No Time to Stand and Stare

24 Mon Feb 2020

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, family, Folk Traditions, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, wild birds

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busyness, cataract operation, crocus, Diary, driving, gardening, horse brasses, iris reticulata, medical appointments, muddy lanes, Plough Sunday, Plough Sunday service, pulmonaria, rosemary, Rumburgh Church, snowdrop, sparrowhawk, storm damage, Suffolk, the plough, wintertime, witch-hazel

Both our cars are covered in mud all the time; they are in a worse state now than in the photo! Most of our lane is inches deep in sloppy mud and it is hardly worth our while to wash the cars.

This year has been crazily busy so far and there has been no time for even a short walk since the new year. At last, I have managed to catch-up with all my blog reading, I’ve sorted out all my bank statements and receipts and have got rid of large amounts of paper. I have even spent a little time in the garden weeding and tidying-up the flowerbeds; there has been very little cold weather and the weeds have grown and grown!

Rosemary ( Rosmarinus ‘Miss Jessup’s Upright’) in flower in January

Witch Hazel; the stems covered in lichen.

Crocus

Snowdrops. These and the crocus above grow under the crabapple tree. It has got somewhat weedy there in recent years!

Iris reticulata

Pulmonaria

I have taken a Morning Prayer service at church and attended a meeting with others in our Benefice who take church services.

Plough Sunday Service 12th January. Richard took this service very nicely. Much of the congregation is made up of members of ‘Old Glory’ the Molly Men and their friends and supporters

The decorated plough; the star of the Plough Sunday service.

Look at these beautiful horse brasses!

Most of my time has been spent in the car, taking Elinor to the station on her university days, taking Mum to her many hospital appointments, taking myself to hospital and doctor’s appointments, dental appointments, eye clinic appointments and grocery shopping trips. Mum has had both her cataracts removed and such a load has been lifted from her and my shoulders! She has so much more sight than we thought and the fear that she may not be able to look after herself and live alone as she wishes has receded for a while. She is approaching her 90th birthday and though she tires easily and is somewhat twisted and stooping because of arthritis, she is still able to cook and look after herself. Richard and I had to visit her the week before last to repair her hedge and fence, damaged by the first of our storms. Mum hadn’t been able to do any gardening for some months because she couldn’t see, and the garden has become overgrown with brambles and nettles, thistles and other unwelcome weeds. I had done a few jobs for her and so had Richard but the weeds had taken over and the fence that broke in the storm was covered in enormous brambles.

A rather beautiful female Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus ) who observed me taking her photo

This coming week I only have three appointments to keep and none for Mum except for taking her to church on Ash Wednesday. I’m at the hospital all day on Tuesday having eye pressure tests, I have a hygienist appointment at the dentist on Wednesday and a hair appointment in Norwich on Thursday. Housework has been a bit hit-and-miss lately and I hope to be able to catch-up with all my chores at home very soon.

This is just a short post to let you know what has been happening. My next post will probably be about one of our days out last year, or even the year before that! I have plenty of old photos but hardly any new ones!

In My Garden

14 Sat Feb 2015

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

≈ 31 Comments

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Ash, birds, blackthorn, catkins, Christmas box, crocus, flying mallards, garden plants, goldfinch, hazel, hazel gall, horse chestnut, ice, iris reticulata, lichen, Mahonia, moon, pond, reflections, silver birch, song thrush, Suffolk, trees, winter-flowering honeysuckle, witch-hazel

This is a post featuring a few of the things I have noticed in our garden recently. A large part of the garden is exposed to the prevailing south-westerly wind and we find plants here are slower to grow and flower than those in other gardens near us. I have seen large carpets of Winter Aconites in other peoples gardens but there is no sign of them here at all. The beds around the house and near the hedge are more sheltered and this is where we see the first signs of spring.

Buds on the Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior)

I like the Ash’s black, conical buds – they look a little like deer hooves. So far, we haven’t found any sign of ‘Ash die-back’ in our garden yet. This is caused by the Hymenoscyphus fraxineus fungus. East Anglia is badly affected and has lost many of its Ash trees already.

IMG_1849Horse Chestnut leaf buds (640x427)

Horse-chestnut sticky buds (Aesculus hippocastanum)

IMG_1854Buds on Blackthorn in hedge (640x427)

Little red buds on the Blackthorn in the hedge (Prunus spinosa)

While I was photographing these I looked up and found a Barn Owl was flying straight towards me. I don’t know who was more surprised, the owl or me! I tried to photograph it before it veered away from me but I couldn’t focus in time.

Lichen in the hedge

Hazel male catkins (Corylus avellana)

IMG_1848Female flowers of Hazel (640x427)

Hazel female catkins with their tiny red petals

Hazel bud

IMG_1864Catkin starting to emerge (640x427)

Hazel buds.

I wondered what these were on our hazel trees as I had never noticed them before. None of my books mentioned buds looking like this so I googled for information and discovered a photograph that looked like mine on ramblingsofanaturalist.blogspot.com. The author says that these are bud galls made by the mite Phytoptus avellanae. He also talks about unopened brown catkins which have been attacked by either the mite Phyllocoptes coryli or the Cedidomyid midge Contarinia coryli. I had also seen distorted brown catkins and had wondered about them too but had been unable to get a clear photo of them.

Reflection of sky and cloud in our big pond

Flying ducks

Our Silver Birch tree (Betula pendula) is also growing its catkins.

Thin ice on the pond. Hail has got frozen onto the ice that was already there.

The icy pond

The Witch-hazel (Hamamelis) is flowering in its large pot next to the front door and on mild days fills the porch with scent.

The Christmas Box (Sarcococca) is also scenting the garden.

IMG_3956Winter-flowering Honeysuckle (640x480)

Another scented shrub – the Winter-flowering Honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima)

This shrub Honeysuckle is a real favourite of mine. Its small flowers are powerfully scented and it flowers from mid-winter until well into spring hardly stopping except in the harshest of weathers. It is virtually evergreen and the flowers are followed by bright red heart-shaped berries loved by Blackbirds.

The Mahonia (Mahonia x media ‘Charity’) with its Lily-of-the-Valley scent has been flowering since the end of October.

The first of my miniature Iris Reticulata bloomed today

A tiny crocus has appeared in the rough grass under one of the crabapple trees.

I found some more – paler ones this time. I hope the birds don’t rip them up and the mole doesn’t dig them up.

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos)

Finally, here is the setting full moon seen on the morning of 4th February.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!

The Phantom Photo

25 Tue Feb 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening

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gardening, iris reticulata, spring bulb

One of the photos in an earlier post has suddenly disappeared and until the problem can be solved I have decided to post the photo again.

More Flowers in my Garden

23 Sun Feb 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Rural Diary

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Christmas box, crocus, daisy, grape hyacinth, iris danfordiae, iris reticulata, lichen, rosemary, Scilla sibirica, snowdrops, tete a tete narcissi, viburnum bodnantense, winter aconites, winter-flowering honeysuckle, winter-flowering jasmine

Scilla sibirica. Brilliant blue flowers like miniature bluebells, they start to flower as soon as they emerge from the ground and continue elongating until they are about 10cm/4ins tall. As you can see, mine have started to spread and the young ones are just coming up around the original group.

Winter Aconites. Eranthus hyemalis. Hooray! At last! A member of the buttercup family. I can’t get rid of creeping buttercup and these won’t spread – most confusing!

Yellow crocus in the grass under the variegated sweet chestnut tree.

Yet another picture of my miniature iris, iris reticulata – I love them. Look carefully at the bottom right of the group of flowers and you will see a bloom that has been nipped off and discarded by one of the kind animal visitors to the garden. Towards the bottom left of the photo you can see some yellow iris danfordiae just about to come out. I am really feeling quite smug about these as they are notoriously difficult to get to survive in this country. The bulbs break up after flowering into bulblets which take a few years to mature and then flower. One has to recreate the conditions where the plants originally came from – danfordiae from Turkey, reticulata from Turkey, the Caucasus, Iraq, Iran. Good drainage; baked in summer, cold in winter. As you can see, my soil is very stony in this bed and it is south facing so gets sun for most of the day in summer.

A tub containing snowdrops and tete a tete narcissi.

A rosemary flower. Rosemary grows very well in our garden. I have two large plants one of which is next to the front door in the herb garden. Rosemary under the pillow wards off bad dreams and nightmares; rosemary next to the front door keeps witches away! Rosemary for remembrance.