november in the western bed

Things were looking pretty dull back here for a few weeks, but the lavender is picking up as the geum is finishing.  The gaura is also starting to come in too but it's a lot taller this year.  I've had to trim back the farther bush and keep tying it back.

The oakleaf hydrangea is also starting to come into bloom.  Those flower caps are looking great and they'll be developing long into the summer.

And under the second hydrangea, Thatcher was having a snooze.  That dichondra must be a nice soft bed.

garden a.d.d.

My husband likes to joke that I have garden A.D.D. - as in, I have a very hard time just sitting and relaxing in my garden.   There's invariably something that catches my eye that wants doing, a weed to pull or a seedling to water.  No sooner had I taken photos of the new patio and posted them on this blog, but I was outside enjoying a snack in the sunshine and this time got distracted by the cats being adorable.  They love our new couch as much as we do!

But whilst I was up I also noticed that one of the goldfish was hanging out right on the surface and snapped a rare glimmer of gold.

Then decided I should add some closeup photos of the new annuals I put in.  Here's the red salvia.

And here's a close-up of the impatiens.  Look at all of those flower bud ready to go!

That's enough garden A.D.D. for one day!

cat pond?

The pond in a pot is already serving another purpose.  One of my cats loves to drink water out of anything that isn't his water dish - a dirty bowl in the sink, a muddy puddle on the outdoor table, a glass he just knocked over, or a pond in a pot.

the scourge of mint and parsley

I've been very hit and miss with fruits and vegetables in my garden. My designer twig is at least a year away from fruiting. My plum tree isn't actually very tasty. I've hat potatoes rot, tomatoes wilt and peas fizzle. But my herbs have been loyally chugging along, requiring little and giving a lot.

There simply is no substitute for fresh herbs, and nothing like being able to snip a bit from your own garden instead of paying for a massive bunch from the shops. I've got sage, oregano, fennel, chives and spring onions as well as two types (each) of rosemary, thyme, basil and parsley.

I probably use the most parsley and mint so I go out of my way to keep them happy. The twin scourges of my mint patch are the catnip and caterpillars. Last year I planted a little seedling of catnip in front of my mint bed. It grew like crazy and it's heavily crowding out my mint. I tried chopping it back and it just grew back twice as big. Much as it amuses me to see my cats occasionally roll around in it, it had to go.

This photo gives you an idea of how huge it had gotten. It hardly fit in my compost bin even after chopping it up.

The other scourge, caterpillars, is shared with the parsley. The little green buggers are impossible to see until you go to snip some parsley or mint and you see all the nibble marks (for the record, caterpillars do seem to leave curly-leaf parsley alone but I prefer the flatleaf). The last few times I went to get mint I could hardly find it among the catnip and what I could find was decimated by caterpillars. I've also decided to plant some extra parsley where the catnip used to be. It does OK in pots, but parsley has a pretty long tap root so they're always a bit stunted in pots. But with plans to grow all that caterpillar food together I decided I needed to try some sneaky tactics to keep them safe.

What tactic you ask? Butterfly scarecrows, idea courtesy of the Garden Express forum - butterfly scarecrows. You cut the shape of a butterfly out of a white plastic plate, punch a little hole, and tie it to a twig. The theory is that when another butterfly visits it'll see the fake butterfly and think "no point laying eggs there, it's already been claimed."

They've certainly fooled the cats. No sooner had I set them up that they did their best to eat them. Do you like how much they flutter in the breeze? Surely this will work. I hope.
In any case, that patch now looks incredibly bare. I ruthlessly cut back the mint, no point in keeping all of that shredded and nibbled foliage. And I'll be planting parsley along the front soon. So hopefully in a few weeks it'll be a thriving herb patch thick with mint and parsley!

percy and the fig tree

I'd originally just intended to take a photo of the fig tree to show you how much of a hair cut it got a few weeks ago.  But as I went to take a photo, Percival went up to the tree to do a bit of exploring.

As you can see, there isn't much in the way of branches to climb, but what's there is big and stable.  But my cats are British shorthairs, they're not known for their agility.  Percival didnt' get much higher than this before he decided that climbing was all too hard.

So instead he set his sights on  the springy branches.  I took many, many action photos of him throwing his bulk in the air.

To his credit, he caught his "pray" almost every time, though I don't think he knew exactly what to do with it.

And finally, I just like this photo as a portrait.

killer instinct

Because my cats lived indoors the first few years of their lives, they don't have much in the way of hunting instincts.  Well, they're quite good at catching flies and moths from practicing indoors.  Percival is kind enough to eat the flies he catches (ew) whereas Thatcher just plays with them until they stop moving, then leaves them for me to clean up (also ew). 

In regards to birds they're pretty hopeless.  Thatcher once gave a blackbird a good chase, but he doesn't get to go outside much any more due to several escape attempts.  And Percival ... well Percival's idea of "hiding" is to crouch in the middle of the lawn staring at the fig tree.  This cat is WHITE with a bit of ginger, there is no hiding that.  I know the blackbird alarm call for "beware, there's a cat" because every time we're outside, they're making that call, fully aware of Percival's attempts to "stalk" them.  In fact even today I was thinking of taking a photo of him behind his favourite hiding bush to show you all how hopeless he looks.

But before I could do that, I was behind the fig tree when I noticed Percival go running at a dead bolt inside the house.  The cats NEVER run back inside, they like being outside too much, so I thought to myself "that's a bit odd ... perhaps he's chased a fly inside?"  I went back to what I was doing for a minute or two, but then decided to check on him inside.

Oh, it wasn't a fly.

It was a juvenile blackbird.  And adult bird would have the sense not to get caught, but this bird was quite young.  Percival didn't quite know what to do with it, but I shoo'd him away and scooped the little thing up.  It wasn't bleeding and didn't have any obvious major damage, just a few down feathers scattered in the hall, so I put it outside near the fig tree.

Half an hour later it was still there, then next I saw it had lurched over to the path but no father.  So I did some research and learned that stunned birds probably have a concussion which causes swelling of blood vessels in the brain.  So I took their advice and got a shoe box, put a towel inside, and went to fetch the bird.  He struggled a bit when I picked him up this time which I took as a good sign, but I put him in anyway and put him in the hall closet to calm down for an hour.

Supposedly this allows the blood vessels to heal without causing further damage from the bird struggling or being stressed.  When you open the box they're meant to fly away ... otherwise there's something else wrong and the prognosis isn't good.  So I opened the box by the fig tree ... and it just sat there panting.

I got it a little dish of water even though I knew it would be too stressed to drink.  We sat outside a little ways away for 15 minutes.  It just sat there.

Finally we got up to get our things and go get some dinner.  When we walked back outside, this is all we saw:

No sign of the little guy.  And no sign is a very, very good sign.

Though I have to say, any bird dumn enough to get caught by Percival, the great white stooge, probably won't be adding anything good to the gene pool.