Gardens Home & Garden

I think it had just eaten

We used to live on the bank of a rural canal, and often saw grass snakes swimming in there. They did look bigger than I remember them being when I was a kid!
We sometimes get foxes using the gardens as a short cut from one wooded area to another. They just hop over the fences.

“You don’t realise how much wildlife is living in urban areas”

“We humans have moved into previously undeveloped areas” is how I see things.

I agree, they were there first!

Sorry, I do some retired annuitant work for extra money and had a big project with a very short time frame. Worked 24 hours on it this weekend much to Tornado-dog's disappointment. He's not allowed to touch me when I am working (because he likes to tap the laptop with his feet and cause disasters). Project is done now and I have plenty of money to buy my plants at the sale this March!

We not only have encroached on their habitat, but we have altered and destroyed much of what we haven't encroached on with our dams, roads, chemicals, etc.

We have the egrets year round as well as the herons.



They both will find all you can eat buffets (aka backyard fish ponds) but are most often seen at our levees and rivers and lakes.

We also have lots of lizards and snakes (most harmless).

My resident squirrel is coming every day now to the one feeder. It is a smart camera feeder so I get alerted when she's there. At first, she kept climbing onto the feeder and sitting in the tray sticking her butt to the camera. So, whenever she does that I have been using the camera mic to tell her to move. If she doesn't, I open the back door so she'll run off.

After not quite a week, she has figured it out. As long as she sits on the railing and reaches over for the seed, she can eat all she wants. Today she didn't even try to climb on the tray.

The past week, I've caught a rat at the feeder each evening after dark. Using the mic scares him off immediately. Sunday, I talked to the neighbor and she said her dogs killed a rat. For the next two

I didn't realize my post cut off. I had no rat for two days, then a rat showed up at the feeder. It only came once, so I suspect it is gone gone gone.

There are now two squirrels. My polite resident squirrel who sits politely on the railing and calmly eats the seeds. Then there is the Obnoxious One. He gets right onto the feeder tray and refuses to budge. He gorges himself as fast as he can. He just doesn't get or care about being polite.

Meanwhile, the birds are happy happy happy. And the scrub jays are back in town. They hadn't been coming to get peanuts since last fall - although I did hear them on occasion. But as of yesterday, one has been coming to the peanut tray on the porch.

Getting a lot more goldfinches now too. And a phoebe came by the other day.

I hear my resident Anna hummingbird out there too.

I've been leaving the front door open during the day so the cats can sit and watch the birds on the porch. Panther gets so excited sometimes that she jumps at them - and ends up stuck to the security door by her claws.

Plant sale is just under 3 weeks away. Have 25 plants on my list so far to buy. Will fine tune the list over the next couple weeks.

One plant I'm hoping to get is an easter egg emu. The buds starts orange then change to yellow to pick then to purple as they bloom. They've never offered it before and there are only three available, so I'm hoping they won't get nabbed before I get to them. I want all three.

Tornado-dog is feeling a bit dejected because there are no fresh rodent scents to chase. But he loves his new couch - it's deep enough that he can lay next to me with his head in my lap.

Perhaps the site went down while you were typing!
I went trailing with Tally today in a National Trust Country Park and the birds were so used to human contact they were almost tame. When it was our turn to be the quarry, we hid amongst trees, waiting to be discovered. Three robins and a tree creeper came really close and peered at us - almost asking what we were doing? In 'our' quiet wood their behaviour is quite different. I might do a post about our day tomorrow.
I look forward to seeing your new plants as I have never heard of most of them.
We have a lot of squirrel activity. The trees in the waterpark are alive with them. They drive the Beagles into a frenzy.

It's cute when they look at you with their heads tilted.

Well the list put out of the inventory was NOT an accurate one. They have since replaced it. The easter egg emus are not on the new inventory list...

But some of the plants I wanted that disappeared from the list are back - so I have 36 plants to buy as of right now. Including two small pomegranate trees. This will likely change over the next couple weeks.

Looking forward to hearing about Tally's work!

This Saturday is the plant sale. Aunt C wants to plant a couple grapes in her yard, so she is planning to meet me there.

I have 37 plants total to buy - I added a second grape vine. I now have two pomegranates and two grapes in really big pots to get, so I don't have room to buy her plants too (something I've offered to do in the past). As she is notoriously late for everything, I have let her know if she doesn't get there before 9 am, I am not waiting for her. And since it's a member only sale, if she isn't with me, she can't get in at all and will have gotten up early for nothing.

If it hasn't been noticed, I am a very organized person with my plant sales. I do a lot of research ahead of time and I organize my list to be the most effective AND efficient - I would hate to not get a plant I want because there were only four and I didn't try to grab it until after I had gotten a bunch of plants with huge quantities. Well, Aunt C is the opposite - no planning at all. Even though I gave her the link to the inventory, I know she won't have made much effort to create a list, let alone consider locations and quantities...

So, if she makes it, I will send her to get all the fruits, with the clarification that she grabs MY grapes and pomegranates before she starts browsing to see what she wants. In exchange, I will buy one of her grape vines for her. While she is doing that, I will run to grab the 12 low quantity plants on my list. The rest of my list we can grab as we look at everything and she can pick up anything that gets her attention.

If she doesn't show, I race to get my 12 low quantity plants and then rush to the fruits and get those. I should be quick enough as I'm practiced at this. There is the concern that I won't be able to fit all my plants in my cart. With her there, we can grab a sale cart for the fruits leaving plenty of room for my other plants.

I have everything set up for our planting party afterwards. Potting mix and perlite, gloves, trowels, pots, shovel, etc. We're supposed to get another storm as of Monday, so I want to get as many plants planted before then. I also need to up-pot several of my existing plants. The grapes have to wait to be planted as the arbor won't arrive until next week sometime.

That sounds like a military exercise!
i hope you get the ones you want.
Can I ask? Is Aunt C your aunt or your dog's aunt? Tally has two or three aunts that are not my relatives.
I heard an explanation of why we have, 'not real aunts', on the radio this week. The speaker said it was a discretionary title that we use to show respect for unrelated people.
I think I would say, 'are fond of', rather than respect - which sounds a bit starchy.

Yes, I think that's how Aunt C thinks of my planning and schedules...

But I do try to account for her bohemian attitude and only make schedules and plans when necessary to get the most out of things. I actually get nightmares where I don't get to do or see something extremely important to me because people I'm with don't care and go off to do something that can be done any time anywhere at the only time this one thing is possible. My worst is the dream where I go to England and my companions decide they'd rather stay in London getting drunk rather than hop the train and go to Worcester to see King John...

Aunt C is a good friend of mine. She is the animal's Aunt C. I think in many cultures, that title of Aunt or Uncle as a term of respect is commonplace.

For me, calling someone aunt or uncle is to acknowledge that they are special to us. C became Aunt C because Moose-dog adored her. His love for her needed to be acknowledged beyond just being a friend. When I had a split with my blood family, that friendship became even stronger and she became more of a sister than my siblings ever were. So the title of Aunt fit.

I made it to the sale by 7 am. It looked like I was first in line, but a man had laid a t-shirt on the ground to "save his place" and sat in his car. I was nice and didn't suggest that if you don't suffer in the cold morning air, then you don't get to be first in line...

I did tell him he was parked in the handicapped zone (it's a temporary designation for the sales). He didn't want to move his car so he asked the staff that "since I'll be in and out real quick can I park there". They told him no so he had to move it.

Aunt C DID arrive in time. I was very impressed. Of course, I had sent her the link to the inventory and she never looked at it so had no idea what grapes she wanted to get. I suggested that since she wanted two and I wanted two and there were four varieties that we could get one of each and share our fruit harvests. She said OK so when the gate opened I sent her to the fruit aisle.

Meanwhile, the head person checked my priority items before the sale. The saffron crocuses had moldy roots so she removed them all - so that was 3 plants on my list I wasn't getting. Then she came by and said there were only two tangerine abutilons not four, so she set them next to my muscari neglectums so I would get them. About ten minutes later she came over and said someone took the abutilons from where she set them and she can't find them anywhere. Fortunately, she has about fifty of them for the next sale so I will grab it then.

So, that was four plants out of 37 that I didn't get. Not bad.

Once inside, I started grabbing my plants. Aunt C brought the fruits over to me. I checked them and she got two each of the two grapes on my list rather than one of the four varieties available. So I asked her if that is what she wanted or did she want to do the four varieties. Oh yeah OK. So she took two back and grabbed two different ones. I checked quickly - flame, princess, thompson, blueberry. Perfect.

Then I took her around and showed her some of the plants that I thought she might like. At that point, she decides that she would like to see an inventory and did they have one (I texted her the link three days ago). She got a couple other plants and we headed to the checkout. As I moved the fruit from the university's cart into mine, I realized that the blueberry wasn't the blueberry table grape but an actual blueberry plant...

So, she ended up with a blueberry plant and a thompson grape and I ended up with a princess and a flame grape. I did tell her that if there were any grapes at the next sale, I would grab one for her. I also paid for her grape vine.

We got back my house about 11:15 am and started planting. Most went into pots. I still have to set up the new arbor, so we did not plant my two grapes. Everything else got planted. We finished about 5 pm.

I'm tired but happy. My back did start bothering me due to a lot of bending over. I offered to buy her dinner but she declined and went home. I sat down on my wonderful couch and went to pull my legs up so I could recline. My outer leg wouldn't move. I literally had to grab it in my hands to lift it onto the couch. So glad I don't have to do any planting tomorrow.

All in all a good day. There is a reason I plan and follow the plan - it can be overwhelming and trying to read all these little tags with people reaching around you, etc, it is easy to make mistakes. Having a list allows me to minimize getting the wrong plant.

Now I'm waiting for some Italian delivery and trying not to move.

Last fall, I bought a double take flowering quince. Within days of getting it home, it went dormant. It was very sad seeing a twig in the planter all winter. But yesterday when we were working, I noticed it had a bloom!! Center plant.


The other two plants are my specialty hummingbird sages. Cerro alto (yellow bloom) at the back and Las Pilitas (pink bloom) in the front. They are so happy there! And they have lots of offshoots coming up.

Tomorrow I'll de-weed where my grapes are going and put together the new arbor. Then I'll plant the grapes the following day.

My daffodils are nearly in bloom but they are a bit slow this year as it’s only really been sunny here for the last few days, my acers are in bud, I moved them into the sun as is my mock orange tree, but my grass is just clumps that seriously need sorting out as the dogs (Beau) have churned it up really bad running around on it. It gets really boggy at the top in the winter as the water runs down from the houses above me. I might have to borrow my dad’s rotavator and start again, fence it off in two halves and reseed it, then do the other side when that one has recovered and grown. Not that it will last very long and the pigeons don’t eat all the seed.

My grass is lumpy and a patch of moss has appeared. Not sure whether to treat it or ignore it. When I had grass in the front garden we had moss. One year my OH treated it and it looked horrid till autumn. I ignored it and quite liked that it looked green and needed less cutting, but the front didn't take any foot traffic! I sprinkled seed on the 'lawn' when the soil was damp but there's not much sign of new growth.
My crocuses have finished, but the naturalised ones were quite small and pale this time, and none were yellow. Like you Toni, I don't think we have had high enough light levels. We are supposed to be having snow again this week!
I think I will just buy some colourful annuals from the supermarket again. Easier than trying to nurse plants through the winter, and I haven't enough ground to plant out shrubs.

Well, this winter most all the storms have blown through just south of me. No thunder, no lightning, no hail - just a spot of rain and some mild winds.

Until today. I was just about to get up and let the dogs out when we got a lot of hail and thunder. Lasted about 30-40 minutes.





Not a massive storm, just enough to feel like I actually saw winter this year.

Well Thursday I went up to my dads and ordered I don’t know how many bedding plants for this years show, I just know it was a lot, we split them between the 3 of us, my dad, my brother and myself , but I do like to give my granddaughter some as she loves gardening for a 7 year old we encourage her to grow things. It has been cold here too but last week or so just a sprinkling of rain here, which I’m pleased about.
@Toedtoes looks like you did have a fair bit of hail