Derek – Sunday 26th June 2022

These are busy summer days, making up for the listless covid days of the last couple of years. The Garden organised the Forest Gate garden trail last weekend, when 18 gardens around the area opened up for visitors. The week before, we’d had a preview morning for the gardeners so they could at least see some of the other gardens, …

Derek – Friday 27th May 2022

The elder (Sambucus nigra) is in bloom, a white umbrella of tiny flowers, hundreds on our tree. Last week in the countryside I saw many of them in bloom in the hedgerows. One of those trees not too sure whether it is a hedge or a tree. Ours is a tree but quite an untidy one with not much of …

Derek – Friday 20th May 2022

I water the herbs on the sleepers and in the square raised bed, though we have had a fair bit of rain this week and our tubs are filling. But one mustn’t get complacent, a hot fortnight and we’ll need every drop. It rained all morning through, and brought out the snails. I inadvertantly crushed a couple on our paths. …

Derek – Friday 13th May 2022

The mystery chewers? Thursday last week, I came into the garden and found four leaflets we had put up had been attacked, up to a third of each chewed away. I replaced them with pristine leaflets. Three days later these were as bad. I suspected snails, but didn’t know they attacked paper. Then we found one in situ. Obviously, they …

Derek – Friday 29th April 2022

We had a bumper crowd for our Spring Celebration on Saturday, over 200 attendees eager to be out and meeting again after a depressing couple of years. We had music from The Smoke Remains with Paul M. Jones guitar/vocals, and Paul Romane harmonica/vocals. Then the Dog Jammers who had more than a dozen performers with an impressive set lasting around …

Derek – Friday 15th April 2022

Both cherry trees are in bloom, the large pink blossoms merging with the white of the smaller tree. Theirs will be a brief show, but let’s enjoy them on these sunny Easter days. More than half of the new fence has been put in. At the front, there’s a new gate, with the fence stretching along Earlham to the corner …

Derek – Friday 8th April 2022

This weather is typical of April, see-saw temperatures, chilly followed by warmth and back to chilly. ‘Don’t shed a clout till May is out,’ goes the old saw. It is not referring to the month but to the may tree (hawthorn) which will flower in late April, depending on the weather. If we took it as the actual month, we’d …

Derek – Friday 25th March 2022

We’ve had some very warm days for the time of year, touching 20 degrees. There’s lots of wriggling in the frog spawn. Heat accelerates hatching time, as the various chemical reactions are sped up. I wonder how much of the mass is unfertilized. Some to be sure, with so much of it, and fertilization such a hit or miss affair. …

Derek – Friday 18th March 2022

Not only has our pond a mass of frog spawn, but we have had adult frogs too. Not surprising as you can’t get the former without the latter. But we don’t usually see the adults, and we have witnessed them mating too. That’s a lengthy process, with the male on top of the female for as long as 24 hours. …

Derek – Friday 11th March 2022

It is spring. The garden says so. There’s flowers, buds are beginning to open, and there’s birdsong. In the pond I see a great cluster of frog spawn. Such a mass of it, around a square foot I estimate, though not of course regular, but amorphous like a cloud. I do a little counting, and reckon there’s over a thousand …