Snow!

Quite a heavy snow fall last night followed by freezing temperatures all day today and possibly more snow to come! I can't remember as much snow, at least 10cm, in my life time.

The snow came down very quickly and was very fluffy so all the grasses and bamboo in the garden had been flattened. Will have to see what effect this has.

Winter Has Definitely Arrived

The first proper frost of the year this morning.

Over the weekend I put the tree ferns to bed for the winter. I was wondering where to get some straw from and suddenly realised that I could cut some of my grasses to do the job. The covering isn't as deep as last year but it looks like a neat cap << picture required >> and should do the trick of keeping the frost out.

A couple of weeks ago I imported a load of oak leaves and created a mulch over the heavy clay part of the garden and planted some more winter beans. Hopefully this will improve the soil in that part of the garden for next year. Also just read that oak leave mulch deters slugs! ;-)

B&Q had some fruit trees on offer so I planted a pairs of redcurrent, blackcurrent and gooseberry. I also bought a mini-plastic greeenhouse with the idea of capturing the warmth coming from the boiler vent. To make it work I'm going to need to build a stand as it's too dangerous to take a pipe from the vent.

Phenological Diary - 20th November

Noticed a few things recently;

1. the leaves from the silver birch finally fell this week - more or less the last leaves from the trees

2. the winter green manure bean crop started to show this week, probably about 2-3 weeks after planting

3. ladybirds are finding places to hide; there's a gaggle of about a dozen just inside the front door; planning to leave them alone to see what happens in spring

4. the blueberry bushes have also lost all their leaves after a colourful display of red

Phenological Diary - 25th October

Clocks went back last night so the sun was below the houses by 3:30pm. Hawthorn hedge rapidly losing it's leaves, definitely no longer an effective screen from houses behind Noticed that other than horsechestnut the hawthorn is one of the earliest trees to lose it's leaves.

Planted some field beans today to try to break up the heavy soil along the fence. Also planted a curry plant near the honeysuckle to see whether it might divert aphids and also planted a fennel plant, which can be a good home for ladybirds (although probably not this winter).

Sparrows hanging out in the hawthorn hedge; they like to perch on the highest branches in the corner of the garden. Saw a hawk of some sort land on the garden fence this week!

Dug up one of the runner bean plants to see whether the root nodules would be apparent. There were many good sized nodules, white and a clear. Would appear that the rhrizobia are in the soil.

Lots of ladybirds trying to find somewhere to shelter over the winter, many coming into the house and quite a few getting caught in the webs of garden cross spiders.

Also quite a few fungi in the garden; two type most noticably a small red one and slightly larger white << to be indentified if possible>>

Phenological Diary - 21st October

It has been cold but sunny for a nearly two weeks, with night time temperatures quite low. Today the weather changed with a solid rain lasting most of the day. Temperature's today between 11C and 13C with a light Southerly wind.

Day light is noticably short now - need to keep a note to remember to map out the sun around the shortest day.

Really noticed just how dry the ground had become by the fence with the big cracks appearing in the ground. Suggests that the soil isn't yet very deep or rich in organic matter.

The hawthorn is losing it's leaf quite rapidly and no longer blocks the view, there is quite a nice ecology developing with some shade loving plants under the hedge.

Sunflowers are still in flower - will be interesting to see whether they manage to seed or maybe they were too late in the season.

The ferns in the shaded corner probably need some support species as they currently need watering too often, that area on the garden isn't easy to get to so it should be regarded as a Zone 3 / 4 area.

Phenological Diary - 12th October

Cool but sunny day with moderate wind NNW, no rain today. Temperature 15-18C but feels colder due to northerly wind.

Sun setting behind houses about 4:45pm so most of garden is in light shade by this time.

Everything is preparing for winter, the hawthorn hedge has been losing it's leaves for several weeks (was this early due to extremely dry September?) and yellowing. Blueberry bushes are colourful. Verbena still flowering and a few insects still are around to take advantage.

Not much evidence of pests in the garden although saw a large snail climbing the fence the other evening. Spiders still common although possibly less than at peak.

My sunflowers are in flower, probably later than normal, each showing about 4 flowers per head. Gorse bushes growing steadily, just noticed that the largest has started putting on side growth from the base of the main stem. Have been deadheading the marigolds and they keep flowering but don't seem to attract many insects.

Spiders

Over the last 3 or 4 weeks the garden has been taken over by spiders! They are everywhere, even one building a web across the back door leading to a sticky face everytime I go out. The most common variety seems to be the Garden cross spider (Araneus diadematus).

Yahoo! News had a headline article today explaining that the conditions for spiders were excellent this year.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090925/tod-britain-braced-for-huge-spider-invas-870a197.html

The article made mention of an organisation called Bug Life, their website has lots of interesting information about insects, spiders, etc including links to sites with good specimin pictures;

http://www.buglife.org.uk/