Deep Pink rhododendrons

This deep pink rhododendron has been a cheerful March and April sight on the Boggy Brae. Its flowers are just beginning to open today on its sunniest side. In full bloom nine years ago it looked like this. Toadlet and her friend would swing in the hammock beneath it.

As the flowers died they would litter the ground underneath. I hate litter usually, but not this kind.

There were actually three of these bushes but three years ago two of them began to die. The rhododendron trunks looked as if they were strangling those of a holly that was growing with them but the holly is fine and getting bigger by the year. When they didn't flower and the leaves looked poorly, I pruned them and just left the trunks to be used for firewood in due course. The rhodies now have this fungus growing on them.

Today was such a nice day that after some Saturday errands I sat out with a mug of tea under a wild cherry tree near the deep pink rhodie that survives. My feet were among the bluebell shoots that grow there and all around me were the stones of wild cherries, gnawed open by mice or field voles. And the first deep pink flowers are showing.

What could be nicer than early spring sunshine on your face and signs of new growth after a dark and dreich winter?

The Cracky Bark Cypress

Back in March 2008, when both these photos were taken, one week apart, the tree I'm now calling the Cracky Bark Cypress was in full leaf almost right down to the ground in its eastern corner of the garden. Even without a date on the photo I would have known its vintage from the fact that the dry stone wall in the foreground of the snowy pic hadn't been rebuilt. That happened in January 2009. Toad described the tree yesterday as one of the Boggy Brae's 'iconic' trees.

What made him mention it yesterday (while standing at the window with the telephone clutched to his ear on a conference call) was the apparent crack at the bottom of the trunk shown in the pic to the right. He wondered if the crack went deep into the trunk. It didn't. I showed him how it's just a cracky bark tree.

Last year young ivy began to take advantage of the crackiness.

And, yes, looked at in certain ways, it does seem fairly iconic.

Snowdrops under way

Boggy Brae snowdrops are getting properly under way now. On my way down to check them out this morning, I tested my new Feetz over my slippers with the idea that it might be handy not to have to put on wellies or hiking boots every time I step out the door. Well, as far as keeping feet and footwear dry they worked a treat. Less well for keeping a grip on a wet grassy hillside so I fell over [Splat! emoji] and came in with a well-soaked backside and elbow. #BoggybraeHeyHo

Both inside and outside the clump of yellow flags (which now has a circumference of about seven metres), Lesser Celandine plants are leafing away. No flowers yet...

but the first soggy primrose has
put in an appearance.

Yellow Flags of the Boggy Brae

I put three wild yellow flag plants (Iris pseudacorus) into one of the boggiest parts of the Boggy Brae in 2007. This was them flowering, having taken good hold in their new situation, in May 2008. The pic below shows what the little patch of dead leaves looked like in winter.

Winter leaves of Iris pseudacorus
with pampas grass behind

Since then the flags have flourished on their boggy brae (and the patch gets ever larger) among the Meadow Buttercups. The photo to the right was taken in June 2015. At one point I counted over 50 yellow flag flowers plus many buds.

This morning I took this shot of the winter patch.

The pamapas grass beyond has also been flourishing but I take steps to keep it in check!




Just for fun, have a little more boggy summer meadow!

The Lophocolea Stump

I've posted before (here, here, and here, the last one just now on 27Feb16) about the old spruce stump whose top is covered in the liverwort Lophocolea heterophylla (Variable-leaved Crestwort). Recently I noticed signs new activity on the stump.

The mat of Crestwort is quite thick now–it has been growing for a few years–but some dark patches appeared, and a small, darker green spot.

When I went to investigate, it appeared that something (a bird, looking for food, perhaps?) had pulled up some of the liverwort and dropped the pieces. There were also some bits of rotten wood. These break of at the edges very easily now.

The darker green spot is a different bryophyte, a moss I haven't identified yet, but which, on closer inspection revealed reflexed hair points at their tips.






There are other mosses, lichens, and sometimes slime moulds on the stump as new life grows on and around it and recycles its resources. Years ago, when it was just a bare stump, I wrapped a piece of hose around it. That's still there and part of the scenery. I've been reluctant to pull it off, not least because I'll have to find somewhere else to put it, but maybe I should before the spring growth of the grasses, heath bedstraw, ferns and rushes!

a frosted Polytrichum

Been trying a new way of loading photos. Hmm...

A headache, snow, and scratched car kind of morning

Went to bed soon after eight last night with a humdinger of a headache that nothing would shift. Woke up with it three hours ago too. This morning's dosing of decongestant and antihistamine seems to be taking effect, thank goodness. So, this morning:

I've dealt with a dead mouse (flung it in the field for a scavenger), noticed it was snowing and that the temperature was below freezing, decided to take the car down the hill in case of further freezing, scratched it on a wall trying to dodge some ice, repeated my favourite slang word of annoyance all the way down the hill, parked at the bottom, walked back up, snarling at myself, had more coffee.

The day's got to get better. Right? Hey ho.

It's actually quite pretty out there:

The Irrepressible Rose
by the front porch

The dead flower head of a Reflexed Stonecrop at the end of the drystone wall. The wall runs across the front terrace at the edge of the steep bank that the house is built on.

New shoots of Reflexed Stonecrop among the mosses

Still a lot of (light) snow cloud out there. I hope it clears to the sunny morning the Met Office forecast. 

Here is a feather from yesterday. And breathe...

Mouse invasion

I have spent a good chunk of the morning spring cleaning a kitchen cupboard because when I went to get out flour and sugar to make muffins (apple and milk chocolate chips), I noticed a mess! Several bags of flour had been ripped open at their bottom corners and flour spilled. Not a lot but enough to arouse my suspicions.

I commented to Toad, who is at home this week, that there were no droppings. He said: "Constipated mice, then". Then I noticed that they hadn't gone for the icing sugar. His comment? "They've been watching the telly and know sugar's bad for them."

Since he was planning to go round the loch for primer and base coat paints for various walls, I gave him a grocery shopping list. Because of the damage to the flour bags, he asked if he should buy flour too. "Nah", says I, "it's all going in a hot oven. I think we'll survive if we eat it". Toad left, looking slightly alarmed. It'll be interesting to see if he can resist the muffins ;)

The flour is in mouse-proof containers now or cupboards inaccessible to mice and mouse traps (instantly effective and therefore humane ones) will be primed with peanut butter tonight. Next door's cats are not earning their keep. Sorry, mice. You are very welcome in the garden but not in the house.