Plants, Bees and Big Birds.

Though we have quite a lot of planting to get through this autumn, most of it, whilst giving a nod to El Niño and the background of climate change will not, as discussed, deviate drastically from the garden’s existing vibe in an effort to accommodate long term unpredictability.

In many ways, the gardening year starts here and, as described in the previous newsletter, we will be refining the planting at Dovecote End to eliminate annuals and the underperforming and ‘rabbit bait’ aquilegias. Dovecote End (NB the dovecote is long gone so it should be referred to as Acacia End) has the biggest area of retentive soil in the garden, so this expected ‘stormy’ winter may actually be of a greater salience to us than the next drought. We lost lines of low yew hedging there in the wet 2007 summer when Tewkesbury itself was actually flooded.

In deference to Kim, I must add that the word ‘refining’ does not adequately cover the work involved in getting out Miscanthus plants that are now huge and overlaying their neighbours. They will be replaced by younger divisions which have been reared on. Ditto with the asters and the Iris sibirica.

Thalictrum Nimbus and Cirsium rivulare are replacing the aquilegias and the annual echiums and will incidentally displace Persicaria Dikke Floskes and Veronicastrum Fascination, neither of which really seemed to earn their position as autumn flowerers. The asters will more than cover for the loss. Pennisetum Redhead’s autumn display loosened things up nicely but again, they had outgrown their welcome and whether we will be able to fit any 2 litre replacements back in there remains to be seen. All of this should be completed while the soil is still warm and, as warm as the weather still is here, this shouldn’t really be a problem.

It’s probably a good long term strategy to eliminate annual bedding as far as possible - especially in areas that are a literal drag to get to with the hosepipe. Having our own water supply with a pump makes us more fortunate than most in the watering department, but it is still time consuming. That said, I am totally incapable of managing without Orlaya and also … well, there it is … between the thought and the action falls the shadow.

Merlin’s Garden was already in line for a redesign because the paradoxical over performance of the original planting, even in a year like this, continued to visually overpower the standing stones which were intended to be the prominent design motif of the Celtic Cross.

It’s not obvious why this relatively small oblong of ground is so fertile and much damper than areas immediately adjacent. The soil isn’t visibly different so I assume it is due to some prank being played by the aquifer. The replant will involve much lower growing plants whilst trying to maintain the original theme of nods to heritage though, sadly, minus some plants that were part of Merlin’s ‘magic’.

In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon, the King of the Fairies says:

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:”

There is already woodbine (honeysuckle) self-seeded on the bank nearby and we have been bulking up our oxlips, native primroses and cowslips and growing on some native wild violets. We have ordered plugs of two native wild thymes - Thymus polytrichus, and Breckland Thyme, Thymus serpyllum.

It’s possible that Oberon wasn’t much of a gardener because the horticultural requirements of thyme and oxlips etc are ostensibly in conflict. But, this is an unpredictable space and with input from both Merlin and the King of the Fairies … Well, anything could happen. So it’s comforting to know that we can rely on Falstaff - it’s not as though he was a jolly japer of any kind is it? "For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows …” he said. So, we’ll take him at his word and include the resilient Chamomile nobile incase the thymes fail.

Liriope muscari is a plant that had to remind me of its worth this year. Growing in a couple of dry shady situations and frankly ignored for years, its defiantly optimistic late summer flowering has been impressive. It has good evergreen foliage and whist its flowers (there is a white version and one or two selections) give away the fact that it is not a grass, at 18 inches maximum height and out of flower, it is easily confused - at a glance - with eg the sedge Carex morrowii Irish Green(also a useful and forbearing plant).

(Liriope muscari in dry woodland shade Sept 26 2026.)

Hailing from temperate parts of East Asia, the Liriope was imported to Britain in the nineteenth century. I wish it were native because it would have made a convenient matrix for Merlin’s Garden, the most suitable grassy natives having become too thrilled with themselves.

The other over enthusiastic plants from Merlin’s Garden have been lifted and potted up and they will be used in the refurbishment of the ‘wild’ rugosa rose border in the field. The word ‘refurbishment’ doesn’t adequately relay what a nightmare this will be. Between 6ft tree seedlings, brambles, nettles, thistles and mysterious piles of half bricks …

The destructive phase of this job was to have proceeded piecemeal over the summer, but the time consuming watering requirements imposed by the drought rather dehorsed us. It would be nice to get that aspect done this winter, but planting next spring in a location that is several hosepipe lengths away from the water source is now looking like a really bad idea.

And I had such plans! Located where there might once have been a ha ha, this ‘border’ is open to all comers. I was hopeful that the ‘herby’ smell/nature of some of the Merlin’s Garden rejects (graduates?) would render them less palatable to deer and rabbits which find the flowers of things like pink campion irresistible.

We’d expanded the unpalatable theme by growing from seed such plants as Verbascum thapsis, teasels, burdock and foxgloves plus an overwhelming more-than-you-can-eat buffet of pretties like malva, oxeye daisies and milkmaids ( Cardamine pratensis, which, whilst theoretically a damp meadow inhabitant, doesn’t seem to care.) We have already accumulated a lot of 2litre pink campions and ragged robins - not difficult, especially with campions.

The plants we grew from seed are now in 1 litre pots and it looks as if they are condemned to live in pots, albeit bigger ones, until next autumn. After overwintering in a polytunnel that is open at both ends - ie cold but dry and out of the wind, they will have to put on their big boy pants and tough out the El Niño summer on the benches like everyone else. At least keeping pots watered is relatively quick and easy.

The replanting of Merlin’s Garden has to happen because it is already half dismantled, but since items like the thyme plugs need time to grow on, some spring planting will be inevitable. Fortunately, watering in that location is as convenient as hosepipe work can be.

The Wildlife Chronicles.

As indicated above, our turbulent relationship with the local wildlife continues. Hundreds (thousands actually) of bees are still living under Todd and Rebecca’s floorboards in the flat and flooding out into the kitchen. Experts consulted earlier in the summer saw no alternative but to exterminate them, and this requires a special dispensation which has been granted but is extremely upsetting.

It’s an ongoing saga in which the bees are not responding to less drastic measures. Moreover, they are very antisocial and sting quite readily. Apparently, they are actually honey bees though, rather oddly given the numbers, I don’t recall seeing honey bees on flowers - only varieties of bumble bee etc. Obviously, these honey bees are eating out.

They are indeed an enterprising and determined hive - regardless of how many holes we block up they seem to find another route through the house’s masonry alongside various pipes, and the minute the yards of gaffer tape are removed from every crevice, they find a way into the kitchen again. And, like all sorrows, ‘they come not single spies but in battalions’.

According to those that know, there are, on average, about 40,000 to 60,000 bees in a hive over the summer months so you can see how busy the kitchen can get. And the thrumming under the floorboards isn’t half as soothing as it is supposed to be.

We know about forest bathing but now there is bee bathing. You have to wear a suit much like an NBC suit so you’ll look like someone from the movie ‘Outbreak’ and may get rather hot but, within a few minutes, the buzzing will calm your nervous system, lowering your cortisol levels and your heart rate as you move about in a field of borage getting assailed on all sides by low frequency vibrations. This experience is available to you in Dorset UK courtesy of beekeepers extraordinaire, Helen Bolter-Griffin and Gareth Flux.

Or, you can settle for a less outdoorsy version in the ‘Hum Hut’ in a Community Orchard in Bridport. The Hum Hut sounds like a type of man shed that works to calm woman as well. You sit above enclosed beehives in the shed’s base and experience the sound, subtle vibration and smell of bees.

Apparently, the Eastern Europeans have long been predisposed to having ‘Apitherapy’ huts in the back garden. But before you get excited and transform your shed, I must report that having bees under the floorboards of the flat is making the human occupants more, rather than less, fractious.

Doesn’t seem to be working for the jackdaws either. They are around but more retiring than usual. Could be the season or maybe they don’t like the sparrow hawk - see photo of him below, sitting on a clipped yew hedge eating somebody.

(Sparrow Hawk on yew hedge, Sep 20th.)

Big birds seem to be having their moment here. There’s been a couple of pheasants on the lawn lately and now Jemima Puddleduck and her hapless offspring have left us, a heron has

taken over as pond raider in chief. Perhaps a bit of a poseur, he does his reconnaisance from the top of a cedar tree.

(Heron on top of cedar tree, Oct 4th.)

Only just regrowing after the drought, our lawns have never been virtuoso swards to say the least, but now that the horsechestnut trees are shedding conkers everywhere, the lawns seem to be the destination/larder of choice for every squirrel in the area. We are the very embodiment of ‘where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.’ There are squirrels dashing everywhere, sometimes three at a time, digging holes and burying conkers so we can have seedling horse chestnuts sprouting up alongside the dandelions next spring. I can’t wait!

The polecat we saw the other day doesn’t seem to be any sort of deterrent to anybody. The resident fox already flung himself under a car earlier in the year, presumably doing the decent thing after realising that our bare/brown lawns consisted largely of rabbit droppings and represented a serious abnegation of the social contract we had with him.

Where the squirrels aren’t digging holes, the moles are throwing up heaps. The local mole catcher bequeathed his skills and some apparatus to Andrew when he retired from what was already just a retirement hobby, and went to put his engineering talents to better use in the expanding world of the local man shed. Unfortunately, his generous bequeathments don’t seem to work as well without him. Sshhh … I never mentioned it. All I said was that the soil from molehills makes a nice and surprisingly weed free addition to a potting compost mix. Right?

I suspect that the rain we’ve had has not been sufficient to raise the water table but it has encouraged some of the roses to have a last flowering spurt that is extraordinarily extravagant, especially the standard R. Flower Carpet White, and not entirely welcome. I’d prefer that they conserved their strength but this is apparently typical in a mild autumn that follows a difficult summer. The rose doesn’t feel it’s done its job. We won’t deadhead as this promotes more flowering and we’ll do a ‘wind trim’ in late October with the serious pruning later on.

More appropriate for the season, fruiting and berrying has been profuse - as it has previously after a hot dry summer. There are rose hips and berries - holly, aucuba, pyracantha, berberis, cotoneasters, mistletoe and more, plus conkers and cedar cones everywhere. No acorns - not a mast year here. Cedar cones are not the resilient things pine cones are for home decoration purposes but a goldcrest was busy enjoying them yesterday. Biggest bird and smallest bird, all in the same day …

Yesterday, Oct 4, we had the first effective misty morning. The mist rises over the river and rolls towards us over the water meadows. So the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is truly upon us. We’ve been cutting annual sunflowers that we sowed in some empty salad beds back in July/August with the plan that they would herald the autumn season. Sunflowers arrange well with the flowering heads of Miscanthus and Stipa gigantea, their vibrant yellow petals and prominent brown ‘faces’ marking the change to an autumn colour palate.

Soon, Halloween will turn us all orange and people will be picking pumpkins on local farms - a follow on to pick your own strawberries. Pumpkins in quantity are a relatively new thing here. We used to make turnip lanterns when I was young, a much harder undertaking, literally. I only did it once. Though Halloween is of European origin, it was seriously commercialised in America. And, yes, it’s fun whether it’s trick or treating and costumes for the youngsters or decorating with autumn leaves and pumpkins alongside the odd lurking ghost and witch for those of us entertained by such things.

So let’s try to enjoy this pleasant autumn respite - mist, berries, birds and all, before the predicted El Niño storms arrive. To paraphrase Keats - think not of the songs of spring, autumn has its music too.