Mr Tod

♥Fleet Mr Tod.♥

Great Spotted Woodpecker ♂

Perhaps it's due to the imminent cold snap but the garden wildlife seems to be stocking up reserves.

The young dog fox (Tod) that has recently included our garden in its rounds, snuck up and took a wood pigeon just moments after the morning's bird feed had been put out. By the time the camera had been fetched he'd carried off his catch. A congregation of magpies descended to make comment whilst a great spotted woodpecker quietly took the edge off his whetted appetite.

♥ This is the first woodpecker we've sighted in our garden.♥

Butterflies and Orchids at RHS Wisley, #wisleywings

A day outing with our local gardening club Roots and Shoots, Whittingham Gardening Club to delight at the beautiful butterflies and orchids at RHS Wisley.

@RHSWisley #wisleywings.

Big Garden Birdwatch #biggardenbirdwatch 2015

The final tally of our RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2015:

• 3 collared doves
• 2 blackbirds
• 2 robins
• 1 blue tit
• 6 wood pigeons
• 3 dunnocks
• 1 crow
• 4 magpies

... and 3 squirrels.

It is much reduced from last year's count, perhaps the birds have less need of bird feed as it is drier out.

Chillies

So begins the prepping of paper pots (prompted by tweets of New Year sowings). We are sowing chillies this year as we were given a growing kit by ♥ friendly neighbours ♥.



We don't have a heated propagator, though we'll wrap the punnets in plastic bags. The seeds will have to make their own way. How do they do it?

We planted:
4x Habanero. The fruit depicted on the packaging of the chilli growing kit looked like the Caribbean Red. A dense bush 90x90cm. Produces 4cm lantern-shaped fruit (445,000 SHU).

4x Firecracker. A compact plant, 60cm tall. Produces conical fruit about 3cm long. The fruits ripen from creamy white to purple, through orange to red (30,000 – 40,000 SHU).

4x Hungarian Hot Wax. A compact plant, 60cm tall. It takes 3-4 months to produce 10cm long mild green (2000 - 3000 SHU) or medium red ( 3000 - 4000 SHU) fruit.

4x Bulgarian Carrot. A compact plant, 60cm tall. It takes 70-90 days to produce 8-10x2cm orange mild/medium fruit (2000 - 5000 SHU).

2x Rokita. A 40-70cm tall bush. It produces up to 15cm long, red, medium hot fruit (30,000 - 50,000 SHU). Grow on a windowsill.

Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life

Of a cold and frosty evening, we’ve been relishing dipping in and thumbing through ‘Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Classic Children's Tales’ by Marta McDowell and published by Timber Press (2013).

The book is generously illustrated with photographs, past of Beatrix’s life and present of her legacy. We are especially awed by her generous and purposeful donation of some 4,000 acres of lake district countryside and 14 farms to the National Trust, for which we are beyond grateful.

Amongst the vivid watercolours interleaved between the sketches and illustrations by her hand is a botanical illustration of a mushroom, Agaricus sylvaticus. We weren't aware before reading the book that Beatrix was initially preoccupied with botany, particularly the study of fungi and lichens encouraged by her discussions and collaborations with the naturalist Charles McIntosh whom she fist met in his capacity as a postman. Beatrix pursued this interest as far as cultivating spores, observing them under a microscope and writing up her findings in the form of an academic paper. Sadly, predictably, it seems her precocious talents in observation and inquiry were given a cool reception by the chauvinist botanical establishments of the time and her career as botanist ended.

Following the course of friendships, partnerships, landscapes and gardens Beatrix forged whilst creating her "little books" this biography leads to a dreamy, zoetropic, armchair ramble around Lake District gardens through time and changing seasons. Within the “little books” and her design and handiwork of Hill Top Farm garden is her saturated wardian-cased world of the quintessential English walled cottage garden; an every-countrywoman’s bailey keeping a treasury of pretty old-fashioned flowers as preserved, observed, interpreted and championed by Beatrix.

Part two, ‘The year in Beatrix Potter’s Gardens’, has made us linger and relish Winter's hoar frosts, yet long for the quickening of Spring (piqued further by a sprinkle of snowdrops outside our back door). The evocative illustrations of Jeremy Fisher, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddleduck, Peter Rabbit and the Flopsy Bunnies that punctuate the book are chinks breached by scintillating, motley Summer that stitches memories of our childhood dreams whilst leaning over the little pages with present, future plans – may 2015 be floriferous.

We’ve been musing over McDowell’s gardening insights and her comprehensive list of plants that Beatrix grew in her garden or included in her illustrations is proving inspirational - we’ve added saxifrage 'London Pride', peonies and candelabra primrose to our ‘Must Grow’ list.

A Happy New Year