It’s been a busy few weeks here. Victoria and Albert have had a new summerhouse installed and we’ve had a proper roof put on our conservatory.

The summerhouse was royally declared open and we sat in it with cups of tea and iced buns, enjoying the autumn sunshine. Its long windows to the front and sides provide not quite 360 degree views of the V&A garden, but not far off. Victoria set-to painting the exterior, in what I think is a very tasteful Farrow & Ballesque colour of green. Their cat, Sweet Pea loves the summerhouse too – the roof has become a lookout post. We were a bit worried a fight was about to ensue when a new kid on the block decided to investigate. I think you can see by Sweet Pea’s stance (she’s the one with white tail tip) that you’d have to be a brave kitten to stick around for long, so fortunately fur did not fly on this occasion!

I’ve been painting too – funnily enough while listening to Elizabeth Taylor’s biography, which naturally includes stories about her making the film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman. Elizabeth had an interior designer as part of her entourage, so I doubt she ever did any decorating herself. The idea behind having the roof replaced on our conservatory is to conserve heat, so that we are able to spend more time enjoying it during the winter months. Sitting in there we have a great view of our garden, the visiting birds, the antics of the squirrels and various feline visitors. To date, even with heating, it was cold. Painting the ceiling was a precarious task. The style of the roof is Edwardian, meaning that in places it is over 3 metres high. The first coat on the new plaster was a messy business. I read up that for fresh plaster, the first coat should be a ‘mist’ coat. This involved mixing 3 parts emulsion to one part water. I think I ended up wearing more of it than was on the ceiling. I did use a roller on a pole for as much as possible, but doing the edges and crevices necessitated balancing on the top of Victoria’s ladders, paintbrush in one hand and paint pot in the other. I spent much of my time hoping I would not soon be featured on TV as the latest victim on 24 Hours in A &E – you know the scenario – bleep bleep of a phone, followed by nurse scribbling down ‘65 year old woman, fallen 6 ft from ladders’. Anyway luckily I survived unscathed, other than sporting white hair and freckles.

I have been doing some gardening too – well, more like tidying. I’ve repotted the geraniums I had in hanging baskets and cut them back for overwintering, taking cuttings from the offcuts. I’ve sown some sweet peas – the usual annuals, but I’m also trying some of the perennial type this year. I discovered that some lavender in my front garden had seeded in the cracks of the block paving. I used to love my mum’s patio which was overrun with self seeded lavender – the bees were in their element – but I knew GR would not take kindly to this look on our front drive. So, I yanked out the seedlings and potted them up – even if only one survives, it’s a plant for free!

I have to say, that for this time of year, I’m pretty chuffed with how colourful my border at the bottom of the garden is looking – what do you think? I’m just hoping my Café au Lait dahlia flowers will get the chance to open before Jack Frost finishes them off.

I have a favourite saying, which some might say I overuse. For example when we moan that the clocks are about to change, and for a while we’re going to be spending much of the day in the dark, I empathise wholeheartedly, but can’t resist adding – ‘still, it happens every year‘. Also when some of us start to chunter about the impending Christmas season (I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m a bit bah humbug), I do acknowledge – ‘I know, it happens every year‘.

Of course in the plant world, perennials are the ones that happen every year. Historically I’ve grown mainly annuals to plant in my herbaceous border (that’s probably a bit of a grand description for the flower bed at the bottom of my garden). Annuals are the ones that flower in the same year as you plant them and then die. Before they peg-it they do produce seeds though, which you can collect, if you’re organised enough. Otherwise they cleverly scatter them, generating seedlings that pop up in the garden the following year – usually in the wrong place! Here’s an example of some alyssum seeds that found their way out of a pot that sat by this bench last year.

I’m only just getting to grips with understanding biennials. To my simple mind, they grow leaves in the first year, but don’t produce flowers until the following year, after which they produce seeds, ready for the two year cycle to start again. I grew some ox-eye daisies from seed – they’re biennials. I kept them in my plastic greenhouse and planted them out this summer – they’ve been amazing, but it is a long time to wait – gardening does try to teach you to be patient. I guess I need to get organised and sow some every year to avoid disappointment – although they should also do their own reseeding.

Most foxgloves are biennials. Victoria kindly gave me a whole load of seedlings from her garden and I had masses flowering last year. I think I might have been a bit keen with the dead heading though, because I’ve only found a few seedlings popping up this summer and of course no flowering ones, which I was sad about because they transport me back to my childhood and the story of Jemima Puddleduck.

Some poppies are biennial – I thought they wouldn’t be fussy – they seem to pop up happily in fields. However I’m told they are quite hard to get established. Another friend gave me some poppy seeds last year – apparently they’re the big blousy red variety, but I’ve yet to find out. The seedlings grew OK but when I planted them out all but one got eaten by slugs and snails overnight. The survivor hasn’t flowered yet, so I’m assuming it’s a biennial variety – I’ll let you know if it puts on a good show next year.

Anyway, while we’re waiting for all this to happen, I have some exciting news! The plum gin I told you about is ready. I’ve strained it and bottled it – look at the beautiful colour. While I was at it I did taste one of the boozy plums – I was restrained on account of it being 8am – it had a real kick, so I sampled some with ice cream last night. I know the plums in their pickled form don’t look that appetising (in fact they look decidedly suspect), and you may notice I missed stoning one, but my goodness they were delicious. The rest of my stock will be lucky to see the week out – I don’t think the gin will last long either – it tastes great with ginger ale but it’s amazing neat – eek …

At last some sun! My green tomatoes are gradually turning red but the flower on my pepper plant shrivelled up and fell off, so alas my first attempt at growing them has been a failure. The garden still looks pretty colourful and I’ve started preparing for next year. That’s probably bigging it up a bit – I’ve sown 18 Astrantia seeds to be precise. I ran out of compost and couldn’t be bothered to make a trip to the garden centre – never do today what you can put off until tomorrow is my motto. I have had one success, well 3 actually – I took cuttings from my mum’s Christmas cactus and they’ve taken – one has even started to produce a bud – sorry, it does look a bit rude but I think I’ve just captured it at an unfortunate angle.

It’s been quite an interesting few weeks where garden wildlife is concerned. I noticed something was eating the leaves of one of my rose bushes – I’ve not encountered this before. Anyway I’ve looked it up and discovered that the hundreds of little caterpillar things are rose sawfly larvae. I’ve consulted various wildlife Facebook groups and am told they won’t kill the rose. I’ve also been informed that rose leaves are their only food source, so I’ve left them in situ – I don’t want to starve them, but I hope the advice is right!

I spotted this colourful little bug enjoying my lavender – apparently it’s a Rhopalidae – Corizus hyoscyami – I have to say I prefer its common name – Cinnamon Bug. Up until recently they were confined to the south of England but they wanted more adventure in their lives, so they’ve travelled as far as Yorkshire now – that would explain why I’ve not noticed one in my garden before.

And take a look at this beastie – originally from Morocco it arrived on the south coast of England in 1957 and took about 50 years to reach Scotland. I spotted this one on one of my water butts. It’s a type of Opiliones – Dicranopalpus – it’s not a spider, it’s a Harvestman (or woman, I can’t tell). Hope I don’t put you off your tea, but look at its body – it’s like a suit of armour. In case you see one, please don’t swat it, they’re harmless to humans. They do try to deter predators by secreting foul tasting chemicals and if all else fails they self amputate one of their legs. This is a bit creepy – the detached leg keeps moving for a while, the theory being it might confuse a predator and allow the other legs time to run to safety. Mine had all its legs at the time of being photographed.

I was in my bedroom a few weeks ago and thought I heard a squeaky toy – I checked but Lily hadn’t got one. Then I realised the noise was coming from outside. I looked out of the window and saw two birds perching on two of my patio chairs. I rushed for my phone but only managed to capture one (on camera that is). I’m told they’re juvenile sparrowhawks. Now you may have noticed the ‘bird’ in the middle of the table. We purchased him some years ago as a pigeon scarer – he was useless, but we gave him a second chance recently when we wanted to discourage a pair of wood pigeons from nesting above our back door. I asked a twitcher friend whether the sparrowhawks might have thought it was their mum. He looked at me a bit despairingly before acknowledging that anything is possible. The juveniles sat there for over quarter of an hour before one flew off, followed quite a bit later by the other. I think they had eventually realised that their ‘mum’ wasn’t going to provide them with dinner and they’d better sort something out for themselves!

In June we were crying out for rain, now I’m wondering if it’s ever going to stop. My water butts are all full and overflowing – I could do with my own reservoir!

I’ve been a bit upset about the slow progress of my tomatoes this year. Friends have, cruelly I would say, been sending me photos of their ripening fruits for weeks now. I only had flowers, but look, mine are just late developers!

Mind you, they’ll probably succumb to one of the numerous blights or moulds that can afflict tomatoes, particularly when there’s a lot of rain at this stage in the year. I’ve also been concerned about my sweet peppers – it’s the first time I’ve tried growing them. Something likes eating the leaves and there wasn’t much sign of any action going on in the fruit department – until yesterday, when I spotted the minutest flower bud. Can you see it? My eyesight isn’t good, but it’s obviously been there a little while. It might be too late in the season now for anything to come of it, especially on account of the lack of sunshine, but I’ll keep you posted.

Now, someone who isn’t having any problems producing fruit, is a good friend of mine. She has a plum tree which has excelled itself this year, so she’s overrun with the things. The other morning she brought me a lovely jar of plum jam, a number of cartons of stewed plums for the freezer and 2 kilos of fresh ones. I stewed most of them but then started thinking about how much I enjoy rhubarb gin. One thing led to another and hey presto I found a recipe for plum gin. It specified a 2 litre sealable jar would be required. I’m not one of those domestic goddesses who has shelves full of Kilner jars for homemade preserves and chutneys, so the spaghetti got rehomed. I set too with the lovingly prepared fruit (removing all the stones does get a bit tedious), some caster sugar and most important of all, gin. I have to shake the jar every few days to make sure everything keeps mixed together and in a few weeks I should have my plum gin and some boozy fruit to eat with ice cream. The only thing is my jar doesn’t seem to be completely airtight, because when I shake it a little bit of gin escapes, so I could end up with a jar full of mouldy plums and wasted gin. At the moment it looks a bit like something you’d find in a science lab soaking in formaldehyde. But you know what they say – you learn by your mistakes – well, most people do. I tend to make them over and over again. I’ll let you know the outcome in my next blog.

We have had some visitors to the garden who haven’t made themselves too popular. Now you know me, I love my wildlife and normally get very excited when nests are being built in my garden. However, a pair of loved up wood pigeons clearly had their sights set on my wisteria. I wouldn’t mind this so much, except they had decided on siting their love nest directly above my back door and below my bedroom window. Luckily we spotted the signs early on so no nest or eggs were destroyed in persuading them to relocate. Wood pigeon eggs take 17 days to hatch and then it’s another 30+ days before the babies fledge. I think you will understand that I wasn’t keen on the prospect of a chorus of cooing from dawn onwards, before stepping into a pile of pigeon poo when I took Lily out in the back garden first thing. Our deterrent doesn’t look pretty but they’ve finally found a much more secluded spot to raise their little family.

And finally, I’ve had a beautiful visitor to my garden this week. I’ve joined another excellent FaceBook group – UK Dragonflies & Damselflies – you might remember the bee one I joined earlier in the year? Anyway, apparently it’s a Common Darter. I’ve never seen one in my garden before, so it’s certainly not ‘common’ as far as I’m concerned. Maybe my mini pond is doing the trick?

So much has been happening since my last blog! The blue tit babies have flown the nest again without telling me. One day I could hear their hungry little squeaks – Mr & Mrs BT flying constantly back and forth with tasty morsels (they were looking quite skinny by that stage) – the next minute they’d all gone. How do they do it so secretly? I thought they would at least need a few practice flights involving some crash landings – but no, they seem to master the art of flying in a flash.

The other morning I went to retrieve the milk and eggs from the doorstep, to find carnage awaited me. Magpies had dragged the egg boxes onto the drive, managed to prise the lids open and helped themselves to several eggs. I must have disturbed them because they hadn’t quite finished their feast – what a mess. We’ve got a cool bag now for the milk people to put stuff in, although the pizza delivery man was most perturbed – he thought I’d left my handbag on the doorstep. He probably thinks I’m a forgetful old dear with poor taste when it comes to accessories!

In case you weren’t aware, 20 May was World Bee Day. Well, they obviously wanted to celebrate in style in our garden. That week I was pottering when I noticed a hole had appeared in a flower bed that runs alongside a retaining wall. It was about 18 inches long and the same deep. I thought maybe we were experiencing some kind of subsidence and not wanting the flower bed to cave in, I filled the hole with some cobbles and gravel pilfered from Grumbling Rose’s store. Very quickly, bees began emerging through the stones – they weren’t angry thank goodness, just a bit stunned looking. Wouldn’t you be if someone had just dumped a lorry load of gravel on you! I spent that evening trying to reassure GR that the bees meant no harm to us and that we should just leave them be(e). I did a quick Google and found out they were mining bees. Anyway, next day, I was just going into my Pilates class, when I had a message from Victoria – had I got hundreds of tiny wasps in my house like she and Albert had? No, I hadn’t, but my windows weren’t open. Thankfully within a few hours they had disappeared from their house. The following day I noticed not only the bees I’d seen the day before, making their way in and out of the filled in hole, but also lots of what looked suspiciously like wasps. I neglected to mention this discovery to GR, but took some photos of both varieties and hurriedly joined a wonderful FB group – BWARS (UK Bees, Wasps and Ants). Very quickly I had the answer. They were both bees. The one that looks like a typical bee is of the Andrena variety and the one that looks like a wasp is of the Nomada variety.

It gets a bit gory though because apparently the waspy looking ones are parasitic on the cuddly bee looking ones. The waspy ones lay their eggs in brood cells being prepared by cuddly mummy bee. When her eggs hatch, the larvae of the waspy one kill the larvae of the cuddly one and then eat all the food left by the cuddly mummy bee. After a few hearty meals they develop into adult waspy looking bees. Like the blue tits, it looks like they’ve all flown the nest now – I don’t suppose they’ll be choosing our garden again, not after the “welcome” I gave them!

Brrr – there was a frost yesterday morning – Jack nearly caught me out! I acknowledge I’d taken a risk planting my sweet peas out, but I had looked at the night time temperature trend and it seemed safe. Then, for one day only, I discovered the temperature was going to plummet below zero. I sprung into action and swathed my babies in fleece and bubble wrap – they look really snug don’t they? Despite a heavy frost they seemed to be OK the next morning, so hopefully no damage done.

I found some very snug bugs last week – two lily beetles – I think they’d taken a wrong turning. They were on my day lilies as opposed to their favourite treats, the oriental ones, coming through bang next door to them. Fingers crossed they didn’t have time to create any babies before they were despatched.

I’m hoping that despite the arctic temperatures my blue tit tenants are nice and snug in the tit box. They’ve been incredibly busy, flying in and out with nesting materials. I wonder if they’re the same pair as last year? I noticed that at first one of them would spend several minutes tapping the inside of the box on a regular basis. I wondered what this was about – there seem to be a number of theories. One is that they’re trying to mould the box into a more curved shape – that would take a lot of doing with a tiny beak! Another is that they’re making little holes to press their nesting material into. I think it could be that, combined with maybe simply checking that the box doesn’t collapse when exposed to incessant hammering. I really hope I might see the babies fledge this year – I may need to set up camp in the conservatory where I get a good view of their comings and goings.

Talking of the conservatory – seedlings abound – some looking more healthy than others. I have potted some of them on and moved them to my outdoor greenhouses to get them used to being less snug. My February tomato seedlings are looking pathetic – I treated them to some fresh compost yesterday, so I’m hoping they get their act together and start performing! The March sowing looks marginally better, but still a poor effort in my opinion.

I shall be monitoring the night time temperatures carefully over the next week – I’m itching to get planting – although then there will be the disappointment of devastation by slug and snail to look forward to.

Yes I’m seeing red! Those pesky fungus gnats are back – buzzing round all my tiny seedlings. So, I ordered some more nematodes – they worked well last year. A week after they’d arrived I read the instruction packet and realised I’d forgotten something. If you aren’t going to use them straight away, you need to put them in the fridge. Well, waste not want not, I still gave them a try – so far no more gnats, but I don’t know what the incubation period for their grubs is, so time will tell.

I was listening to GQT the other day (that’s what we professional gardeners call Gardeners’ Question Time). The GQT experts suggested that a good way to zap fungus gnats is to freeze your compost. I don’t know what size their freezers are but this is certainly not an option for me! Anyway the compost bags have been outside in all the freezing weather we’ve had, and that didn’t do the trick. Actually, while I mention GQT, I was listening to an episode from last year, which marked the 75th anniversary of the programme. I tell you what – if I’d been listening in the programme’s early years, I would have been put off gardening for life! There was a replay of a question from a woman in 1947 about how, where, why, if and when you could use soot from your fire on your garden. The pompous male expert replied ‘that’s just typical of a woman, getting 5 questions asked all for the price of one‘. In 1961 a member of the studio audience asked how he could revive a rather sad looking Christmas cactus in time for next year. The expert replied ‘you’ll be lucky if it flowers then! That pot’s too big for a start …‘ The tone of the experts is very different now – they really seem to want to encourage people to garden. I think the earlier panel members wanted to maintain an air of mystery and be considered far superior to the average gardener.

Luckily my garden is currently a calming space, full of beautiful purples and blues. I’d love to say this was by design – you know, one of those carefully thought out colour palettes they talk about on gardening programmes. No, it’s just where I’ve plonked things – many of which were donations from Victoria’s garden.

Talking of Victoria – she left me a ‘doorstep hug‘ in the form of a miniature vase of beautiful flowers from her garden. Today it will be 2 years since I lost my lovely mum, so a hug is most welcome.

This year’s seed sowing has started – Lily’s been helping.

I’ve only assembled one set of shelves in the conservatory so far, but I’ve run out of space already, so the other will follow imminently. I don’t think Grumbling Rose has noticed yet – he’s just back from his latest skiing holiday and his head is already full of the next one. I faced a dilemma over whether or not I should switch on my two small propagators this year – do they eat much electricity? Anyway I decided to go for it, but the rest of the seedlings will just have to fend for themselves, because the conservatory isn’t heated.

I need to prick out some seeds I planted in the autumn but I’ve run out of my recycled seed trays, so I’ve been making some environmentally friendly ones out of newspaper.

The seeds I’ve sown already include cherry tomatoes, but in view of the current and predicted shortages, I’m going to try growing sweet peppers as well – this’ll be a first for me, so I’ll keep you posted.

My house plants are loving life at the moment. The two amaryllis bulbs I’ve had for the last few years are getting going – admittedly one more enthusiastically than the other.

My mum’s Christmas cactus, a precious reminder of her, is flowering for the third time this season. A few weeks ago I thought the oxalis triangularis my sister grew for me was on its last legs – it looked so pathetic. In hindsight I think it must have been using all its strength to produce masses of leaves and flowers! Two of my orchids are looking stunning – the other two remain in the orchid hospital (the downstairs loo). I’ve even managed not to kill the poinsettia I was given in November – it hasn’t got many green leaves left though.

I know we’re about to have a cold snap, even some snow forecast – but generally I’m feeling spring is on the horizon, not least because Gardener’s World starts again properly the week after next. Grumbling Rose will be on the piste again so he’ll miss the first episode. Not to worry though, he’ll be able to watch it on catch up 😂

When it gets to this time of year we’re bombarded from every angle by Valentine’s Day – cards, gifts, flowers, chocolates, meals – need I go on? That’s OK if you have someone in your life you want to spend Valentine’s Day with, but what if you can’t be with them, because they’re not nearby or worse still, no longer with us? There’s so much hype nowadays, all geared around selling us stuff of course – the Easter eggs are on the shelves already!

Now Valentine’s Day is a special time for Grumbling Rose and me, because it’s the anniversary of when we met – 47 years ago – just goes to show I have the patience of a saint! We won’t be celebrating together this year because he’ll be on his 3rd, yes 3rd, skiing holiday of 2023. You may ask why I don’t accompany him. Quite simply, I dislike everything skiing involves – the unwieldy skis, the rigid boots, ski lifts of any variety, not to mention the cold. Then there’s the rigmarole involved in having a wee wearing ski gear – in a toilet I mean, not in the ski gear – although it can be a close call, in view of the time it takes to partially disrobe, in a miniscule toilet cubicle. And as for the après ski – I don’t know how anyone summons up the energy after a day on the piste. I’m better off at home with my little dog Lily and my garden.

It’s at this time of year I start to fall in love with my garden all over again. We’re coming out of the dreary winter months and enjoying dainty snowdrops, cheerful aconites, hellebores, winter jasmine and the fragrances of mahonia, viburnum and winter box. Daffodils, hyacinths and anemones are peeping out from the soil and will soon add even more colour to the garden.

I’ve got several types of sweet peas on the go in my plastic greenhouses – I’ll sow some more soon, so in theory I’ll be able to extend the flowering period. I’ve also got a variety of seedlings in there making a valiant effort to survive. While GR is away I’ll be ramping up the seed sowing, making use of my indoor greenhouse, aka the conservatory!

Many of the strawberry runners I planted up in the Autumn are looking good, as are the ox eye daisy plants I grew from seed last year – they should flower this year. The garlic is coming up nicely but something’s had a nibble at my shallot tips. I potted up some cuttings from Rosie and Daisy’s salvia ‘Hotlips’ last year – the leaves are still green, so surely there must be some roots supporting them by now – I’ll have to brave a look. The geranium ‘Rozanne’ I divided (well more like hacked to pieces) also looks to be alive – a miracle, although the cuttings I took from my white pot geraniums look a bit suspect. On the wildlife front, the birds are very active and eating me out of house & home. The blue tits are checking out my tit box again, so they must be in the mood for love.

We’ve certainly had some cold and frosty mornings recently haven’t we. Now we all know that frost is created by Jack while we’re asleep. Armed with a paintbrush and glitter he works quickly, covering everything he can, so that in the morning we’re greeted with a spectacular winter wonderland scene. He doesn’t miss a detail – spider webs look magical in the sunlight and leaves glisten as though sugar coated. Jack’s glitter makes every surface sparkle. He even has time to paint beautiful patterns – he must work fast – do you think he has helpers?

Jack has a reputation for being mischievous. I wonder if he hides, waiting to see our reaction when we open the curtains and see his beautiful work or encounter some of his less endearing contributions. I hope he’s not sniggering when he nips at my fingers and toes until they hurt. Also, I could do without his habit of coating my car window, to the extent that clearing it, takes a lot of frantic de-icer spraying and frenzied scraping. He seems to know I’ll have neglected to carry out this task in good time, and will inevitably end up being late for something.

Now some misguided people say that Jack Frost doesn’t exist. They say that frost is a natural phenomenon, occurring when freezing surface temperature meets water vapour. Even worse, these people dismiss Jack’s artistic talents, saying that ice crystals naturally form the beautiful patterns we see.

Anyway, back to reality. Jack is so clever, he doesn’t just make one type of frost – he makes several, including rime frost, hoar frost and fern frost. Rime frost is the sort that makes leaves look sugar coated – ‘rime’ means crust, which doesn’t sound quite as appealing to me as sugar coated. Hoar frost looks like little spikes. ‘Hoar’ comes from the old English word “hoary,” which means getting on in age. Some liken the appearance of hoar frost to an old man’s beard. Fern Frost appears on windows when Jack sneaks indoors – he certainly visited our house when I was small. Those boring old doubters say it happens when the air outside is very cold and there’s moisture on the inside.

I wish I could see Jack at work. He’s often depicted as an old man with a beard – similar to the Old Man of Winter, but I’ve always thought of him as a male version of Tinkerbell, only bluer on account of the cold. In my mind I see an elfin figure, darting around my garden and the wider landscape, making it a sight to behold.