Happy memories,

I was just looking through some of the photos of the old garden, I know I've probably shown them to you  before but it's nice for me to remind myself what the summer will bring in terms of plants. Sadly, I won't be able to see this garden again - I've been told by my old neighbours that it's very overgrown now even though I had pruned everything hard back before we sold the house as the couple buying it had no interest in gardening. When you've poured as much love into a garden as we did you don't want to see it go too wild and I'd have happily offered to go back to keep it healthy and in check but there you go, I have my memories - and the aching knees from laying that cobbled courtyard for eleven days on the trot.

The heat is on.

Hooray, it's a trifle warmer than of late today. About time too although with the warmth comes the rain. Fortunately the auriculas in the conservatory have survived the bitterly cold weather of the past few months and are getting a wriggle on, as it were and growing at a fair old rate. We spent about forty pounds last year on new auriculas only to see our friend's supermarket versions outclass ours spectacularly. This year though I'm hoping we are going to get a great show. Have you seen an auricula theatre? You can make one quite easily with just a few shelves or even a couple of crates used as shelves. With a black painted background the delicate flowers of your auriculas will stand out a treat and if you have them planted up in old terracotta pots they look even more charming.

It's been another twelve hour day today at work and I get back home when the chickens are asleep and the light has long gone so I've nothing new to tell you about the garden. However, tomorrow is my day off and I think a trip to the garden centre is in order, just to see some colour again. Can you smell the summer? No, me neither but it's not that far away. I'll soon be able to get the hammock out again. Yay!

Mirror, mirror, on the wall.

Poor old Bunny Guinness got hammered on the radio recently when she promoted using mirrors in the garden to add depth and interest. I myself have used mirrors before, just little ones to reflect the back of little statues which, because they backed onto walls couldn't be viewed otherwise or in with the chickens to give them something to look at. I've also seen them used in fake gates which is very effective.  However, after Bunny's comments, several listeners contacted the station to complain about the dangers to wild birds of using mirrors. They can harm themselves by flying into them so Bunny explained that the way around this was to put trellis in front of the mirrors.

I'm starting to think more about how my gardening affects wildlife and I've left a bunch of nettles in the corner to attract the insects which in turn attract the birds. I have pulled a few of the leaves off though to use in my soaps. I figure there's enough for us all to share.

Beneath is Buck Bucky, our oldest chicken, back in 2007 when she was only seven weeks old.

Making a dog.

Yes, a little wacky, I know. I spent some of this weekend sticking needles into a wodge of felt in order to make a miniature dog. Writing this down makes me ask myself why I actually did this but it was basically because I'd seen this little hound on a website and as they had sold out could only buy a kit. So I ended up prodding the felt until it changed form and I could shape it into a (rather large headed) dog.

My new best friend - in felt form.

I was shocked that a bag of felt cost over £30 until I found out that the finished dogs sell for £90 upwards. My mongrel is probably only worth a few quid by the time I'd finished pricking him but I did enjoy making a character out of nothing but fibres. It was a little bit of creative fun whilst the weather was so wet.
We also nipped around next door to see Jack's creation - a lovely wooden spinning top and a new bowl he has fashioned out of maple.

Can't wait to get into the garden again though and start designing for this summer. Luke has almost-too-late garlic to plant and some onion sets and I got to walk around looking at all the tiny lupin plugs which I shan't be buying as we will have more frosts before the summer comes. I do believe or at least suspect, that garden centres bring all these summer bedding plants in early to sell them on to their customers only for these little plugs to be cut down by more frosts whereby the customer has to go back and get more. Maybe that's my cynical marketing brain working but for me, it's much too early to be risking these little beauties. Better to grow things naturally and give them a good sturdy beginning in my view. What do you think?
Actually, I have to apologise if anybody has put a comment on which hasn't shown. My mum and Luke's have both commented only for it not to show so please don't think I've removed any. They simply don't show.

A chat with the wild bird expert.

This afternoon we popped into the local garden centre and got chatting to Martin, the wild bird expert. He was very interested (or at least he gave a good impression of being very interested) by our list of the birds we've had in our garden. Luckily for us our garden ticked all the boxes in terms of size, location and altitude. Because we back onto a field and there is a wood just behind that we enjoy a good variety of birds in the garden. Martin was dubious of my claim to have seen a lesser spotted woodpecker but I'm sure that is what I saw (on the day that Luke had taken his memory card out so I couldn't get a photograph to prove my claim). He said they were only the size of sparrows and I think the bird I saw was more like a nuthatch size but I am pretty much convinced that it wasn't the greater spotted woodpecker that I snapped over Christmas time.

On the subject of nesting, Martin said it was a good time to put up bird boxes as the birds are now looking for places to nest. He advised that the bird box we'd placed in the tree would be better placed lower down, tucked away in the shrubs as it was aimed at robins or blackbirds (it's the type with an open front whereas the tit box has a closed front with just a hole in it which has to be at least 32mm). We can't put one of those in the tree either as the flight path is obstructed by the two bird feeders. The tits apparently like their nest boxes in trees so they can check out the box from a branch before flying into it. Jenny at work said she saw her neighbours' cat sitting on top of a nest box recently, hoping for some bird activity and a free lunch.

Luke joined the RSPB so we can get some bird news throughout the year and Martin said to look him up when he's next in the garden centre. The sad thing was that he said all garden birds are in gradual decline, mainly because their natural habitat was being eroded to build housing estates. He said the birds weren't going anywhere else so he was trying to encourage people to offer the right habitat and food for the remaining birds.

When we lived in the old house, near the city centre, we tried without success to introduce different birds into the garden. We fed an army of house sparrows with an occasional visit from a sparrow hawk and the ever present gardener's friend, the robin, and a pair of doves but now we enjoy so many varied breeds that we don't mind the bill for their food. After all, we were happy enough to take their homes from them in order to build ours. It's the least we can do now, to share it with them.