Tag Archives: daffodils

Lockdown: You’ve Got to Roll With It

The sweet smell of DB No.5

When I was young, quarantine was for dogs.  Specifically, those coming from abroad.  A stay of six months was the norm, although that was increased to twelve months for a while when a dog named Sessan died of rabies in Newmarket.  These days quarantine is for humans – and it seems that dogs are our best way out of it, as it has been accepted that they need two exercises a day while we are allowed just the one. 

Our Labrador Retriever celebrated the first day of lockdown by rolling in something unspeakable during our single excursion from the house.  We have various names for the fields that we walk in, based on previous sightings and happenings.  There is the Old Deer Field, the New Deer Field and the Ducking Pool (where Ella wades and slurps water before coughing like a Covid patient).  There is also the Manor field, and the more descriptively labelled Dead Badger Field.  To that list we can now add the Second Dead Badger Field (DBF II).  We had to keep the dog down wind from us as we strode home.

I was deputed to put on my own Personal Protection Equipment, consisting of rubber gloves and an old anorak, which is not dissimilar to what the Government is supplying “our” NHS, it seems.  The dog herself could not understand the fuss and took it all as her own PPE (Personal Pampering for Ella).  So, after anointing herself with the odour of badger carcass, she now got to choose from a range of shampoos, left over from the Christmas hamper, with which to have a wash and shake.  She went for ‘After the Rain’ (from Arran Aromatics) and she looked gorgeous on it.  Fluffy and happy, smelling like a Highland Hunting party:  notes of heather and gorse, with a hint of rotting cadaver on the finish.

Ella does not see Lockdown as a problem and does not understand the concept of Social Distancing either; wandering out into the lane every time another villager walks past on their daily exercise.  It is not that she is being sociable – she is simply checking their pockets for biscuits. 

Self-isolation is something that the hen has decided she is going to rebel against too, as she escaped from her run twice yesterday and attempted to scratch away at the flowers coming up in the cold spring sunshine.  We sent her packing with a warning – next time it will be a fine, or perhaps a really hard stare from our Prime Minister. 

That should do it.

Back in Isolation
Daffs and stuff
Tulip testing the cold air
Crocuses & Tulip leaves
Perennial seedlings

The Year’s Pivot

Someone’s been busy

New Year’s Day and all is quiet about the garden.

I saw a quote the other day via Twitter (a friend re-tweeted a quote from Nigel Slater which had been tweeted by a fan which was then also re-tweeted by Nigel Slater himself – so I suppose he approved):

“I hear people describing the days following Christmas Day as ‘flat’. I am of another mind. They are peaceful days, gentle days that are as much a part of Christmas as those leading up to Christmas Eve.”

Amen to that. In amongst the celebrations and intermittent scurryfungeing we must not forget to take time out to reflect and appreciate the good things in our lives. The lull after Christmas gives us a moment to reflect.  And we can also cheer ourselves with the fact that we are past the shortest day of the year – the Winter solstice was on 21st December – so from now on, as Rob MacFarlane said (retweeted by our Nigel again)

“light begins its slow climb back and night yields its reach.  Midwinter, yule, the year’s pivot, Earth’s rebirth, a dawn of hope.”

And in the garden the rebirth and dawn of hope is well under way.  The Hellebores were true to their alternate moniker (Christmas Rose) flourishing outside the patio doors.  Even many of the “annuals” are looking far more hardy than I imagined, having survived from the summer and forming buds already.

And throughout the borders bulbs are spearing upwards through the cool damp soil.  The identity of many of these bulbs is a mystery to me as, like a squirrel with nuts, I haphazardly buried many of them in the autumn, fondly believing that I would remember what I put where.  Now I am engaged in a slowly evolving version of the Memory Game in which I will preogessively discover if my guesses are correct about the location of daffodils, aliums, tulips, ranunculus, muscari and whatever else I might have planted.

Perhaps my New Year’s Resolution should be to plan more carefully.

I’ll make a note.

Hellebores
Christmas Roses
Definitely spring-flowering
Hmmm – not sure
Bulbs – aliums?
Daffodils?
More dafs?
Frog – not impressed with my greenhouse maintenance
Greenhouse in need of clearance
Post-scurryfunge
What you shouting about?

Planning for Growth

Winter morning Beds

It’s beginning to feel a lot like winter.  The clocks have changed back, the evenings have drawn in and every day when I get in from school one of the first jobs is to light a fire in the log burner.  The leaves have gathered in the corners of the back garden (when they are not clogging the gutters) and two panes of glass were blown out of the greenhouse the other night.  

I have not been overly busy in the garden although I am optimistic about this winter and the promise beyond it.  Despite the gloomy repetitious idiocy that passes for news at home and abroad, I am taking winter as a time to prepare for the spring and ensure that come March / April all will be well in the garden.  To quote my favourite gardening character from a movie:

“In a garden, things grow . . . but first, they must wither; trees have to lose their leaves in order to put forth new leaves, and to grow thicker and stronger and taller. Some trees die, but fresh saplings replace them. Gardens need a lot of care. But if you love your garden, you don’t mind working in it, and waiting. Then in the proper season you will surely see it flourish.” (Peter Sellers as Chance, “Being There”).

In the movie Chance,  the simple gardener, is mistaken for political savant.  The words are as easily applicable to the current political storms as they are to gardening.  The meteorological winter is likely to come to an end around March.  I suspect any Brexit-induced winter is going to last many more seasons or even years.  Is this why so many voters ticked the “leave” box? 

I think not.

One day this Brexit war is gonna end.  I just hope that there is something left at the end of it worth having.  In the meantime my therapy remains in the garden, planting bulbs (ranunculus, daffs and aliums) as well as sweeping up leaves and pruning roses and fruit trees.

“As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all be well.” 

Let’s hope our political roots are as well cared for as our horticultural roots so they are still intact when Winter is over.

Red Sky In the Morning…

 

 

 

Staying Positive

It’s half term and the weather has continued with its succession of weather fronts providing torrential rain to leave the earth  sodden.  Yesterday it did not stop all day although this made little difference to me as I had ricked my back on Tuesday trying to heal in the rhubarb I was transplanting from up the road.  A day inside in front of the fire and TV tuned to winter Olympics was probably the best option all round.

But when the short hours of daylight are filled with boggy walks in torrential downpours one needs to be on the lookout for positive indicators.  And there are some.  There are plenty of snowdrops in the garden and along the banks of the stream winking shyly in the occasional watery sunshine.  The first green shoots of the transplanted aliums are looking strong and vibrant in the cold pond bed.   In the tubs – some of which we acquired with the house and some of which had planted ourselves – the early shoots are coming through.  I have no idea what is in which, irrespective of whether we planted them or not, so there is an eager anticipation in trying to work out what each set of shoots is going to produce.

And out the front there are plenty of bunches of daffodils springing up.

And just to prove the days really are getting longer the hens have started laying again. These two lazy layers take more time off than your average MP.  They have not laid an egg since early autumn, it seems, so it is a pleasure to have the occasional newly laid offering once again.  The chickens have really recuperated after looking sad  and emaciated before we moved them down.  Now they have beautiful plumage (to quote Monty Python) and their combs are red and firm.  The black hen is looking sprightly though the brown one is still limping along , trying to persuade me that she needs reclassification for the paralympic winter sports.

Perhaps if we classify her in the LW2 category (“major physical impairment in one leg”) she will start laying too.