A bit earlier than usual, the Whitebeam trees at the bottom of our garden are coming into berry, which is always a cheering sight. This year, understandably, they look a bit parched to me. Usually these things are at their peak in mid September, when sometimes we get raided by flocks of Redwings, who just hoover the berries and move on; this is mysterious when it happens - we never see Redwings at any other time, in fact we hardly see them when they come, since they huddle into the trees and get busy, very early in the morning. If we are up early enough we will certainly hear them, but they are hard to spot; you just have a vague feeling that you have been robbed.
Elsewhere the new hedge plants at the front are starting to look worryingly autumnal. I have put in many hours in the early mornings, trying to keep them watered (no hosepipe bans here), but they do not look happy at all. Perhaps they will be all right.
Tomorrow will be a very heavy day putting fresh gravel down on the driveway. It was delivered last Wednesday, and once again I am astounded by the skill of the driver, manoeuvring an 8-wheeler in through our gate, which is tricky enough in a car. I am pleased to note that the spray that I put down on the gravel area about 5 weeks ago has removed all the weeds in preparation for the big day. It takes a while (much longer than the old stuff, now illegal), but quietly we get there in the end.
I suspect you will need "true grit" for that job.....I'll get my coat ☺
ReplyDeleteSo if the birds come, eat the berries and fly away, where do the resultant fertilised seeds end up?
Are there plantations of Whitebeam on the migration route?
Neil
That's a dashed good question Neil. Of course, I know less than nothing about Redwings (or their cousins, Fieldfares), but it seems that they pass through these parts as they migrate south from the Arctic in September, and they move on inland, so maybe that's where to look. I cruised further into the Web, and learned that Whitebeam is native to Southern England, which suggests that our local trees have moved in the wrong direction, but I know for a fact that ours were deliberately planted here on the edge of the wood, maybe 50 years ago. Sadly, to make a thicker windbreak here on the north-east-facing coast, the farm owners also backed them up with a lot of sycamore, which has grown over the top of everything and really is very much overdue a good cutting back.
DeleteAh Green grass, I remember it well. All of mine is brown, and it crunches into powder when you walk across it. No berries to speak of here but some confused looking peaches and kiwis that seem unsure if they’re early or late. 4 ton of gravel. You should get that down in about 2 hrs I reckon. lol.
ReplyDeleteMy lawns are struggling a bit too. I understand it is supposed to rain after the end of this week, though I'm sure that's what they said last week.
Delete"How in the heck can a fella wash his neck
When it ain't gonna rain no more?"
(Wendell Hall, 1923)
God luck shifting the gravel. Our garden looks like the Serengeti, and I'm just doing spot watering with a can (hosepipe ban), although hilariously it's also lightly drizzling at the moment. We are due more rain in a week or so, but I think we'll be harvesting the apples very early this year.
ReplyDeleteOur lawn is more scorched than I've seen it in 25 years. Hosepipes OK here, but I try not to be silly in the dry spell - I water the shrubs and the new hedge trees, because they'll die otherwise - the lawn can please itself. We are lucky that the reservoir on the Whiteadder Water (a little-known but beautiful valley in the Borders) copes easily with the demands of sparsely-populated East Lothian (especially since the big coal power station closed at Cockenzie). We had masses of plums from a tree which has never previously borne any fruit since it was planted in 2008, and the tree of the red apples (Love Heart?) is loaded, though the apples themselves are a bit small. Gravel is going down smoothly this morning - nice and cool here.
DeleteCopious plums and plum crumble down here. Having relied on miracle-gro for most gardening purposes, I inherited a bag of miracid, the acidifying variant, intended for things like hydrangeas. As the soil round here is river silt, which I supposed might be a little alkaline, I hazarded a liberal application of miracid to the grass which is now greener than most in the surrounding area, although I never water it. So the beech (I think it was) hedge might perk up if fed appropriately? I was always told that water starved plants do better in the long run since the growth goes into longer roots.
ReplyDeleteThank you - that's interesting - I shall check this out. I confess I do not know the general pH of our soil, though we had to add some peat mixture to keep the new Pieris happy (I don't really know what that means, either).
DeleteYour interest has prompted me to look into this more carefully. https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/ukso/home.html takes you to a map operated by the UK soil observatory. You can enter your postcode and select a map overlay for the topsoil colour coded to show whether your local soil is acid or alkaline. I was glad to see mine should be mildly alkaline as I had guessed it was.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for this - I'll have a play about with the map this evening. Our garden is about 300 yards from the beach, and about 90 feet above high tide. The soil is of decent quality, but there is a lot of sand in it (which is why the big trees blow down in the worst storms). We had guys here from the university digging inspection pits 20 years ago when they were testing for soakaway drainage for a new septic tank. They told us a few interesting things about the presence of Kilmarnock Shales and so on, but it is clear that a long time ago our garden was either under the sea or else was an area of sand dunes. I'll be interested to see what the map says.
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