For the last month or so I have had to resort to earplugs from around 4.30am as the dawn chorus shouts at me through my open bedroom windows and the sparrows squabble noisily in the rose bushes around the bird feeders. The countryside is supposed to be peaceful but, what with the songbirds singing, the starlings and jackdaws squawking on the feeders, plus the constant “beep-beeping” of the farm’s vehicles (they seem to drive all of them in reverse the whole time), trying to sleep beyond 4.30am now requires ear defenders.

But there has been a great deal to get up for over the last few months. I am somewhat of a procrastinator and “needer of deadlines” so I didn’t clear a single fallen leaf over winter. Thus, in March, I was head down in the borders clearing everything and, in the process, somewhat unusually, I have found a great many ladybirds hibernating. I was very pleased to see them because they and their offspring eat my aphids when the time comes (now) – with the able assistance of the usually numerous tits.

However, BBC’s Springwatch advised us that the Blue Tits suffered this year. The strange weather meant the caterpillars on oaks (that they rely on for food) didn’t happen until very late this year whilst the Tits didn’t change the timing of laying their one clutch of eggs and had nothing to feed them with. As a result, most of the young and many of the adults died. Having had lots of Blue Tits on my feeders in Spring they did, indeed, suddenly disappear. However, my early Summer has been “made” by having a couple of Blue Tits with a fledgling on my feeders. Initially they all looked pretty ragged but were alive and the parents were feeding the baby.

They look much healthier now, a few days later. Phew – but can they still deal with the aphids?!

I’ve had other bird “troubles” too. As those of you who have read this blog in the past will know, I regularly have a starling nest in the very top eaves of the house – from whence Bob The Starling fell, some years back. So, this Feb/March, when there was a great deal of noisy fluttering and banging from the same spot on the edge of the roof, I guessed the starlings were back. However, at the same time, large sticks suddenly appeared strewn all over my recently cleared terrace, various roofs, into recently cleared gutters and onto a garden chair below. And the noise was much greater than usual.

I couldn’t think what was going on. So I did a “watch”. One morning two enormous Jackdaws flew out of the space. That would explain the extra noise! However, two starlings then immediately started taking nest materials in. “Surely they both can’t nest in the same space?” I thought. As I continued my vigil, wrapped up against the cold of morning, I saw one of the Jackdaws fly towards the small gap with a huge twig about 50cms long held crossways in its beak, hit the entrance and bounce back dropping the stick (which clearly couldn’t pass through the opening which is max 20 cms/8 inches) onto my roof. The starlings then continued to fly in with their grassy and leafy offerings, cleverly often holding them at almost N/S ways in their beaks in order to get them in.

A battle royal ensued for some weeks over the nest space. I favoured the starlings but sadly the jackdaws won out and I have since found a dead starling in the highest loft. The jackdaws successfully raised their young and have now flown. However, the starlings obviously also found somewhere close by to nest because they and their young are now also on my feeders. 

I have also had some unusual Tit visitors. Great Tits, Long Tailed and Blue (were) common but suddenly, in Spring, some new Tits arrived. They looked a little like long-tailed ones in colouring (ie pinky brown) but were short tailed, stubby and small. I rushed to my bird book and identified them as either Willow Tits or Marsh Tits. Both are quite rare but my ‘twitcher’ friends in the village told me they must be Marsh Tits (the least rare) because the others are SO rare. Oh well! It is lovely to have some unusual visitors whichever they are.

The pond is also now alive with flying things - red, blue and green Damsel Flies mating and ovipositing onto the surface pond plants.

The blue broad bodied chaser (above) has just emerged from one of their amazing larva cases (below). I am still waiting for this one to hatch.

Then they spread their wings out to dry before flying off and around the pond to find a mate and oviposit into a stem again.

And I have also done my duty by all the bees and other insects. I always have lots of canes and loose wood lying around the garden and a plethora of weeds/natural plants but, in May, I heared someone on Radio 4 imploring us to do 'No Mow May' - to help the bees predominantly. I thought this a fun idea so stopped mowing the back lawn, instead just mowing two paths through it. It still looks the same in what is now "no mow July"!

I have to say that I think my profusion of flowering plants from Rosemary early on to all those out now - roses, honeysuckle, wisteria, geraniums, persicaria, astrantia etc - seem to attract the bees and other insects more than the daisies, buttercups, clover, bugle and grasses now filling my ex back lawn but, heh, it looks different and rather befitting of Covid times - and I found a Lady's Smock in there too.

Obviously, there is lots more to say about now (and the intervening period) but I’ll leave it for other blogs.

And finally I should apologise for the ‘radio silence’. Since the last blog I have lost one of my beloved younger brothers (Greg) to a brain tumour after an eight year fight and my wonderful Dad (Robin) to old age in February last year. Then Covid struck, I got very scared and lost the will to write and share as I focused on survival, family, friends, pilates and quizzing (via Zoom), growing food in the garden and volunteering in the local Community Shop - which went bonkers thanks to Covid. Other people became creative. I didn't. I wish I had and am envious of their creative enthusiasm and success in lockdown.

Anyway, here I am, double jabbed, on the other side of that "gap" for me, blogging again and possibly living on the right side of the pandemic? Let's hope so. Now we just have to worry about what Brexit will mean for plant and other garden supplies! More soon.

Tonight I heard a toad - my first of the year. My heart soared.

I was up far too late. It was a light but foggy night and I was letting the dogs out for their final Ps and poos. Whilst the BBC 24 hour news intoned horrific stories behind the double glazed garden doors, the toad croaked – and told me the beginning of Spring was happening. And he makes my “Wind in the Willows” winter complete.

The key characters of Kenneth Grahame’s delightful stories are Toad, Mole and Ratty. Toad is the only one truly welcome here.

“Ratty” should not exist thanks to next door’s “killer cat” but Pearl seems to be off her game at the moment and I have seen the most splendid rat running across my back terrace recently. It is a beautiful version of its species – large, well-fed, brown, healthy and clean looking. It’s not a dirty, grey, straggle-haired sewer rat – let’s face it there are no sewers here where we all cope with sess pits and drain-aways. It’s a beautiful, healthy farm/countryside rat. And it’s big. It is about 28 cms long plus its tail -like the one below.

And it's clear it has been living in my log store and moving from there to my neighbours' as it feels fit. Its fairly large droppings are the evidence both of it and its size.

There were smaller rats outside here when I first arrived. As a new owner arriving from London I shuddered and put some poison down where the dogs couldn’t get it and I hadn’t seen a rat since then – until now. But, in the nearly five years since I have lived here, I have become less and less able to kill or even imagine killing any living creature except mosquitos and flies. I gently capture spiders, bees, moths, dragon flies, hornets etc and simply move them out of the house. Rat poison kills horribly. One should leave water for them apparently because it makes them thirsty as they die. This all sounds horrific and I am not sure I can do it to this beautiful, intelligent creature. I just want it to move away.

Also tonight, a mouse was scampering on the wall under my bird feeders. It was so brave and ignored me completely. I even went into the house, called my Japanese ward, Sayaka, to come see and it was still there when she came out to join me. So I took pictures and it "froze" in the flash but remained with its food source. With its huge ears and white belly it was as cute as could be and there is no way I would want to kill it. The rat was substantially larger but no different in any other major way. Why should I want to kill it any more than the mouse, unless it wants to come and live indoors with me or threatens the dogs?

Of course, one mouse or one rat “seen” usually means many more of each unseen. I hope that the much more plentiful food available at the farm down the path (from whence I hope it came to eat my bird food) will lure it back again.

“Mole” has caused me much greater trouble this winter. The lower end of my lawn now resembles a battlefield. When Mole appeared “Dorset Reg”, who mows the lawn, advised putting empty wine bottles into the ground. Apparently, the wind passing over the open necks makes a noise moles don’t like.

However, my mole seems more than happy with the songs from Cotes de Gasgogne and Sauvignon Blanc bottles and has gone on to decorate the whole area.

He headed to the pond and I was seriously worried he might burrow through the sand, under-liner and cause a leak in the butyl liner but luckily the pond remains intact. I also bought four buzzy, solar “mole detractors” from Amazon - to no avail. So the lawn is now adorned with brown clay/soil mounds, two green bottles and four buzzy mole deterents. Not my idea of the ideal lawn.

But the idea of a mole trap? No, sorry. Again I can’t do it. I just hope Mole heads into the fields and has a happy time there. Reg and I will have work to do to reinstate the lawn later in the season.

I have just nipped out before heading to bed (even more horrifically late having written this) and toad has been joined in song by others and by frogs. Oh joy! That sound does something very special to me. Weird but true.

Watch this space re dealing with Mole and Rat and the survival of the progeny of toad in the coming months but, despite the invaders, I am deliriously happy. Spring is on the way.

"Warning" This is a non photo blog. It's a real moan.

Apologies for the gaps between blogs. I have been busy elsewhere but, more relevantly, I have been “garden depressed” for the first time since moving here and creating this garden. Why? During this year the mid and bottom end of my lovely “Kennett” bed, down the left hand side of my garden, was taken over by ground elder, nettles, briars, bindweed and grasses.

Nettles and briars I can (and do) pull out relatively easily though it is eternally boring, needs protective clothing and generally makes me cross when I am doing it, especially since I usually get stung and pricked in the process despite wearing gloves etc. - and they seem to be coming from my next door neighbour’s garden! They take space other plants would like and they disrupt the tending of my other plants by making it generally painful and difficult. The grasses are coming from the surrounding fields, plant themselves very deep, are very invasive and boring to remove.

But it is the bindweed and especially the ground elder that are my true nightmares. OK, if one chooses to be positive, ground elder could be seen as quite attractive, plentiful ground cover and it is edible but it invades the roots of everything and I have plants such as Acers in there that hate root disturbance.

I don’t want it there but it is so hard to remove organically. It spreads underground via white, beansprout-like, roots – like bindweed does. If you even leave a trace of one of these roots when you try to dig them up they will multiply even more.

I blame the Romans

The Monty Python-esque question “What did the Romans ever do for us?” normally results in all sorts of positive answers but few know that they brought ground elder with them as a salad crop. I really wish they hadn't!

Iinitially I thought “if I can’t beat it at least I can eat it”. I tried it. Sayaka, my Japanese ward, and I ate it in salads. It's not great or very interesting but fine. However, she and I simply can’t eat the quantity that has been growing in my garden and there seems to be no market for it at the greengrocers. I need to kill it but without killing my other plants in the same bed. I am loathe to use weed killers but trying to dig it up simply isn’t working and seems to be encouraging it. I am in a tough and negative place.

However, I think what I resent most about it and the other invasive weeds is that I hate being put in a bad mood when I am in my garden. It should be a place of creation, contemplation, therapy, scent, visual interest, love, joy and good mood whilst also being a place of positive hard work, normal weeding, digging, tending, cutting, growing, pollarding and pruning etc..

Yes, we always have to deal with aphids, slugs, snails, the odd plant disease etc but it shouldn’t be a constant unpleasant battle in the borders that upsets us in theory and in practise. The Kennett bed has been just this to me for the last six months.

I apologise for burdening you with this moan but my roses there have been swamped by bindweed, many of my plants have been root threatened by these weeds and being in the border has been painful and depressing for me. Ttchh!

I know I am not alone and I have to deal with it/until I do I won’t be happy/I can’t be defeated by it etc etc..

I would, however, choose to do this without chemical weed killer but I think I may be heading in that direction in the Spring when the ground elder starts appearing again. Otherwise I would simply have to re-dig up the entire bed, to a huge depth, remove all the plants except trees and then put a cover over it for about a year – which I am not going to do.

Watch this space for an update!

In the meantime, I feel I can’t leave you on my moan. After all, I am a “glass half full” sort of person in real life.

There are, of course, some major positives at the moment. The garden is full of birds. I have many Sarcococca, Daphne and my Japanese Prunus mume “Beni-chidori” in massive, scented flower. The overall structure has looked good in the Winter (and in the recent snow). The snowdrops are out, the daffodils and Camelias are coming into bud and the tulips are poking up from the soil. The roses, clematis and other plants are showing new buds and Spring is on its way-ish. The daylight hours are getting longer (slowly) and one day soon it will dry out and the sun will shine again on my flower-filled garden. I just need to deal with the weeds first!

I had imagined this blog was going to be about the race to flower in May – a catalogue of the first of everything suddenly appearing and the amazing wonders that have been unfolding in the garden every day and sometimes hour by hour. But the most astounding, different and wonderful thing that happened in my garden in early Summer was been the scent.

As many of you know I seek flowers and scent all year round and, whilst individual plants have been scented beautifully, the whole garden or parts of the garden haven’t been – until this year.

Many things work against “scenting” this garden, particularly the lack of walls or solid fences to encapsulate it and the winds that fly through and eddy round it, surrounded as we are by the commons to the front and the open vistas at the back onto the dairy cow, oak tree and jackdaw-filled fields beyond.

And honestly, a terrible admission, last year I sort of gave up on having whole areas of the garden scented (like I had achieved in London) and resigned myself to smelling individual plants. A “scented garden” seemed beyond the possible in this particular, somewhat open and windy spot.

However, the extraordinary weather we have had in the early part of this year seems to have been loved by the plants. Yes, we had very low temperatures and snow and Spring was late but we didn’t have last year’s killer late frost at the end of April. Everything that sprung to life in May looked healthier and happier than it has ever done. Plants that failed last year suddenly showed me they love to be here. Plants I had forgotten I had or was about to remove came up and said “Hi, look at me, I’m great.”

This rose (above) for example, which I think is R. "Falstaff", has hardly flowered before but this year has been aboundant - and still is. It has repeat flowered non-stop.

Indeed all the roses, Clematis and honeysuckle were bug and black spot free and threw themselves into bud and flower in an abundance of un-called for exhuberance that was almost embarrassing. I have never seen them all look so happy.

But most excitingly (and somewhat amazingly) the whole garden smelled wonderful. I can’t tell you what a surprise this was and thus how exhilarating.

Strangely it started with the Cistus. The flowers don’t smell but the leaves do. They give off an aromatic scent and I have three around the terrace area, in light shade, including an increasingly enormous C. “Alan Fradd” (below). In May their leaves started to ooze scent into the garden.

Then the two white and one blue Wisteria on the rose arch parade came into flower properly for the first time and walking through and weeding around them suddenly became a heady experience.

(And the Wisteria at the front was fabulous too after its "bud execution" by frost last year.)

Then yellow Rosa Arthur Bell (the non climbing version that is supposed to be 20 x 30 cms but was up and over the 2.5 metre arches in the first year) came into massive scented flower followed swiftly by R. Gertrude Jeykll (below) and a whole host of others and now the whole rose arch tunnel is a scented experience. I always hoped it would be of course when I designed it and have been disappointed for the last three years. But this year it is more than fulfilling my wildest dreams. For the first time since I created this garden just standing or walking or working in it has become a glorious, scent-filled experience. And the two Lonicera came out a few weeks later just adding to the experience. Wow!

Is the scent down to the plants’ maturity? Is it that they are now old enough, tall enough and large enough to start covering the arches and create their own mini microclimates of scent? Is it that it is simply less windy? I don’t know. I just know I love it whilst it’s available to me.

Even now, as I write late at night with the doors open, wonderful wafts of scent tantalise me. It turns about to be both white Dianthus and Nicotiana which opens in the evening to be pollinated by moths.

Talking of insects, the lack of greenfly has meant a complete lack of ladybirds which is a shame but, on a positive note, I have witnessed my first huge dragonfly ‘casks’. There were four initially on the dinosaur grass in the pond and they were shortly followed by many more. It’s hard to tell if they are coming or gone because they are almost see-through and very papery looking. But they grip onto the stalks and seem to climb up from the watery base below so I assume they are alive and not “vacated” shells.

It turns out that most of them were broad bodied chasers (below) and a couple were red/brown dragonflies (possibly darters amd chasers) and at least two were the huge blue and green Emperor dragon flies. They exploded into life around the pond and I spent ages trying to identify each.

But possibly the most welcome new visitors to the garden this Summer have been a family of thrushes. They are quite shy (hence no photos) and I saw a couple a few times but the major evidence has been the enormous number of empty snail shells. Bless the thrush and its taste for garden snails! Between them and the toads they are doing a grand job and the early slug and snail devastation in the garden seems to have been arrested by them.