Things are beginning to come alive out in our garden. The camellia has a few early flowers (above), and the winter aconite is bearing bright yellow buds. I filled up the bird feeders yesterday morning.
This poor pigeon just could not figure out how to get at those peanuts. I felt pity for him (her?) and took a handful of nuts out to set on top of the fencepost, but the pigeon panicked when I appeared and flew away. I left the nuts anyway, and watched them get eaten by tits and possibly a dunnock.
Then Dave and I decided to brighten things up with a run to Homebase. We bought some hellebores for the flowerpots on our front steps, and some primroses for a hanging basket in the back. There were six little primrose plants and the basket only accommodated four, so I put these two in a pot on the ground. I took a photo because they are sure to be destroyed by squirrels in the not-too-distant future.
Dave also had a bizarre mission -- to buy clay flowerpots that would produce certain musical notes when struck. (This is for a piece his students are performing.) So we walked around the garden center at Homebase rapping flowerpots with our knuckles, and measuring the tones they produced with an iPhone tuner app. Dave wanted an E, a D and a G sharp, but we couldn't be that precise in the end -- we just picked four pots that sounded nice. (Even crazier, these flowerpots will have to be toted to Luxembourg for a concert!)
Homebase is the land of the impulse buy. In addition to our garden plants and more bird food, we bought a few more orchids because they looked sort of forlorn. One had been discounted to £2.50, the poor thing was in such bad shape. Oh, and I also bought an anti-fungal spray to combat the rust on our pelargoniums.
After we got home and planted our new plants, Dave gave the roses their spring pruning. As you can see, they're little more than a forest of sticks at this time of year. And as you can also see, our friend the pigeon (or one of his/her nearly identical cousins) finally got some bird seed!
Percy Pigeon seems very comfortable chomping away while Dave fertilises the roses. Nice to see you have given Percy a plate to dine from. I guess that London pigeons are more cultured than Yorkshire pigeons. They probably expect plates while uncouth Yorkshire pigeons expect their food to be simply scattered on the grass.
ReplyDeleteThat is one very chubby pigeon in the top photo! Those primrose blooms are very pretty. They add some color to the winter growth!
ReplyDeletemy roses were all putting out new growth and I cut it all off. I didn't prune them at all last year and they were very scraggly.
ReplyDeleteI was musing about going to buy some pansies to put in some of my pots when Jessie reminded me that the chickens always eat them.
ReplyDeleteSigh...
My yard, except for the gorgeous camellias and azaleas, looks like hell. I really need to get out and do some work.
You and Dave are good inspirations. So is Ellen Abbott.
Home base seems like a great marketer. Your place should be attractive this spring and summer. I'm not a shopper. sometimes I sit in the car and do puzzles while my wife shops.
ReplyDeleteIt's not even the end of the first week in February and you're potting flowers for the garden and pruning roses? I had no idea it was that mild that early where you are! Usually this time of year we wouldn't even be able to FIND our roses under the snowbanks. This winter has been very open, though, and there is just a thin snow covering. But we still won't pot our flowers until May, nor set them outside until June. lol
ReplyDeleteThank you for worrying about even the lowly pigeons.
Wow, wonderful signs of spring in FEBRUARY! Hard for me to imagine as we are still dealing with 3 feet of snow around our cabin despite days of melting temps.
ReplyDeleteThe pigeon cracks me up and so does Yorkshire Pudding. :)
The camellia prospects look good and the primroses are beautiful.
ReplyDeleteAlphie