A sweet basket and some pelargoniums

It was my birthday yesterday and a friend sent me the sweetest little basket in the world. Check out the maker, Lois Walpole's, website.

beauty out of detritus

Since it was a dryish day and the pond level was low, I spent some time pulling gunk out of it. I liked the tree reflections.

pond reflecting

Then I spent some time on one of my favourite activities, pulling dead wood out of hedges. All but a few twigs of this are fuchsia wood. Nice to know it's not immortal. I must try and discover how to kill some more. Boggy Brae fuchsia is invasive and monstrous. We're not dealing with sweet little hanging basket plants here!

sticks for kindling

I bought some pelargoniums earlier in the year. The Lord Bute turned his toes up and fell into a mortal decline. P. Ardens has a fungal infection but since I stopped speaking to her she seems to be making an effort. She's the one on the right. I've just discovered that she is "flat-growing" so I guess a hanging basket would suit her well. The other two, moving leftwards, are 'Pauline Harris' and 'Ruth Lesley' and seem to be coming along allright.

Meanwhile, I've taken cuttings from a plant a friend gave me and shoved them into plant pots containing other plants. In good Boggy Brae style, the cuttings are now being vigorous.

Craigendoran to Ardardan

Little She Bear (LSB) and I went for a walk. We were looking for sand. There is not much sand on the stoney beaches of our wee loch, but from the the train into Glasgow one can see sand and mud flat stretches along the Clyde. In the interest of places to go with grandchildren, we decided to investigate between Craigendoran at the eastern end of Helensburgh and Ardardan Garden Centre at the western end of Cardross. We are planning to walk, in stages, along the Clyde Walkway south of the Clyde starting at New Lanark. Today's walk was a kind of wee taster, a rough wee taster because the Clyde Walkway has proper track. This route was stoney, sandy, clayey, grass hummocky, and bricky.
    We parked the car at Craigendoran station. The bit of land between the sea and the railway track is up for sale and development, apparently, or it was in the summer. It may have been bought by now. Alongside the old slipway we found evidence of other old stuff and bricks. (Old pics of the now derelict pier, used in the past for paddle steamer traffic, here.) Brick-making was quite an industry in and around Glasgow. You could spend hours reading bricks on the salt-water shores of the Clyde. We didn't dawdle too much over bricks but we found a couple of legible ones: Hurll of Glasgow and Colt of Sanquhar, which is on the road to Dumfries.



More info for brick enthusiasts here.



Other old stuff included massive slabs of reinforced concrete and what looked like a rather imposing gate post.

Then, on we bumbled stepping from hump to hump of grass that doesn't mind being regularly swamped by the incoming tide. Further along there was more of this on higher hummocks and with water between.

As you leave Craigendoran behind there is a stretch of railway track right next to the sea. All this sea wall is propping up the train track. When there is an extra high tide sometimes the waves slosh over the tracks and stop the trains until the tide recedes. There is a similar stretch just beyond Cardross. LSB and I were just impressed by the Victorian engineering that built this line. There have been various repairs to this shoring up, with layers of concrete put in joins between old sandstone blocks and even covering the entire wall.

We liked this detail of pale sand against the red sandstone and every where the beautiful lichens on exposed rocks.

Where the rail track went a little in from the shore the yellowing leaves of Rosa Rugosa run wild looked bright even in the overcast light. The sun was supposed to break through, according to the Met Office. It didn't. We didn't mind. Walking makes you warm even on a dull winter day.

In the little bay before the round lump of land called The Hill of Ardmore that sticks out into the Clyde, you can look straight across to Dunoon.

The 'corner' of the Clyde estuary as it turns south
past Greenock and Gourock

In the photo below, Dunoon is on the farthest away land. As we negotiated this part of the walk, we were accompanied by the voices, way out on the sand and clay flats, of curlews and oyster-catchers. Some of the lumps of clay looked very good for making primitive dishes.

There were a lot of small streams across the beach but here we came across what looked like a spring. We reckoned there might be a burst pipe under there. A little further along we came across old pipes, new pipes, and large tyre tracks, which seemed to confirm our suspicions.

We crossed the narrow bit of the Ardmore peninsula, walked inland to the level crossing and up to the Cardross road to get to the garden centre and restaurant at Ardardan where we ate lunch. We considered getting a bus back along the road to Craigendoran but it would have meant a longish wait so we just hoofed it instead. It was a lovely day out. The photo below is looking back to where we live, somewhere on the hillsides below that bright snow in the distance.

Chilly welly wander

I've been wondering who had yanked up the liverwort on top of an old spruce stump (a Christmas tree from a long ago Boggy Brae family). This morning I saw a magpie mining the wood, presumably looking for grubs or ants. I wasn't quick enough to get a pic.

Down there beside the stump the ground is very soggy... well, it's soggy everywhere at the moment!

The lichen and the mosses on the stump are lovely.

From higher up the garden I was surprised to see some snow on the hills to the north but I noticed that the rain had hit "Scrawny" from the north-west so I guess what was rain here was snow a bit higher and 'norther'.

Scrawny's trunk dry on one side

Wet and ivy-clad on the other

I enjoyed the colours of fallen leaves, young birch bark, and dying lemon-scented fern. It was chillier than I expected out there. I haven't taken my hat off yet.

Hedge

Last week I took a break from fuchsia-bashing to trim the only bit of hedge I've actually got under control. The bit in the picture is between 17 and 18 metres long and about 1.5m in height. Ten years ago it was four times its current volume.

I swept up leaves and branches from the drive but those on the nearer side I've left to rot where they are. I like watching blackbirds riffling through them for tasty morsels.

The autumn leaves of ornamental cherry from our neighbour's tree that overhangs the wall between our gardens are a joy.

Still cutting back wild and rampant fuchsia

Behind the last few days' political momentousness, life of the Boggy Brae has chugged on, with me stoking my inner fire with smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels and hot tea for the continuing onslaught on monster fuchsias near the pond. Down there is close to where our neighbours at H.Cott. (as they label their wheelie bins) park their cars so I got chatting to Mr when he came down one morning, explaining what I was doing (he asked). He then said: "Haven't you got some kind of weird pond in there?" Weird, eh? Hmm :) The local heron seems to like it.

No, I'm not going to burn my rucksack. The ground's wet so plonking it there keeps it dry. Using it to carry tools reduces the number of times I have to tramp up and down the hill to the tool shed and carrying them up again in it is easier than pushing up a loaded wheelbarrow. The poles on which my outer gloves (I was wearing three pairs: silk, wool, rubber for warmth and damp-proofing) are resting are two of the young, unwanted ash trees I cut down. So far, the ash dieback disease Hymenoscyphus fraxineus does not seem to be affecting their very successful reproduction rate on the Boggy Brae. I've left a couple to grow in "Scrawny's" corner.

So I sit munching on the wall watching boats go by on the loch and looking at ivy stems on nearby trees.

Big ivy on a big ash

Little ivy on one of the fuchsia trunks

and young ivy on an old stump

On Saturday (Bonfire Night in the UK: "Remember, remember, the fifth of November of gunpowder, treason and plot") the sky was blue and even the unwanted fuchsia growth looked pretty against it.

Something else my neighbour said is that we don't need to worry when we cut stuff down, it just regrows. He and Mrs are from the much drier south and are just getting used to what is in effect our temperate rainforest climate. The skies were good that evening.

Trooping mushrooms near the pond. Brought one in to get a spore print but it hasn't obliged so I haven't identified what they are yet.

On Sunday Toad came and helped by cutting back rhododendron as well. We had a bonfire but there's still a lot to do. 

Then the weather turned damp on Monday, snowy above about 100m by today. The evening light on Monday was lovely though.