Gardens Home & Garden

That happens here too. If a tree disease hits, they will proactively remove all those trees from the area so the disease dies out. That prevents it from getting transported to another area and infecting more trees.

We also have laws about transporting firewood, etc into our forests. People get mad because they have to buy locally when they have tons of wood at their home, but it prevents a lot of damage from disease and insects.

So my Christmas Cheer plants are in full bloom!


These blooms should last through the months and there are more coming up.

Today, we had a few minutes of sun, so I went out back to fill four of the feeders. While out, I checked on my plants. The Mexican sages are blooming - one midnight and two white mischief. The lions tails are putting out new blooms. The golden glow butterfly bush is still blooming and the pink turk's cap has blooms. The cerro altos hummingbird sage has a bloom started - it blooms yellow so I can't wait to see it.

Everything in pots are doing great. The renzels rosemary is growing like a weed - I'll need to up-pot it before spring. I have a tall copper pot to put it in so it can hang over all it wants.

I'll have a lot of up-potting to do do this spring. My mimulus will need to go in their final pots around the same time as I do the rosemary.

I'm watching for cheap/free large pots. I have another tall copper pot coming (they are like the white ones I used with the coral fountains. I still have the bougainvillea in water on my windowsill, so I think I will put it in the second copper pot.

They've announced the plant sales for spring, so I have to start thinking about what I want to try next. I do have to get a passion flower to replace the pink honeysuckle on the back arbor. I really like the crimson tears but may end up with another possom purple.

I have smart timers for the front yard. In the back I have non-smart timers. The smart timers are really nice because I can use my phone to cancel the week's watering if it rains. With the non-smart, I have to go outside and manually close the tap or I have to reprogram them. So, I'm watching for two more smart timers or a double one (two hoses separate schedules). I have one already waiting for spring to install.

You are so organised! It looks very colourful to me in our grey world. (I nearly typed 50 shades of grey world - that could have led to some raised eyebrows! ).
We woke up to snow yesterday, but it was gone by 9.30am. The forecast is for more snow after Christmas though.

We've been foggy mornings and overcast days for over a week now (with rain every few days), so those poker plants really do bring a bit of color and cheer to a grey world.

I'm a born ANALyst. I have to research the heck out of everything.

Since the new year, we've had no rain plenty of sun and temps in the high 50s low 60s during the day and high 30s low 40s at night. Needless to say, my plants are loving it!

My Christmas Cheers are still in full bloom out front. And a couple of my hummingbird sages are starting to throw out a bloom or two. My bottlebrushes have blooms getting ready.


In the back, my lions tails are putting out a few blooms. My yellow hummingbird sage has a nice flower stalk starting to bloom.


My double peach quince has been dormant but is starting to show a few leaf buds on it (the stick to the right of my sage).

The house finches and house sparrows are all over enjoying the sunflower seeds. The Loonies love to watch them. The other day, I even had a yellow-rumped warbler visit my front porch. My resident Anna hummingbird comes every day for lunch. And I have a lesser goldfinch eating from the Christmas Cheer also.

In this photo you can just see the Anna at the right edge and the goldfinch is perched below the flowers on a stalk in the center.


I do have to weed the back corner where my trees are, you can barely see my baby bottlebrush tree in there. All my container plants are doing great so I will be up-potting this spring. And I'm working on my plant sale list. I want to fill in with the front yard in a couple places, I'm looking at a giant hesperaloe - it will bloom at night. I also have some new planters to fill. Going to be spending a lot on soil and perlite this season.

I have declared the CA fuchsias in my hanging baskets dead. They'd been struggling all year. I've decided to replace two with yellow fountain plants (same plant as my coral fountains in the white tall planters with yellow flowers) and the third with a Uruguayan firecracker plant.

I am thinking of trying a couple abutilons under my mulberry tree. I need to prune back its lower braches before it leafs again.

Of course everything will be dependent upon the final inventory for the plant sale.

I'm jealous. Everything is still dormant here, we have another storm forecast for this weekend. We have still got the occasional tree falling from the last one - and the tornado. It's only when they fall that you realise how little topsoil we have in this area. The trees are supported by a wide spreading root system, so when they topple, the huge base elevates by 90°.
Tally struck lucky last weekend. A cold windy day with several absentees no doubt helped her to come second in her class at Manchester Champ. Show! She really could still do with losing another half kilo, but I'm happy to say that she showed her socks off!

Yeah Tally!!! You go girl!!

There is still time for some major storms here. This early springish weather could turn into one of those major wind storms, with or without rain, over the next couple months.

I'm getting several lesser goldfinch to my feeders now. They are a lot smaller than the house finches.

And today while I had the front door open, we got an American goldfinch AND a Bewick's wren. That makes three new birds this year. Looney1 and Looney3 watched out the door for a while. Looney3 got so excited she jumped up at the feeder - and ended up hanging on the security door 5 feet off the ground.

I have a feeder just outside my back door. The finches and sparrows like it there - lots of places to perch nearby. Yesterday afternoon, my backdoor camera triggered. The local squirrel has found the feeder and finds it very convenient. He was sitting on the step railing and reaching over to the feeder for seeds. He seems very happy there - at least until I suggest Tornado-dog spend some time out back. Then Squirrel runs over the garage to the neighbor's oak tree.

That's great Toed. Bird life is quite dull here - apart from the resident Buzzards, which I love to watch. There is plenty of bird life in the woods, but it seems strange that the RSPB garden birdwatch is this month, when there are so few garden birds around.
Do you have any problems with rats and squirrels being attracted to your feeders?
When we had feeders in the back garden we had a brief rat problem. We removed the feeders and I haven't seen any evidence for ages. Tally is inclined to eat spillage (and worse) too, so I only feed birds at the front these days, there is water at the back though.

There hasn't been much of a problem with rodents. There's been a vole that took up residence in the backyard. And the neighbor's dogs have caught and killed a couple rats in their yard which I know have also been in mine. Tornado-dog does chase scents around the yard and tries to grab anything at the end of the trail. I think both of those have minimized the occurrence of rodents taking up residence.

The resident squirrel is attracted to the feeders. Mostly the one at the back door. So far I've only seen the one and he is careful because Tornado-dog doesn't allow him in the yard.

Last year the neighbor and I talked about the potential rodent problem with the feeders - she has a feeder in her yard too. We both agreed that as long as we only saw an occasional sign of them that we'd keep feeding the birds. If we start seeing a problem, we'll stop feeding.

I've always had the finches and sparrows due to the mulberries and plums. And in a few years, I should start having the berries, pineapple guava, grapes, passion fruit and coffeeberries to attract birds. So hopefully I can lessen how much sunflower seeds I'm putting out and still get the less common birds visiting.

Your garden looks lovely @Toedtoes, I did have a bird feeding station given for a Christmas present and they are not really interested in it at the moment except for the resident pigeons and they have worked out how to reach the seed and suet feeders if they squeeze themselves in the middle bar. But the rest would rather eat off the bird table and scraps. I did once a few years ago now, have a pheasant in the garden and didn’t seem in any hurry to leave, also herons sitting in the roofs looking around for ponds.

Pheasant in the garden just strutting around

Thank you. I haven't had any pheasants or such. I do get the pigeons and other doves. Last year, I kept hearing a frog in the oak tree next door - turned out to be a mockingbird.

I haven't seen nor heard any mockingbirds lately. And the scrub jays haven't been coming around even though I do keep putting out some peanuts.

I don’t know about you @CaroleC but we have been getting a few red kites about here nowadays? Aswell as the buzzards, as I’m not a million miles away from Rutland water, but before I had the conifers taken down we had a sparrow hawk visit on a frequent basis to try catch the sparrows that would hide in them. Oh and the other morning when I was out with the dogs I actually heard a woodpecker knocking.

We have turkey vultures and various hawks out here but they usually just fly over looking for a meal. I don't see them perching in our neighborhood trees. But they do sit and watch from fences and power lines.

This was just taken today while sitting on the new couch. They congegated for about 30-60 minutes before they all took off.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/crftDLhR3JY

The kites hover around here but if they get to close to where the crows are then the crows will actually attack them and bring them down to the floor. You can see them trying to get out of the way and try to climb but the crows will follow them until they fly off.

No kites here. The open skies are active with Crows, Jackdaws, Wood Pigeons, Collared Doves and the Buzzards. There is occasional gang warfare from the Gulls - whether these are from the water park or the Council tip I'm not sure, but they are aggressive blighters!
The woods and footpaths are alive with little birds but I'm not good at identifying calls and they move so fast that all I see is a small light blur. I think some may be Long Tailed Tits - they chatter continually and are usually early visitors. Some species will have been displaced by the amount of woodland we have lost. I don't suppose we will know what has happened to the bats until they are due out of hibernation.
On the lake we have a variety of duck species, a pair of grebe with this years single offspring, and two resident swans which rear a group of cygnets each year, then lose most of them - I think mainly to Pike. There are two dinner-plate sized terrapins that come out to bask in the Summer. Presumably abandoned after a Teenage Mutant Heroes craze many years ago. The Red Throated Divers have Wintered here for two years but did not return this time.
I can't remember whether I have mentioned this before, but I went for a long walk on Christmas Day. The paths were deserted and there was a great deal of bird activity. I looked up and an Egret - a small white heron - was flying overhead. They only became resident in England in the 1990's, and are not supposed to have moved this far North.

Yes I’ve seen one here where I walk the dog and wondered what it was, by the time I got nearer to it, it flew off, I did try to get a photo but it wasn’t clear enough to see it.
I always remember taking my grandson to school one morning and a deer ran down the middle of the street, he went nana what’s that? I said it’s a deer and I don’t know why it’s running around the estate, but it was heading towards the main roads , of course my grandson not being that old said oh is it nearly Christmas then? lol I replied I hope not, it’s still summer time!! I’m not sure what deer it was but it definitely wasn’t a muntjac as they are shorter and wider and this was taller and slimmer.
I know we have a lot of muntjac round these parts as I’ve seen them in the park in the town and not far from me on an industrial estate where I take the car for its MOT, with even one running in front of me a Beau when I walked him home, but he didn’t see it thank god as he had his nose down smelling in the under growth. But I have noticed that I’m seeing more wildlife now than ever, and the more houses they are building the more wildlife I’m seeing. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

I think it is because we keep encroaching into their territory. Occasionally there will be a news item about a deer gatecrashing a high street shop. They must be so confused when they walk out of a park and find themselves on a high street. The Reds are captively farmed too, and sometimes one will get over the wire.
I'm glad that you've seen a Little Egret too. Supposedly due to global warming, they began to migrate from France, but have bred here since 1996. They are supposed to be resident in the South and East estuaries of England and Wales, (according to Wiki), they seem to be increasing their range by following the watercourses.

This was the first time I’d ever seen one in the middle of a housing estate, just feeding I presume in what the crows had buried in the grass, I’m not to sure, I know I did get quite close to it before it flew away.
We do have resident foxes that just saunter down the street like they’re on a daily walk. You don’t realise how much wildlife is living in urban areas until they actually stand or pass in front of you. Where I used to work the stoats would run across the road and we had a grass snake hide under one of the lorry’s we had, they are bigger than I thought.