July (mainly) in Suffolk

30 Thu Jul 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, wild birds

Tags

birds, butterflies, caterpillar, danselfly, dragonflies, flies, garden, garden flowers, green woodpecker, herbs, hoverflies, insects, moths, Suffolk, wild flowers

This post is made up of photos of things I’ve seen in my garden during the last month. The first few shots were taken during the last two days in June (I did say ‘mainly’!), when the weather suddenly got much warmer and the sun appeared. Summer arrived and we all felt much better!

IMG_2329Painted Lady on scabious (2) (640x416)

Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) on a scabious flower

Dog Rose flowers (Rosa canina) next to the big pond

Male Common Blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)

Four-spotted Chaser dragonfly (Libellula quadrimaculata)

IMG_2340Small Tortoiseshell on pond (2) (640x428)

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae) on big pond

IMG_2348Female Emperor Dragonfly (640x408)

Female Emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator) laying eggs on the big pond

We have Ground Elder in our garden. I wish we didn’t but there is little chance of us ever getting rid of it here so we will have to try to weaken it and stop it from spreading further. It is in the ditch between us and the school house next door and also in the ditches at the front of the house and under the hedge. It is trying to spread into the lawn at the front but we strim and mow as much as possible and try to stop it from flowering. We often fail in this.

Ground Elder flower! As you see it is a pretty umbellifer with slightly pink buds.

I eradicated it from a former garden by digging it out over a period of a few years. It was in a flower bed so therefore easier to deal with.

IMG_2351 (2).jpgCommon Backswimmers (640x424)

Common Backswimmers (Notonecta glauca) in the front pond. This pond completely dried up while we were away on holiday but is starting to fill again because of the torrents of rain we’ve had during the past week or two.

Insects on Lavender ‘Hidcote’. There haven’t been as many insects this year as last, but the lavender attracted quite few while it flowered. It is a fabulous insect magnet!

Lavender growing at the front of our house

My herb garden

IMG_4908Bronze Fennel flower bud (640x480)

Bronze Fennel flower bud. When we returned form our week away all the leaves on the fennel had died and the flowers were drooping. I watered the herbs and then the rains and cool weather returned; the fennel is still alive (it has an enormous tap root) but no leaves at all for now. The flowers are fine and are being enjoyed by wasps and hoverflies. A neighbour came in to water the plants in the greenhouse while we were away (tomatoes mainly) but we couldn’t expect him to water all our plants – that would be asking much too much!

A pretty Tumbelina Petunia in the window box. It has a lovely gentle scent.

A very bright pink Verbena in the window box with the petunia. The hoverflies love it very much. I wish it was scented.

IMG_4917Hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus on verbena (640x480)

Hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus (I think!) on verbena

A hoverfly on the Fuschia that is also in the window box. This photo was taken after we had begun to have rain at last after a long dry spell.

A beautiful, tiny green spider on the fuschia. I think this is a Green Orb-weaver (Araniella curcurbitina).

A Six-spot Burnet moth (Zygaena filipendulae) on lavender

One of my unscented Asian lilies.

IMG_2369Sisyrinchium striatum (2) (640x427)

Sisyrinchium striatum. These put on a good show this year. Many years ago I had these growing in my garden and loved them as they seemed to go with all the flowers in the border. We moved to Somerset for 18 months and then moved here in 2006. Three years ago I found a seedling sisyrinchium in the garden which appeared from nowhere. I potted it up and grew it on; it flowered the following year and I let it go to seed. I sprinkled the seed on my border and last year I found lots of plants growing which flowered beautifully this year. Free flowers!

A pretty Viola. These seed themselves all over the garden.

I have two Rosa Mundi bushes ( a gift from Richard) and they both flowered well this year. It is sad that they have such a short flowering period but it is worth having them for their pretty, painted petals.

Perennial Sweet Pea

Scabious flower

A pretty rose from Richard’s border

In a former post I posted a photo of a mullein flower infested with Mullein moth caterpillars. Here is another photo taken a week or so later when the grubs were much bigger.

Mullein Moth caterpillar (Shargacucullia verbasci) on what was left of a Mullein flower spike

A Meadow Brown butterfly (Maniola jurtina). Wonderful camouflage!

IMG_2387Fly on Amelanchier (2) (640x429)

A fly on the Amelanchier tree. I cannot identify this one properly though it looks a little like Empis digramma, a fly which hunts other flies in long grass and other lush vegetation and spears them with its proboscis.

IMG_2404Adult and fledgling Green Woodpeckers (2) (640x411)

I took this photo of the Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) and its 2 fledglings this evening. The adult was trying to teach its young how to find ant’s eggs.

This last photo wasn’t taken in my garden but in the grounds of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital where I had to go for a check-up on the day before we went on holiday. I didn’t know what else to do with it!

Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum)

Thank’s for visiting!

Wyken Hall Gardens

21 Tue Jul 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Days out, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary

≈ 30 Comments

Tags

Elizabethan house, garden rooms, Suffolk, Wyken Hall Gardens

Wyken Hall

On 19th June Richard, Elinor and I visited Wyken Hall Gardens in Suffolk. This visit was to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary of the day before. We never buy each other gifts on our anniversary unless there is something we both would like to have for the house or the garden, for example. We usually plan an outing to a place we’d like to see or we go out for a meal. This year we decided on a trip to Wyken Hall Gardens.

Wyken Hall

Wyken Hall is an Elizabethan manor house owned by Sir Kenneth and Lady Carla Carlisle. The house itself isn’t open to the public but the 4 acre gardens are. The house dates from 1570 with additions being made to it in 1630 and 1680 and then major works were carried out in 1920.

Lady Carlisle comes from the USA and she designed this area to look like a southern veranda. She brought 5 rocking chairs over from Mississippi and then the row of Spartan apple trees were espaliered high so as not to obscure the view from the house.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) says it is one of the best modern private gardens in the country.

The Rose Garden

Lord Carlisle began work on the garden in the late 70’s and created the Rose Garden, the Winter Garden and the other garden rooms near the house. More work was done after his marriage in 1986.

The Quincunx – five equal interlocking circles – inspired by a design for a herb garden by Gertrude Jekyll.

New gardens are continually being created.

The new garden pond with oak pier. The owners hope that soon the chestnut fencing will be covered with white wisteria.

When Lord Carlisle began work on the garden it already had a structure of flint walls and many fine old trees. Hornbeam and yew hedges divide the garden into its different rooms. There is a copper-beech maze and a nuttery; a herb garden, a knot garden and an ‘edible’ garden; wildflower meadows and a traditional English kitchen garden. Many of the old-style gardens complement the Elizabethan house.

View of the house from the Rose Garden

As well as the garden, the Carlisles own Wyken Wood, which is ancient woodland, a large modern farm and a 7 acre vineyard. A large medieval barn has been converted into a country store (which sells exclusive goods) a restaurant and café. As well as different wines they also produce ale from their own barley.

A flower border sheltered by a flint wall in which there is an inviting archway to gardens beyond.

Steps cut into the turf (foreground) and the path through the winter garden

The ‘Bellini Bus Stop’ – a covered seat in the winter garden

A very pretty arch with an interesting variety of plants round it.

The kitchen garden

A supercilious-looking turkey

A peacock

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A slideshow of photos of some of the lovely plants and flowers we saw.

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A slideshow of the plants in the Red Hot Border.

This little hen came and stood under our table outside the café and begged for crumbs. She was given quite a lot of Elinor’s expensive scone!

We had a very enjoyable afternoon at a most beautiful and immaculate garden.

Thanks for visiting!

Quiet Sunday

01 Wed Jul 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, wild birds

≈ 36 Comments

Tags

Bees, Cotoneaster, gardening, Great Mullein, Mullein Moth larva, purple toadflax, recording of Turtle Dove song, scabious, St Michael and St Felix Church Rumburgh, Suffolk, sunset, The Vapourer Moth larva, Turtle Dove

Grasses growing round the edge of the field behind our house.

I have been doing a lot of gardening recently. Not the gentle-dead-heading, touch-of-light-weeding type of gardening but lots of digging – which always involves extracting large flint boulders from clay soil, lots of watering – carrying heavy watering cans round our large garden and lots of grass-cutting – I do most of this with shears. We have a large area of grass which is planted up with spring bulbs. There are a few trees planted there as well and the ground is very uneven. I think that it was originally a spoil heap from when the house was built; it also slopes quite steeply down to the ditch at the front of the house. We leave cutting the grass until the bulb leaves have died back which means it is left until June by which time it is looking quite unkempt. The ground is much too uneven for the tractor mower and because of the trees it is a very difficult area for Richard to do (he is 6′ 3″ tall). I am a foot shorter in height than he is, so I do this part of the garden. I can’t use the strimmer as it is too heavy for me so I cut the 3′ high grass with shears. We bought a scythe but somehow we can’t get it to sharpen. I like using shears as I can see what I am doing and I don’t cut the wrong things down as I might if I could use the strimmer. A strimmer makes such a mess; shears are tidy. Once I have cut the grass to a manageable length I then rake it up into a number of enormous heaps and then transport it to the other end of the garden in a wheelbarrow and put it on the grass heap. I then use the electric mower and cut the grass even shorter.

The field of barley behind our house.

As a result of this work I am extremely achy and stiff but I have developed some good muscles in my arms and shoulders! I was glad we had a little rain on Sunday so I excused myself from working outside. I read my book, talked with my husband and daughter and generally had a relaxing day.

IMG_4891View across pond to field (640x480)

View across the pond to the field beyond.

We had an Evening Prayer service at St Michael and St Felix Church in Rumburgh where Richard is one of the church wardens. We left home at 5.45 pm to make sure the church was tidy and ready for the service. There had been a big wedding there on Saturday so the church is full of beautiful flowers.

The decorated Rood Screen. This is very pretty but it would be better if people didn’t decorate it as the screen is hundreds of years old and falling apart.

Posies on the pew ends. I think the top of the poppyhead (the carved pew end) looks like a clown with a bowler hat.

Flowers at the East Window

Flowers round the Font

Flowers in the porch

The path has been regravelled and the fence panel at the side of the church has been repaired.

Fresh gravel and new fence panel.

The bride’s family live at the farm which surrounds the church and the church is in their back garden. I have never walked all round my church because that would mean walking through someone else’s property. However, it is so nice to have kind people who decorate our church and repair our fence and path because their daughter wanted to get married in the church!

Our evening service was taken by Maurice and we concentrated on the Trinity. It was a pleasant, peaceful and thoughtful service.

I’ll use the rest of the post to show you a few more things I’ve seen on my travels and in the garden recently.

This is a Great Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) and I noticed the other day that it was looking a little ragged.

This is one of the culprits – a Mullein Moth larva (Shargacucullia verbasci). The plant was covered in the caterpillars which will probably eat most of the plant and leave a blackened stump.

I had noticed that a few of my plants and tree seedlings had been damaged and on Sunday I found a few of the caterpillars that were responsible.

This is a Vapourer Moth larva (Orgyia antiqua), and it is eating a Laburnum seedling.

The Vapourer is often found in towns and often defoliates street trees. I’ve never seen it in our garden before – perhaps they found their way here on a plant from the garden centre in town. Vapourers are tussock moths which are all rather hairy. The Vapourer female moth doesn’t have functional wings and will stay close to her cocoon after hatching out. The Vapourer larva, along with other members of the Tussock Moth family, has tufts or tussocks of often colourful hairs (the Vapourer’s are yellow). The hairs on adults and larva are usually barbed which makes them unpleasant and painful to handle.

A bee on a scabious flower.

I am not very good at identifying bees. I never seem to notice or photograph the key feature mentioned in the ID guide. The bee above could be a cuckoo bee.

I try to grow as many plants as possible that are liked by bees and other insects.

Bee on Cotoneaster.

Bee on Purple Toadflax.

A rather lovely sunset I saw last week.

Lastly, I have another video to share with you but it isn’t the video that’s important just the soundtrack. I would like you to ignore the video! It’s rubbish! I was taking photos in the garden next to the pond, when the Turtle Dove started singing. I switched the camera to film so I could record the song and vaguely pointed the camera in the direction of the pond. The video is very shaky as I didn’t have a tripod with me. I only managed to record a very short part of the song. It is quite a quiet purring sound and the other birds in the garden were singing very loudly!

Thanks for visiting!

A Visit to the Plantation Garden.

11 Thu Jun 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Norwich, plants, Rural Diary, trees

≈ 44 Comments

Tags

Gothic style, Henry Trevor, Norwich, ornamentation, Plantation Garden

View of the garden looking south.

At the end of September last year, Elinor and I visited the Plantation Garden in Norwich. Elinor had missed a visit to the garden with her Art class because she hadn’t been well, so we decided we’d go there and have a look for ourselves. It is a Grade II English Heritage registered garden nearly 3 acres in size.

View of the garden from the top of the terrace looking north.

For many years the place where the garden is was an industrial site. Hundreds of years ago, tunnels were dug into the side of the hills to extract flints that were used to build the city. (One of these tunnels was accidentally discovered by a bus when it fell down it in 1984!). The chalk surrounding the flint was gradually dug out to make lime for mortar and agricultural purposes. Eventually a deep quarry was formed.

Looking North towards the Rustic Bridge.

In 1855 the Trustees of the Preachers’ Charity who have owned the land since 1613, decided to convert its use from industrial to residential. The man who had been running his business as a builder/bricklayer/lime burner at the quarry site was (I presume) asked to move out and Henry Trevor moved in. Trevor was a prosperous upholsterer and cabinet maker who was also an enthusiastic gardener. When he took out the lease for the site he said he was eager to build a fine house and garden in ‘this deep dell’.

This shows some of the decoration on the walls.

Trevor bought the decorative materials for the hard structure of his garden from Gunton Brothers, a brickworks at Costessey (pronounced Cozzey) just to the west of Norwich, who made ornamental windows, chimneys and patterned bricks and sent them all over the country. Henry Trevor used these bricks (and other Gunton materials) most imaginatively along with material he found on the site and material acquired elsewhere such as natural and knapped flints, plain bricks, carrstone and clinker from local gas works and kilns. The Gothic Revival style was very popular at the time (1857) and this ‘medieval’ style was Trevor’s favourite.

Top of the terrace at the southern end of the garden.

Trevor decided on the ‘Italianate’ style for the steep southern wall of the quarry. He constructed flights of steps, balustrades and pedestals with urns on them. He included a little rusticity and built a summerhouse on the top terrace to balance the rustic bridge at the north end of the garden.

The rustic summerhouse.

His tour de force is the Gothic fountain in the centre of the garden.

Gothic fountain. The white moulded brick Trevor used weathers to look like stone.

Rock works were also fashionable at the time so Trevor included a 30-metre-long one in his garden. He planned to plant the steep sides of the quarry with trees and with evergreen shrubs as an understorey. To do this he must have created planting holes and brought in soil to fill them. The planting is now over-mature and many of the original trees have died, but there are still some of the original 19th century plants and trees in the garden.

The Plantation Garden Preservation Trust is trying to raise funds to restore the many paths and steps all over the plot which enabled all Trevor’s guests and friends to view his garden from different levels. He loved nothing better than having visitors and regularly opened the garden to the public.

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The garden is being restored very carefully and the planting schemes are lovely and in keeping with the history of the site. I haven’t included many of the plants I saw there as I have concentrated on the original architecture in this post. It is a very strange place and some of the ornamentation is a little over-fussy for my taste but it is also a beautiful garden and so peaceful and remote from the city though sited in its heart.

I obtained most of the details included in this post from information boards placed round the garden. I am very grateful to the PGPT for supplying this information.

I have included a link here.

Thank-you for visiting!

The Merry (?) Month of May

16 Sat May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in cooking, family, Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees

≈ 86 Comments

Tags

family life, flowers, fruit trees, health, spring, Suffolk

Japanese Cherry ‘Fragrant Cloud’

We have been fairly busy during the past few weeks with not much time for trips out. Not that the weather has been conducive to those type of activities; we get one quite nice day with sunshine and a bit of warmth and then we revert to cold, windy days with grey skies and some rain too. We are still getting cold nights and looking at the photographs I took this time last year, the flowers and blossom I am seeing now were ones I saw then during the second half of April. The photos I am including in this post have been mainly taken on the few nice days we’ve had this month.

Crabapple ‘Evereste’

I took my mother to the hospital for her six-week check-up and we were sorry to be told that both her eyes had suffered a bleed or some damage and she would have to return to have injections in both eyes at the same time. We duly returned a few days later and she had the injections. Her eyesight has deteriorated again and for someone who has always enjoyed reading she is finding it so hard not to be able to read with ease any more. She can’t read sub-titles on the TV quickly enough either so has had to give up watching her favourite foreign-language programmes. She has also been told her kidneys are not functioning too well and her GP is having to re-think what medication she should be taking now. She is a brave and sensible woman and is trying to make the best of the situation.

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’

My mother-in-law has now moved into her care-home. The actual move caused her some distress and she is still very unhappy. She had lived in her home for over forty years and she had been very happy there. She knows that she wouldn’t be able to care for herself if she went back home, even with a full care package, as she is almost totally immobile now and has so many other serious medical problems. But that thought doesn’t take much of the sadness and frustration away; it probably adds to it. Richard and his brother spent two full days last week going through her whole house finding the few things she would be able to take with her to the home and then trying to decide what to do with the rest of her belongings. They had four trips to the tip to get rid of things no longer needed and have stored the rest of her possessions in my brother-in-law’s cellar. My poor mother-in-law is sad that she has to sell her house to pay for her care and that she won’t be able to leave anything to her sons when she dies.

Pear ‘Concord’

My eldest daughter Alice is working hard on the few corrections that have to be made to her thesis before it is printed and bound. She is also rehearsing for her next production with her drama group. Because of her work schedule she won’t be able to visit us until the beginning of June. We haven’t seen her since 31st December – the longest time we have ever gone without seeing each other.

Bergenia flowers. I took this photo on the 5th of May thinking that they may not be around that much longer. In past years I have had all my bergenia flowers eaten by deer or rabbits almost as soon as they came out. Not this year (so far). They are still flowering and have got so tall and look wonderful.

Elinor has taken her Art exam and has finished and handed in all her course-work. She was pleased with the way her exam went. She managed to do all she had wanted to do and didn’t panic at all. Of course, she is now starting to worry that she hasn’t done enough and might not pass her exam! She has an interview on Wednesday with tutors of the next two-year course she has applied to go on. She wants to do Graphic Art and we and her current tutors think that she will do very well.

Lathyrus ‘Spring Beauty’

We are currently applying for assistance for Elinor for next year. This will provide her with one-to-one mentors who will be able to help her if she experiences anxiety at college and it may also be possible to provide her with different equipment and/or furniture which she may need because of her mild scoliosis. She suffers from frequent back pain especially when she has to stand for any length of time.

Apple ‘Discovery’

She has her other exams during the first two weeks in June and is trying to revise for these at the moment. English and Psychology are no problem to her and she is predicted to do well in both these exams but it is Maths as always which is causing her, and us all, such headaches.

Heavy rain on 8th May

IMG_4640Dove's-foot Crane's-bill (480x640)

Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill (Geranium molle)

Richard is fine and is getting used to the fact that he will need to be on medication for the rest of his life. Join the club, I say! He will be seeing the specialist in a few months time to have his situation reviewed with regard to the lesion on his pituitary gland. Will he or won’t he have to have an operation to have it removed? He is counting down the days until his retirement at the end of August but in the meantime is having to work very hard at work and has been allocated a number of jobs to do at locations all over the country, all to be done in the next couple of months. The firm is getting its money’s worth out of him before he goes. He is naturally saddened about his mother’s situation but knows she is being cared for properly now.

Lilac

Not a good photo of Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium)

I continue to have a problem with my dry throat. I have seen a different doctor at our local surgery a couple of times and he has prescribed artificial saliva spray and also pastilles that should stimulate saliva production. This all sounds unpleasant but the treatment has improved matters a little. I would have liked to find out why I suddenly got a dry throat in January, which can be very uncomfortable at times, and would also like to know if there is anything I am doing or eating which has brought it on. It would be good to know that I could get rid of it by a change in life-style. I cannot get anyone interested in this and am just supplied with medication to alleviate the symptoms. The GP says I am to tell my Rheumatology specialist about my dry throat when I next go to see her – there is a possible connection between one of the tablets I take, rheumatoid arthritis and dry throats. I asked if the specialist might be able to do anything for me. Oh no, I doubt it, said the GP, she will just find it interesting! The one unfortunate side-effect is I am unable to sing properly any more. I get great pleasure from singing and hoped to be able to re-join a choir when circumstances allowed but if things stay as they are I would be a liability. It saddens me that I have had to give up so many hobbies because of my health and I had hoped that I would be able to sing for a while longer – I hope nevertheless that the medication will eventually enable me to sing again. I have also had a very upset stomach for the past ten days. I have had to continue with driving my daughter and mother to the places they need to be and also had a few appointments of my own to keep, but when I have eventually got back home I have no energy for much housework or any gardening let alone the enthusiasm for reading and blogging. I have felt quite a lot better today and have managed to catch up with commenting on the blogs I follow but if I have said anything over the last couple of weeks that has been a little odd please blame it on the stomach bug (it wasn’t me!).

Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

IMG_4645Orange-tip on bluebell (640x480)

Male Orange-tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) on bluebell. It’s a pity the butterfly chose to drink nectar from a bluebell with a bird poo on it!

On May Day Bank Holiday Monday, Rumburgh village had its annual fete and as usual I provided a couple of cakes for the church’s cake stall. Richard pulled a large amount of our rhubarb as well which was also sold on the stall. I spent most of the day before baking the two cakes I took to the fete. We went out in the afternoon to Captain’s Wood to see if the bluebells were flowering. I will put that visit in a separate post.

Honey Cake tray bake. It’s always good to provide tray bakes or individual small cakes for cake stalls. They sell for more money than a large cake does.

The tea tent at the Rumburgh fete

Last week, while Richard was away in Manchester helping his brother sort out their Mum’s house, Elinor and I went to Minsmere RSPB reserve to walk through the woods. This will also be the subject of another post.

While I was baking cakes for the fete I also made an Eve’s Pudding for us to eat at home. I didn’t manage to photograph this before some of it had been eaten. The other cake I made for the fete but didn’t photograph, was a Mincemeat Cake. A good way of using up the extra mincemeat bought at Christmas.

This is the sum total of our activities so far this month. Quite gloomy in places I’m afraid.

Thank-you for visiting!

Yet More Things!

26 Sun Apr 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, wild birds

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

amelanchier, Ash, ash keys, bristly ox-tongue, clematis montana, crabapple 'Harry Baker', euonymus, garden, greylag, pasque flower, pieris, red-legged partridge, rosemary, saxifrage, spring, Suffolk, tulip, viburnum bodnantense, white dead-nettle, wild cherry

I was surprised to see two Red-legged Partridges (Alectoris rufa) in my garden one morning as I opened the kitchen blinds.

This one had obviously had a bad night.

Please ignore the weedy flowerbed – I have since tidied it up.

Shortly after I took this photo they both flew away.

The variagated Euonymus is looking bright with new leaves.

The Pieris ‘Forest Fire’ has tiny new pink leaves

The Clematis montana ‘Rubens’ I cut back a few weeks ago is showing me that it won’t be beaten.

The Rosemary is still flowering beautifully

The Ash trees (Fraxinus excelsior) are flowering.

The flowers are very small and a warm purple colour. Ash trees have separate male and female flowers, mainly on separate trees but there are a few trees that have both male and female flowers but on separate branches! The trees around us are all females and produce thousands of Ash ‘keys’, winged seeds that hang from the trees in bunches in the autumn. My mother has plenty of Ash trees near her house but all hers are males – so no ‘keys’.

A reflective Greylag!

IMG_4449Bumblebee on White Dead-nettle (640x480)

A bumblebee on White Dead-nettle (Lamium album)

A very over-grown corner of our garden. This ditch doesn’t belong to us but is part of the common land between our garden and the road. I expect that no-one will take responsibility for looking after this but if there is a problem with it in the future we will no doubt be asked to deal with it!

The Amelanchier is blossoming.

The Viburnum bodnantense produces dark pink flowers in the spring and pale pink or white flowers during the winter

Wild Cherry blossom (Prunus avium)

Wild Cherry

Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris)

Red Saxifrage

A soft pink Tulip

It looks so different depending on the angle from which I photograph it

Tulips

The new leaves of Bristly Ox-tongue (Picris echioides). Another member of the Daisy family.

IMG_4476Crabapple 'Harry Baker' (640x480)

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’ flower buds

I had an on-line conversation with a member of the WordPress team a week or so ago and asked about my missing posts. The person who dealt with my enquiry was extremely helpful but was unable to retrieve them. He would have been able to retrieve three old posts I had deleted on purpose but was unable to find the ones that had disappeared! Fortunately, a very dear friend who is an e-mail follower has been saving my posts and has sent all the missing ones to me. When I have the time I may post a page with them on for anyones information.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Few More Things.

24 Fri Apr 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, wild animals, wild birds

≈ 45 Comments

Tags

aubretia, bluetit, daffodils, daisy, dandelion, Elder, greylags, Hawthorn, heartsease, Muntjac deer, near-species rose, nests, pussy willow, rhubarb, silver birch, snail-trail, spear thistle, spring, Suffolk, willow

In between racing about in my car to Norwich and Mum’s house, the doctor’s surgery and the hospital, shopping trips to Harleston, Halesworth, Bungay and Diss, I have been able to take my camera with me as I walk round the garden, filling all the bird feeders. I haven’t had time for any gardening for about ten days and I miss it! The weather here has continued bright and dry with frosty, misty mornings and warmish days (as long as you are out of the chilly NE wind). Today has been much warmer with a change of wind direction but according to the forecast, this will not last. Rain and cold are set to return by the end of the weekend.

Hawthorn leaves. We have two types of Hawthorn in our garden hedges, Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and Midland Hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata). This is probably Midland Hawthorn or maybe a hybrid between the two.

A Daisy (Bellis perennis). I love its simplicity.

The Elder leaves (Sambucus nigra) are now almost fully out and have lost the pink tinge they had. They are matte mid-green leaves. Last year we had the best elder blossom I’d seen for many years.

Goat Willow or Sallow catkins (Salix caprea). Male and female catkins are on separate trees and appear before the leaves. Sallows are a food plant for many different types of moth. The catkins are known as ‘Pussy Willow’ when they first appear as they look and feel like silky cats paws.

I found a Heartsease or Wild Pansy (Viola tricolor) plant on the path round the big pond. Next to it there is also the first rosette of Spear Thistle leaves (Cirsium vulgare).

Silver Birch leaves (Betula pendula)

I love standing underneath our tree and looking up. Silver Birches eventually grow to be about 26 metres tall. I don’t think ours has quite got there yet.

This Bluetit (Parus caeruleus) sitting in the Birch tree looks a little strange. It has a black sunflower seed in its beak.

It spent some time taking the seedcase off…

…and eating the seed within.

The Greylags (Anser anser) have been amusing me a lot lately. The geese are much calmer than the ganders. The goose here is up close eating some food I put out for it. The gander is further away and hissing at me.

This one I found the other morning standing on top of the hedge.

The original goose on her nest on the island…

…was joined last weekend by another goose (nearest to us).

A third goose has made her nest on the edge of the pond. I surprised her and she surprised me when I walked round the pond yesterday. I am not sure how successful this nest will be as it is quite vulnerable to fox predation.

A Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Daffodils along the ditch at the front of the house

Daffodils at the top of the ditch between us and the old School House.

Our Rhubarb (Rheum x hybridum ‘Timperley Early’) looking majestic.

A very early flowering near-species rose has buds on it. (Rosa xanthina ‘Canary Bird’)

Aubretia

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Richard pointed out this snail trail up the side of the house!

I saw this Muntjac deer doe very early the other morning. It was eating the crabapple tree! The leaf shapes on the window are meant to stop birds crashing into the glass but aren’t very successful. I usually have to pull the window-blind down to stop them!

Very blurred photo! You can see how stocky/thickset these deer are and also the white in their ears.

The does don’t have antlers but have a dark triangular patch on their foreheads.

I think I see her tongue sticking out as she chews a mouthful of leafy twig.

I had great trouble trying to focus on the deer. The camera wanted to focus on the window glass of the double-glazing or the daffodils behind the deer.

Richard on his new tractor-mower. The old one wasn’t working too well so we part-exchanged it for a newer, better model. It has a mulching facility which will be good to use in the summer.

I must share some good news I heard today. My daughter Alice has been told she has her PhD. She is now Doctor Alice! I am so proud of her.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Few Things I’ve Seen in my Garden.

21 Tue Apr 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in amphibians, fish, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, wild birds

≈ 38 Comments

Tags

bird's nest, birds, Common Frog, cowslip, daffodils, ducks, fish, flowers, frogspawn, garden, Great Tit, ground-ivy, hazel, Hazel bud-gall, horse chestnut, lichen, Mallard, marsh marigold, moss, pond, primrose, primula, spring, Suffolk, sweet violet, tadpoles, trees, Water Mint

Two very handsome Mallard drakes (Anas platyrhynchos).

Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea). Many of the newer leaves are purple and the plant has a slightly unpleasant minty scent.

As I have mentioned before, when we moved to this house there were no Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the garden at all. We now have a few plants here and there on the banks of our ditches.

The Cowslips (Primula veris) are beginning to bloom. We have always had plenty of these!

A primula hybrid that arrived unbidden about three years ago. I rather like it.

The house next door to us is the former village school. I am not sure when it closed but a friend of ours from church used to attend it during the 1940’s. Where our house and garden is now, there was a meadow full of wild flowers and our friend walked across it every day to collect the milk for the school from the farm next door. These wild flowers we have in our garden are all that’s left of the hundreds that used to be here up to about 50 or 60 years ago. I hope that we can hang on to these few and perhaps, by not using chemicals, encourage them to spread.

Sweet Violet (Viola odorata)

This is our parcels and newspaper box at the end of our drive. We noticed during the winter that it was starting to rot and needed replacing. It appears that we weren’t the only ones to notice the state the box was in. I opened it the other day to find something had made a hole in the back of it ( you can see where the light is shining through just below my thumb as I lift the lid). The next day I found this straw and moss had been put in there. Richard saw a Great Tit (Parus major) flying away from the box so I suspect this is a Great Tit’s nest. I carefully peeped into it a day or so later and found the whole box stuffed full of moss and we can also see lots of straw sticking out from where the box sides are coming away from the base. We have tied up the box and put a ‘not in use’ sign on it and we now await the happy arrival of baby Great Tits.

I knew that Tits nested in holes and I also was aware that Willow Tits excavated their own holes but I hadn’t realised that Great Tits also excavated holes to nest in.

The top of the brick gate-post at the end of our drive is covered in moss and lichen but because we haven’t had much rain recently, it isn’t looking as good as usual. Birds have been collecting the moss for their nests too.

This is a close-up of one of the lichens.

The Marsh-marigold or King Cup (Caltha palustris) is flowering in the pond.

I love its shiny yellow petals.

I took this photo of the daffodils round the pond over a week ago and I am glad I did. On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week we had very warm weather (24 degrees C on Wednesday!) and the daffodils that had come out earliest began to wilt.

Earlier this year I posted pictures of these Hazel (Corylus avellana) bud galls. I went to look at them again last week and noticed tiny flies sitting on all of the galls. I wonder if these flies had hatched out of the galls.

New Hazel leaves

Water Mint (Mentha aquatica). The new shoots are growing round and in the big pond.

Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). This photo was taken about a week ago.

This photo of our Horse-chestnut tree was taken on the same day. These leaves are higher and get more sunlight. I was pleased to see that the flower panicles (candles) were growing nicely.

I saw the frogs spawning but unfortunately didn’t have my camera with me. I took this photo of the spawn later in the day. This is the first time I have found frogspawn in our pond and was surprised at how late in the year it was. We have a windswept, exposed garden which may account for it.

There were lots of eggs and I was glad that the fish that live in the pond hadn’t come out of hibernation yet.

I took this picture a week later as the tadpoles were hatching out. The fish still hadn’t woken up!

Two days after this the tadpoles had dispersed but I had also seen the fish swimming in the pond and leaping to catch flies. They were probably feasting on tadpoles too.

I found a dead fish on the path round the pond again – I found one last year that had been caught by the Heron who had been disturbed by one of us. I don’t know what had caught this year’s fish as there was no stab mark on it. It is interesting to see the workings of the food-chain. We are part of it as we get bitten by the flies that the fish eat!

Thank-you for visiting!

Out Like a Lion!

31 Tue Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, weather, wild birds

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

blackthorn, daffodils, early dog-violets, flint boulder, gales, garden plans, geese, goose nest, greylags, hyacinths, mallards, March, muck spreading, primroses, scillas, starlings

In my post at the beginning of the month I wondered if March would go out like a lamb because it had come in like a lion. Well – no – the month is going out as it came in, with gales!

I have just been outside and found my poor Hyacinths have been flattened! These are Hyacinthus Delft Blue.

The Blackthorn tree (Prunus spinosa), just coming into flower, has been battered.

The flowers are being ripped off the trees by the wind.

Ten days ago the local farmer began muck-spreading and we have only just got rid of the smell!

More countryside joys!

We have had a small flock of Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) visiting our garden during the past week.

Despite my having put the ground feeder in a cage with extra chicken wire on two sides of it, the Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) seem determined to get to the bird seed.

The daffodils are coming out nicely around the garden.

The path round the pond is beginning to green up nicely.

The Early Dog-violets (Viola reichenbachiana) that grow in the grass-path round the pond are looking very pretty.

Early Dog-violet (Viola reichenbachiana)

The Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the ditch are looking fine too. When we first came to live here there weren’t any primroses at all, only cowslips. These have appeared in the last couple of years.

The Greylag geese (Anser anser) often come up close to the house to see what food there is for them to eat.

I took advantage of their absence and had a look at the nest which has a few eggs in it. This was taken before the goose had finished laying her eggs and started sitting on the nest.

This is the garden on the south side of the house. Work in progress: I have cleared the beds of weeds and other unwanted seedlings and will cover them with soil-improver next.

The central grass path will be kept (there is a flowerbed just out of shot on the left) and I want to position a couple of arches over it and train roses and clematis up them.

This narrow area of grass is difficult to mow and will eventually be removed and replaced with a gravel bed and stepping-stones to give access to the windows, electricity meter and the drain.

The soil here is very poor; full of stones and builder’s rubble. I am constantly finding very large flints just under the surface. People in days gone by used to think that stones grew and I can understand why they might think that.

This is a flint boulder I dug up last week – the ruler is a 30 cm one.

I put a pot with a primula in next to the boulder to give you an idea of the size.

Blue Scillas

White Scillas

These Scillas are flowering in the flowerbed on the left of the grass path. I have yet to weed here!

Thanks for visiting!

Before the Eclipse

20 Fri Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in family, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, weather, wild birds

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

daffodils, dotted border moth, ducks, early dog-violet, gardening, geese, greylags, hellebores, house sparrow, mallards, Mothering Sunday, Rip van Winkle daffodils, silver-lace primula, simnel cake, solar eclipse, Suffolk, viburnum bodnantense

Such a busy week I have had!

Some pretty, delicate daffodils growing at the top of the ditch-bank at the front of the house.

After a couple of problems were sorted out, Elinor’s week last week ended well. She spent Friday in London with her Art class visiting The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Natural History Museum and the Saatchi Gallery and had a wonderful time. She was able to rest as often as she needed to (she has scoliosis) and so therefore had hardly any back pain. She travelled by coach and, as many of her colleagues had never been to London before, the driver took them on a route that passed by many of the sights – they drove along the Embankment so they saw the Thames, Cleopatra’s Needle with the two Sphinx, then the Tower of London and the 2012 Olympic Stadium among others. I left her at the college at about 8.15 am and Richard collected her at 8.00 pm – so about twelve hours away from family – the longest time ever. I spent the day ironing.

Silver-lace Primula

Some more of my new Hellebores have begun flowering.

I was able to do a little gardening on Saturday. It was quite chilly but dry and I progressed quite well with the weeding I had started earlier in the week. Richard gave the lawn another mow and over the weekend he was able to finish cutting the leylandii hedge.

The Viburnum Bodnantense is just coming into leaf.

IMG_4235Rip van Winkle daffodils (640x480)

I love these little Rip-van-Winkle daffodils.

IMG_4237Rip van Winkle daffodil (640x480)

It looks more like a miniature Chrysanthemum from this angle.

Sunday was Mothering Sunday and I had told Mum I would be taking her to church. I collected her and helped her put the Simnel Cake she had made carefully into the car. She had received a phone call from one of the ladies at church asking if she would be bringing a cake as usual and fortunately she had the ingredients ready in case they asked her. I took an elderly retired priest back home after the service then took Mum home too. I arranged with her that Richard would collect her at 6.00 pm as she was coming for a meal at our house. It had to be an evening meal as I hadn’t time to cook lunch and drive to church. I spent most of the afternoon preparing the food. Mum provided an apple pie and another Simnel Cake for us.

This is the Simnel Cake Mum made for us last year. This year’s one looked the same so I’m reposting the photo

The temperature at the weekend was about 10 degrees C lower than the weekend before. The easterly wind dragged such a lot of cloud and mist in off the North Sea but not very much rain. I have had to water the pots and tubs as they are all drying out very quickly. Today the wind was veering round to the North, so a change – but not necessarily for the better!

This is an Early Dog-violet (Viola reichenbachiana). We have them growing on the grass path round the big pond. They are very small and the flower here was only just over an inch tall.

Here’s another one.

Richard travelled to Lancaster in Lancashire on Monday for work and continued there until Wednesday. He is now staying with his brother in Manchester as he wanted to see him and his mother. She has been assessed at last and to our complete surprise she has been told that she is fit to leave the respite home she has been in for three months and go home. We know that she is not at all able to look after herself – she cannot stand up on her own anymore, let alone walk. She would need 24 hour care and she would need her home adapting even more than it is at the moment. Richard and his brother needed to discuss this new challenge together and with Mum-in-law. They are also going to visit a couple of nursing homes to see if they are suitable for their mother to live in. They have spent the day at York, visiting the National Railway Museum.

This is the goose on a visit to her nest on the very brambly island on our pond. She has been laying eggs but hasn’t started sitting yet.

IMG_1972Greylag goose and gander (640x427)

Here is the goose and gander up close to the house. They come to have a look to see what food they can find under the bird-tables. I am sure the goose, if not the gander, is one of the goslings from two years ago. She follows me round the garden as I fill the feeders so of course I give her and the gander some special duck and goose mixture I have .

The Mallards also come up close to the house looking for food.

They are enthusiastic eaters and rip up a lot of grass too.

I had an appointment at the opticians on Tuesday and yet again failed to do well enough in one of the tests and have to go back again next week. Mum had another appointment at the eye clinic at Norwich hospital on Wednesday afternoon so I took her. Her appointment went well and we go back again in six weeks. I have done Mum’s shopping for her but it took three different trips.

A male House Sparrow in the crabapple tree.

Tomorrow morning we have a solar eclipse. We will be lucky to see anything of it because of the cloud cover. It may be possible to see it if the cloud thins early enough. I remember the last total solar eclipse 16 years ago. It was a bright, warm, sunny day and we all went out into the garden to witness it. What I remember most about it were the strange shadows – each leaf had two shadows and as it got darker it was such a strange twilight with the dimming sun above us and not on the horizon. As it got dark the birds stopped singing and the silence was eerie. I wonder what I will see tomorrow at 9.30 am? I will be just arriving home from taking Elinor to college.

This is a Dotted Border Moth (Agriopis marginaria) that I saw on the outside of my kitchen window. The strange white light is a reflection of my flash in the double-glazing.

Elinor has been invited to a party. One of her old school friends is holding an 18th birthday party tomorrow and Elinor thinks she would like to go. She may need collecting early but it will be so good for her even to go for a short time.

Thank-you for visiting!