Monthly Archives: May 2012

Priory Picture Post # 21

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Having depressed you with a tale of duck desperation, duck derring-do, duck despair and duck death (see last post), I thought it would be fun to carry on in a similar vein.  Who needs good times and chuckles, anyhow?

A couple of weeks ago, Jim called me into the garden to look at a large moth.  Here it is:

It was particularly impressive; dusky grey, with black markings …

… and a flush of pink beneath the wings.  And it was really big – with a wingspan of about three feet (I’m kidding), with a wingspan of 70-80mm.  But it was only when the moth opened its wings, that I was able to identify it (later, using my Boy’s Big Bumper Book of Moths) as …

… an Eyed Hawk-moth (Smerinthus ocellata) – so-called for the vivid blue ‘eyes’ that it flashes at predators in the hope that they’ll be scared away.

I was surprised that this stunner hadn’t taken fright at my intruding lens and flown off.  But pleased too – I could continue snapping away.

The adult moths don’t eat at all (poor things – imagine) but the larvae feed on tree leaves, including willow and apple.  We’ve planted three apples in our garden orchard (do five trees constitute an orchard?  Actually, six trees – if you include the olive tree.  Do six trees constitute an orchard?) and perhaps it had been laying eggs on our apple trees.  I don’t mind; I was very taken with the S. ocellata – almost mammalian, I think, rather than insect-y.

It was only when I belly-crawled to the moth’s other side however, that I realised why it hadn’t flown away.

A spider had dug its Shelob-fangs deep into the moth’s thorax.

Rather like the fox taking the duckling, I couldn’t really blame the spider; besides I’m a big spider fan (how can you have read ‘Charlotte’s Web’ and not be?).  I was just saddened that the only Eyed Hawk-moth I have seen was in its death throes.

Yeah, I was just saddened.

oooOOOooo

Hmm, that’s a bit of a bum note to end a post on, isn’t it?  The death of a another lovely creature.   I should lighten the mood a little.  I need a random photo of something.  Something nice, pretty and calming, yes – that’s the ticket.  Like a, oh I don’t know – a horse, maybe.  Yes, a pretty horse on a hill – oh, oh … no wait, better still, a pretty horse grazing amongst some pretty buttercups.  That would work.  Hang on!  What’s this?  Good lord, what a coincidence.  I’ve just found a …

… a pretty photo of a pretty horse grazing on pretty buttercups.  What are the chances?  (No more death for a while – probably).

The Fox And The Duck

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I was packing up after work today, when I heard an almighty racket from out on the meadow.  I grabbed my camera and ran round the house to see what on earth was going on.

I couldn’t see anything untoward at first, but then I caught a glimpse of burnt orange amongst the meadow-grass; a fox with something in its jaws (click on photos to enlarge – if you like).

Only then did I notice the female mandarin duck and …

… realised that it was her making all that noise.  The fox (holding on to its mandarin duckling) …

… started to make off, pausing only to throw a glance in my direction.

But, suddenly, the duck was back …

… flapping over the fox’s head to land nearby hoping, I think, to divert the fox’s attention away from its prize.

Thwarted in her attempt, she tried again, swooping low and …

… again landing nearby.

But, her efforts were in vain; the fox unconcerned by her feints and squawks …

… carried his/her booty away.  Leaving behind …

… a bereft (and very beautiful) mother.

I didn’t even know that the mandarins had raised a brood this year (they didn’t use the owl nest-box like last year).  I certainly hadn’t seen any ducklings – except for today, in the mouth of a fox.  Though I often find clumps of feathers and the remains of birds and rabbits about the Priory, I do forget that it is a place of death – as well as of life and beauty.

Slowly, slowly …

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… as we head into June, May is arriving.  What should have been a show-stopping leap centre-stage, has been a slow, very late and frankly embarrassing shuffle in from the wings.

Not much is flowering at the Priory therefore though there is plenty of new, green growth.  Here in the rock border, ferns (which survived the-years-of-neglect and being strimmed!) are stretching up and out among a drift of the forget-me-nots I introduced a couple of years ago.

The bank of rhododendrons behind the kidney beds (also still just foliage) are starting to flower – so a that’s a jab in the arm.  And, for the first time in weeks, I’m on top of the mowing.  Who knew that a sentence like that could give me so much pleasure?

But the long borders are still a damp squib; the allium leaves have rotted away like the tulips.  And all that cold weather has burnt the emerging persicaria in the foreground.

The Acer palmatum dissectum in the kitchen bed looks fine though and once again I’ve planted the bed up with Lobelia ‘Crystal Palace.’  Bedding plants?  I know, I know – but I’m a bit of a convert to lobelia.  I like lobelia – there I’ve said it.  Anyway, I’ve also added a few shuttlecock ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) – though I wonder whether they won’t dwarf the tree and box.  Probably.  If so, I’ll move them; but for the moment I like the little lime-green fountains.

Birds are pressing on with birdy business despite the wet, cold pseudo-spring.  Most of the nest boxes are in use …

… and the moorhens bring their young to feed on the scraps beneath the bird feeders.

The chicks may look ungainly but, being very shy, they don’t half leg it when they catch a glimpse of me – those huge feet disappear in a blurred whirl as they scoot off to the ponds.

Inconveniently, a blackbird has made a nest in the woodstore by the house.  I crept in and, using my most powerful lens, took a couple of snaps.  I’ll leave her be now, put up a sign to warn others and delay topping up the wood-pile.

On my drive to the Old Forge last week, May was more in evidence …

… with the lanes lined with cow parsley and …

… a great slab of rapeseed as a backdrop to the garden, while …

… a neighbouring paddock had a rather nice buttercup field-of-the-cloth-of-gold going on.

The grass in Margaret’s fields has grown long too.  But all the rain has forced her to defer the Great Stampede as it is known (but only by me).  I didn’t realise, until I met Margaret, that cows (at least in this part of the world) spend about six months of the year indoors.  She normally lets them out in early May but the ground has been too wet and the cows’ hooves would churn up all that lush pasture all too quickly.

Last week it was finally dry enough; watch out – here they come!  You can imagine how very excited they get at the prospect of fresh grass after months of silage.  Galloping …

… towards and past an anxious photographer (quaking on a wooden stile) and …

… careering out into the field above the Priory greenhouse.

For a couple of weeks a bull will keep the cows and calves company.   He probably thinks his luck is in – but unbeknownst to him, all the cows are already in calf.  Poor lad; disappointment looms.

Still, the cows are happy and so am I.  With the cows out in the fields at long last, it feels like May has finally arrived.

Albeit, almost in June.

Rhodohypoxis Fervour

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I have a silly number of rhodohypoxis but, in my defence, I was smitten when I first saw them.  I was working at an alpine nursery and watched entranced as hundreds and hundreds of 6cm pots burst into flower; crammed full of red, pink and white flowers.

R. ‘Pinky’

They flower for weeks and weeks, even months on end, and they are pretty easy to look after.  Keep on deadheading (the spent flowers come away easily) and water regularly throughout spring and summer.  Planted in well draining beds or in terracotta pots they make a great, long-lasting show, quickly increase in number and seem to pique people’s interest.  Surprisingly (at least in my experience) they are not widely known.

In autumn, I put all my pots under the greenhouse staging and stop watering completely.  After a few weeks the dried, dead growth pulls away freely and they can then be left undisturbed until  March, when I start watering again – but not too much and infrequently.  By early April new leaves begin to emerge:

Now is the time to increase your stock.  Propagation by division is easy; just knock out each plant and divide it into two or three; the corm-like tubers separate easily …

… and re-pot using ericaceous compost – if you use it.  I don’t and they seem to thrive in anything other than alkaline soil.

Top dress with gravel, put them outside, protect against mice – or, like me, don’t protect against mice …

… throw a tantrum, pop a patience pill and wait for them to flower.  It won’t be long.

I put these in the cold frame just to keep the rodents off ; they haven’t all started flowering yet but many are under way.

I have about ten varieties; this is ‘Tetra Red,’

here is ‘Candy Stripe,’

and my favourite, ‘Hebron Farm Red Eye’ (Pedant’s Corner: strictly speaking this is a x Rhodoxis) a slightly pink-tinged white with a golden centre.

‘Picta’ is a another white …

… which looks lovely en masse, with its pink blush.  Can you tell it’s still raining in Sussex?

R. ‘Fred Broome’ may fade a little if left all day in full sun …

… and this is one of my newer acquisitions – ‘Pintado.’  Similar but a little shorter than ‘Candy Stripe.’

So, yes, like I said, I am pretty smitten by this beautiful little plant, originally from the Drakensburg mountains in South Africa.  And why do I have so many?  Because I keep on propagating them!  I give them away as gifts – which are always well received – and I used to sell them on a little stall outside my house, alongside other choice little alpines.  But now I plan to plant them out into a raised, sharply draining bed at the Priory – and make up some more pots.  And if the pesky, pernicious, pilfering, pestiferous podents rodents don’t get them, they should look mighty fine.

So, rhodohypoxis.  Have I convinced you?  Are you smitten too?

Rain Stops Play

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The tulips started off valiantly enough; poor, naive, unsuspecting innocents.  They couldn’t have imagined their cruel, bitter fate.  (How could they?  They’re tulips).

In a rare sunny moment, I took a photo or two but not many; after all there were bound to be more …

Apeldoorn

… balmy, sunny days on which to capture them on chip.

Queen of Night

I looked forward to the show of Apeldoorn and Queen of Night that we enjoyed last year:

Perfectly in harmony with the cherry blossom and with nicely mown lawns, these photos were taken on 18th April 2011.

But 2012 wasn’t to be so kind.

Frost, wind and steady, seemingly ceaseless rain …

… took their toll …

… and now most of what is left is simply mush with little chance of storing strength for 2013.

The happiest, healthiest tulip is one of just two that were in the gardens in July 2008.  Strimmed to the brink by the previous grass-cutting crew, it startled me when it suddenly flowered in 2010.  I wonder whether there were originally dozens of them planted in amongst the daffodils but that the majority weren’t as tenacious as this fellow.  It hadn’t occurred to me to plant tulips into turf but I may just try it.

Conditions have been difficult this year, so very difficult.  I know I’ve wittered on and on about the amount of rain we’ve had (sorry) but I’ve never known the Priory to be so tediously WET in spring.  Wet, wet, wet.  All my plans, all general maintenance – heck, even general gardening have ground to a halt.

The new borders alongside the path are still empty.  I plan to have a temporary planting of Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ here – though at the moment papyrus or mangrove might be better suited.

I did begin planting up the new tropical border; though that seems a cruel, daft name for a collection of tender plants moping and shivering and sulking in cold, wet clay.  Tropical, schmopical.

Viburnum roseum sits in the paddy field that is the west lawn – mowing is obviously out of the question and has been for several weeks.

Puddle planting; Rosa rugosa, soon to be smothered by uncut grass.

Good thing I put in raised vegetable beds, eh?

And I do worry about my young beech-hedging plants.  Beech shouldn’t be paddling in water; it should be stately and majestic high on the South Down, the roots airy and dry on chalk.  By rights it shouldn’t grow in heavy sodden clay at all, but stubbornly, with clenched beech-teeth, it clings on with admirable determination.

Here, where the overflow from the ponds runs out to the river, the beech is often submerged for days on end.  And it might just get worse.

The river is worryingly high …

… and if it continues to rise, the bridge will perform its secondary (unwanted) dam function.

Two  or three feet higher (which the bridge-dam would easily provide) and, as you can see, the banks will be breached and the meadow and gardens will flood.  In May.  Quite ridiculous, positively alarming, absolutely annoying and categorically inconvenient.  I really, really, really, really, really, really want it to stop raining now.