The Garden Diary 2012

20 April - April continues to live up to its name as the frequent showers continue with the odd roll of thunder and hail thrown in. Today once again it has been a case of occasional bright spells between dark clouds.

I took advantage of one of those sunny periods to clear the guttering that feeds the caravan shelter water butt after noticing that the debris filter at the top of the down pipe had become blocked.

While up the ladder I had the chance to take a look at the Birch and see that as more leaves open up, also developing now are the upright heads of the tree's female flowers.

It is interesting to compare their stature with that of the male catkins which hang from the tips of the branches.

The dangling male catkins can release their pollen on the wind more efficiently from this position, without the branches or leaves providing an obstruction. In contrast, it is better that the female flowers are above the leaves that could obstruct the flow of pollen over them.

The timing is also interesting. The male flowers started releasing pollen nearly three weeks ago and the spent catkins are already starting to fall, so the female flowers must be aiming to 'catch' pollen from another Himalayan Birch. I sometimes wonder where there is another example locally.

While up the ladder I was also able to check the Rowan. While the leaves are developing well (see yesterday's entry) I can see no signs of flower buds as yet.

In contrast, the two trees that rely on insect pollination have plenty of flower buds now. On the Elder they are grouped together in tight inflorescences,

while on the Hawthorn they are in small groups much more spread out across the outside of the developing leaf canopy.

My Labyrinthitis continues to trouble me and I'm getting fed up of living on an imaginary boat! At least the 'sea' is getting a bit calmer now, which meant that I was able to enjoy my grandson for a few hours today, as well as climb up what is a very short ladder without falling off to clear the gutter and take the photographs. However, there'll be no driving until at least the beginning of next week - at least it means I save fuel!

22 April - The April showers continue, although with some decent sunny breaks today, so that my eldest grand-daughter could spend some time in the garden watching the tadpoles and the bees which were very active in the sunshine.

Just before she, sister, mum and dad came we (and they) had the best hailstorm yet during this present spell of weather. It didn't last long but it left exposed ground white for a short time, with some hail stones just over 1cm across.

The only other pictures for this entry were actually taken last night.  Having spent much of the evening watching baseball I went outside at around 11.30pm to lock my shed and a starry sky had me wondering if there was a chance of seeing Saturn - and there was. A quick check on my phone and a look through my spotting scope confirmed its position, roughly south south-east from us.

With the forecast not good for the next few days I decided to have a go at recording it and used my 300mm lens with a x2 converter on my Canon 7D to take this image just before midnight.

That really was pushing my luck a bit far and as this full-frame image shows, the dot that is Saturn is very difficult to see on the small image at least! You may just make out a dot just right of centre.

However, with the image cropped the dot becomes more recognizable,

and enlarged a bit more, with contrast increased and image sharpened it begins to show the separation of the rings from the planet itself, although the image is still a long way from what an astronomer would regard as acceptable.

Still, I'm quite pleased with it as my first image of this planet.

Cloud rolling in from the south-west soon threatened to blot out that part of the sky so I only a chance to take one shot to put Saturn into context amongst the surrounding stars.

It was in the lower part of the constellation Virgo, near Spica, the alpha star of that constellation.

Tonight I'm too tired to stay up to try again, and anyway it's cloudy!

 Considering how far away Saturn is at present (1304 million Km from us, and 8.72 times further from Earth than the sun is),  was surprised just how bright Saturn is ( I needed to stop the lens aperture to f/11) but I shouldn't have been. I see that a week ago the Earth passed between Saturn and the sun so that at present it is being illuminated straight on.

Something that really puts the quality(!) of my image into context is the amazing thought that on the surface one of the moons of Saturn, Titan, there is a bit of equipment that managed to send pictures to Earth from there back in 2005. The lander, called Huygens, was part of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. Cassini itself continues to orbit the planet itself.

I'll be trying a couple of different lens combinations over the next few weeks to see if I can improve on last night's image of Saturn, as well as taking a wider view to include more of Virgo.

And finally, the labyrinthitis seems to be fading away now. This morning I headed out in the car for the first time in over a week and at our local car boot sale I picked up a very nice front-silvered mirror (in an old epidiascope) - a useful macrophotography accessory.

24 April - Just a short entry on a dry day with sunny periods and the slim possibility that there will be clear skies for a while tonight before the rain returns with a vengeance tomorrow.

There was another first flowering today in the form of a solitary Herb Robert on the slope up to the West Wing log store.

A couple of days ago, while our grand-daughters were visiting, mum (Kirsty) organized the planting of Strawberry and Raspberry plants in containers that used to have bamboo plants in them. She is very successful at growing fruit and veg in their garden and has been encouraging me to plant a few things here.

Well, the hints have had an effect. The slope on which the Herb Robert grows has been somewhat of a failure as a wild flower patch so I have decided to convert it into a vegetable plot.

This afternoon a long heavy plank that has been sitting doing nothing for the last few years has been cut up to create one side of an area of about 6x5ft. We won't be able to feed an army, but at least the grand-children will have something to help with (and nibble!).

The picture shows the initial rough positioning of what will be a retaining wall when I level off the soil on the other side of the planks.

I will also need to put a plank down the left side of the plot, next to the path. This side of the planks will remain 'wild' with just a couple of stepping stones to provide access to the plot. I haven't grown vegetables for many years (I was never very successful) so this will be an interesting experiment -  and organic!

29 April - The dismal spell of wet weather continues, and this morning we had continuous rain with winds from the north-east, with the temperature not getting above 8C. However, It eased up during the afternoon as the wind swung round to between south-easterly and southerly at times, and with the temperature climbing to a surprising 13C when we had fleeting glimpses of blue sky and even some glimpses of the sun. This evening it is wet once more...

 Not surprisingly the 'West Wing Allotment' has made no progress since that first outburst of enthusiasm!

During one pause in the morning's rain I headed outside to grab a picture of the Wild Garlic (Ramson) that has started flowering today. It was a matter of manipulating the camera with one hand while fending off the drips with the other!

I also noticed that one of the Garlic Mustards also has its first flowers of the year.

In the early evening, while we were in a relatively bright spell I spent some time outside once more, this time scouring the skies for Swifts (see nest box diary).

For a couple of minutes a gap in the clouds to the west of us lit up young leaves at the top of our Birch tree as the branches bent in response to the southerly wind. Notice that there are now very few male catkins left on these exposed branches.

30 April - What a way to end what is one of the wettest Aprils on record - a sunny day with the temperature over 18C in the garden.

I was able to spend much of the day outside doing some woodwork (nest boxes!) and on my first visit to my shed I had to open the window to let out this beautiful Peacock butterfly which must have over-wintered in there.

During the day I saw a Speckled Wood, a Small White (I think!) and an Orange Tip passed through the garden numerous times - one day I will have a camera ready should it pause for a moment.

Another visitor that came to the garden was a Sparrowhawk. On one occasion, as I left the shed it flew low past me at what I can only describe as 'kneetop' height!

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