The frogs are late this year in starting their annual orgy in my pond, probably due to the very cold weather so far. But this morning with temperatures up to a scorching 7 degrees they have at last showed up. So far they are quite shy and dive for cover as soon as I approach. I think as time goes on they become quite weary and pretend to ignore me.

Anyway, if frogs are a measure of Spring, I shall count them on a regular basis. The rules are that the frog should be clearly visible, preferably with head above water.

So the record so far is:

Sat 13 March, 11:30 am, 7C . . . 14 FROGS

Colocasia - Summer / Autumn 2009 Catch Up

 

Colocasia esculenta also known as Taro, its corms used as a root vegetable in tropical areas.

I must have been growing Colocasias for nearly 10 years now. I once had several different species / varieties but now, largely due to failure to overwinter, I just have the basic Colocasia esculenta form. (This year I shall try some different varieties.) A cold winter and late Spring in 2009 may be the reason that my plants did not achieve quite so large leaves as usual this year.

They are still one of my favourite plants, are easy to grow and their huge leaves give a tropical effect. I grow them in sun and shade but when growing in sunshine they need a lot of water.

Photo above: Colocasia esculenta growing with (left to right):  Beschorneria yuccoides, Colocasia esculenta, Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii'  and Chamaerops humilis (European Fan Palm) – August 2009

The photographs above and below show Colocasia esculenta growing amongst other tropical type plants in sunny positions. The plants in both photos have overwintered in situ without protection. Indeed in the bed pictured above they have spread to a point where they become a bit of a nuisance. The main plant or corm puts out runners from which a new corm forms at the tip, this new corm will either produce new foliage the same summer or remain dormant through the winter to put up new leaves the following Spring.

Photo below: Colocasia esculenta growing with Ricinus communis and Melianthus major – November 2009

Bananas - Summer 2009 Catch Up

Bit of an update on the bananas . . . . 
Musa Sikkimensis
After the cold winter of 08/09 Musa sikkemensis was cut to the ground. It was not helped by my failure to give the stems some protection by wrapping them in fleece. Anyway, new shoots emerged from the ground and grew strongly through the summer reaching a height of about 2 metres. Had the previous year’s stems survived they would have reached probably 3 times that height which might not have been a good thing. I noticed in the summer of 08 when the stems stood very tall that the upper leaves were quite shredded by the wind. 08 might have been a very windy summer but I also think that the taller these plants grow the more susceptible they are from wind damage. The photograph below is taken looking up the stems at the underside of the leaves (part of my great ‘underplants’ series!).



Photograph above shows Musa Sikkimensis growing beyond the red leaves of Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii'.
 
Photograph above shows Musa sikkimensis taken in the autumn. In font is a large flowering Brugmansia.
March 2010 – As I write this the bananas have suffered another very cold winter. The weather was good right through to quite late in December and I had not wrapped the stems. I went off to southwest France for Christmas and New Year leaving them unprotected in some very cold and snowy weather. I did wrap the stems on my return but words like ‘stable door’ and ‘bolted’ come to mind! From early January the weather has been very cold and I doubt if any above ground growth will survive. I am hopeful that it will generate new shoots from the roots. Actually – it is still very, very cold as I write this.

Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii'
I bought 2 plants from B&Q in the spring and they grew well through the summer. I should have dug them up in the autumn and put them in the temporary plastic greenhouse . . . . .  But I went off to France and by the time I returned it was too late (I am a lazy gardener). I will have to buy more plants from B&Q this spring.

Photo above shows the red leaves of Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' with Colocasia esculenta, Beschorneria yuccoides and Musa Sikkimensis beyond.


Photo above is taken from my dining room window and shows the red leaves of Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' in the company of a flowering Canna, Colocasia esculenta and Melianthus major.

Ensete ventricosum  - green form
I bought 2 Ensete ventricosum seedlings from the interweb in the spring of 2009. I usually manage to overwinter these plants but had failed the year previously. Anyway both plants grew well through the summer and I now have one in my plastic greenhouse that I dug up in January and another wrapped in fleece outside, Here’s hoping!
The photo below shows Ensete ventricosum which is, of course, the basic green form, amongst other plants in late August 09.

August Catch Up

It’s amazing how much stuff grows while you’re away on holiday. Despite employing a very good garden-sitter (Liz), there was a lot of stuff that needed cutting back etc. The photograph below shows the hard working gardener grappling with giant leaves of Tetrapanax papyrifera.

Succulents and Stones
As mentioned previously I seem to be having some success with growing succulents, things like Echeverias, Aloes etc. These plants look good in a surrounding of gravel / grit and I’ve found it quite fun to add interesting pebbles and shells that I’ve found on the beach etc. Some of these pebbles are, in fact, rocks and include stones that I’ve brought back from holidays. Some of the stones and shells I just throw onto the gravelled areas of the garden, they get lost in the gravel  but become uncovered again and rediscovered again and bring back memories. I’ve now taken my stone gathering tendencies one stage further and request friends to bring me back stones and pebbles from their travels (at the time of writing this, I have stones from all over the world).
Below is an example of my ‘succulent stone area’. I won’t go into detail over where all the stones come from but the succulents include Echeveria, Aloe and Sempervivum:



and below: an Aloe and Kalanchoe thyrsiflora 'Bronze Sulpture'.

Ricinus communis  - The true Castor Oil Plant
Early in the spring I bought a couple of young plants of Ricinus communis – the red leaf form which I think is ‘Carmentica’. I have grown them from seed before but as I only need a couple it is far easier to just get them from the local nursery. Their large red leaves mix very well with other foliage as shown in the photo below grown amongst Ensete 'Maurelii', Canna 'Striata', Melianthus major and others. The photo was taken at dusk:




The photo above shows the colour of the leaf and also the seed pods behind.

Above is a close-up of the seed pods – they are really quite striking and a little sinister. Castor oil is extracted from the seeds of Ricinus communis but so is also the poison ‘Ricin’.
Ricin is perhaps best known as the poison that killed Bulgarian dissident and BBC journalist Georgi Markov in 1978 in what became known as the ‘Umbrella Murder’. As Georgi Markov crossed London’s Waterloo Bridge he was jabbed in the calf by a man holding an umbrella The man apologized and walked away. That evening he developed a fever and was admitted to a hospital where he died three days later. The cause of death was poisoning from a ricin-filled pellet.Although the murderer was never identified, many believe KGB agents were responsible.