Winter woodland walk

Since we have returned from New Zealand I have walked through our garden and woodlands most days. 
It is usually late afternoon before I start up the hill, well wrapped up against the cold with fleece and my wonderful possum hat from New Zealand.

Daylight is drawing out markedly now. I am still finding the mornings very dark, but the evenings are stretching nicely and it is now well after five before it is dark. Hoorah!

This late afternoon light is special.
We are having a quiet cold spell just now and the light on Loch Ness is great.
I always think of Loch Ness as steely grey and it looks wonderful, arctic cold glinting in moonlight and mirror glass calm by day. 

December was very wet and the footpaths are still greasy in places
The last of the leaves are brown and damp and the air is heavy with the humus smell of woodlands.
Bark and branch dominate the foreground, with pockets of dark holly and Blechnum spicant; the elegant hard fern; on dry banks.

Of course snow drops are through and the garden looks well, temperatures have not been below -4.  Fingers crossed.

M

Rose Discoveries - Beauty in a Shattered City.

If you know Christchurch as we do, it is very sad just now to see the cleared sites and demolition work that followed the Earthquakes earlier this year. However, walk down to Hagley Park, their botanic gardens and it is thriving.
In Mid December we walked into their rose garden and I was blown away. I am still seeing images of the garden in my mind's eye.
Usually, I walk into a rose garden and what do I  see? Well it can be lovely , but all too often the garden can be dry soil, defoliation, spotty yellow leaves far too much bare earth
Not an enthusiast then?? Well all changed now. Christchurch showed me how it can be done,

Look at these arches, look at these red reds.  Let me share some photographs with you.

What you don't get in a photograph, is the shimmering sunshine and the scented air around some of the rose beds...just lovely

Many Happy Returns

Large bed of  "Many Happy Returns"   white, pink bud.
It was the white roses that made the most impact. Fantastic.

Molly Kirby

Molly Kirby...a sizzling orange, clean shiny foliage.

A bright yellow bed of " Casino"

Casino.

The red voluptuous "Ingrid Bergman"

Ingrid Bergman

The roses were all looking wonderful. Why?
1.  Well New Zealand has a kinder climate. Christchurch has milder winters and hotter summers that we have in UK, and certainly more than we have in Scotland.
And Roses love warmth. We sometimes forget that and wonder why we lose rose bushes, particularly Hybrid teas in a bad winter. At Abriachan we only grown shrub roses and climbers as others just can't take the cold.

2. The roses looked well pruned and well fed. Like all plants that you want to see bloom on the new growth you have to ensure they are well fed. Blood fish and bone or dehydrated Chicken manure are my favourites, followed by tomato feed to get lots of blooms.

Nancy Hayward

3. New Zealand breeds many of its own roses and they were well chosen, but there were also very good looking David Austin varieties and old well known varieties such as "Compassion" and "Iceberg"  They looked great so I believe they are using good clean material for propagation.

Just wonderful. No wonder they call Christchurch the Garden City

The Badger and The Bees

The Buzz from the Hive

Autumn and time for the beekeeper to relax a little, take stock of the honey crop and start to prepare the bees for the winter. However, there were one or two surprises in store for us yet at the Abriachan hive; never a dull moment with bees.

Pressing the Honey

In September there was an outbreak of American foulbrood in Inverness-shire, the beekeepers worst nightmare.
This is a virulent disease that decimates the developing larvae, will eventually wipe out the colony and is highly contagious.
As with foot and mouth, the infected hive, with its bees is destroyed and a standstill order placed on the apiary until further inspections are carried out.
Bees have a flying range of three miles and along with many others, we were within range of the infected apiary.
So we had a tense week while we waited for the Government Bee inspector to call. Thankfully we were given a clean bill of health.

A more recent threat to the hive has been of a larger and hairier kind.

For the first time the gardens have played host to badgers. Not only have they found the flowerbeds attractive but unfortunately the hive too and Don found it tipped right over and the roof removed earlier this month.
Even with the hive strapped up and weighted down with boulders, there has obviously been a return trip, as the metal mouse guard that covers the entrance (yes, mice love hibernating in hives!) has been ripped off in an effort to reach in side.
All is quiet at the moment but at list the intruder has inspired this years label for the honey jars!

AbriachanApiary 2011

(This Guest Blog written by our wonderful bee keeper Rebecca)

Loss of a great four legged friend

It is a sad day at the nursery, our Viszla 'West' has come to the end of a long and happy life with us at Abriachan.
He was over 120 dog years and while he tried his best to stay with us a little longer, his poor wee heart could no longer cope.

We will miss him very much, he is part of the fabric of the nursery and part of the Davidson family.
He was always to be found somewhere, guiding visitors round the garden, excavating holes to try; unsuccessfully; to catch mice, pathetically shivering by the heater, even in the height of summer, burying today's lunch, searching for yesterdays lunch, chasing deer and endearing himself to all.

He made us laugh, he kept us company while weeding, he drove us mad with his door scratching skills. He was great.

We got 'West' as our second nursery rescue Vizsla, our first was 'Blue' and I think there are many visitors who didn't notice the change and may think we have had the same dog for 25 years.  They had very different personalities, yet both loved the limelight and the attention of the nursery visitors. (Especially the women)

They would eat like horses and never gain a pound, West's ribs were always on display and on occasion we would get looks from people that suggested they were about to phone the RSPCA, unaware of the huge haunch of venison that he had inhaled that morning. I know, I know, venison! - he was spoilt rotten, turning his nose up at meat that other dogs would give their left leg for a sniff of.

Our lovely neighbour also has several beautiful vizslas and West would make frequent solo adventures through the woodland, somehow through/over/under??? the deer fencing, over the stream and once there, position himself under the window and cry piteously until allowed in to play with his girlfriends.  If they were not at home, he would reappear 5 minutes later back on the nursery looking nonchalant, and would stroll insouciantly past you, as though he had been very busy helping in the polytunnels the whole time.

We have film crews come by the garden every few years and both Blue and West would pull out all the stops to get screen time.  They would stand casually on top of a rock looking out over the loch, with the middle distance stare of a catalogue model, pretending not to notice as the cameraman lined them up for a tracking shot, or they would develop an overwhelming devotion to whoever was being filmed talking to the presenter, coming in with the trademark vizla-lean, where they stand very close and then gradually put all their weight on your legs until you buckle under the strain.

We hope you had a chance to meet him if you visited Abriachan, and thank you for all the attention and love you gave him over the years, it made him very happy.
He was a bouncing puppy one moment, a grave elder statesman the next. A companion, a watchdog, a ladies man, a hunter, a poser, a neurotic mess, a friend. 
We will miss you West.

Cut flowers for Christmas?

I remember about 12 years ago, when we had that run of mild winters., that I used to be able to cut a pick a bunch of late flowers for Christmas day.
Well certainly not the last 2 winters. But I am hopeful this year.
We have a lovely show of late blooms just now as November settles in.

The Schizostylis, Kaffir Lilies, have bloomed as never before, I take it to be the mild weather and lots of sunshine. They are South Africans so love the sun. Lovely satiny blooms of red and pink.

The annuals have not finished of course and you can still find blooms on the Larkspur (The few that the mice left in peace) and Cosmos.

Most showy is the old pot Marigold, Calendula. A lovely show or rich orange and yellow, planted with bright green parsley.



Of course Dahlias are at their best in autumn. We still have a good show of Bishop of Llandaff and Fascination, and the latter with its orange and red colouring looks lovely in autumn groups.

Rhododendrons have become confused and we have had a few flowers on a good few of them….cilipense, impeditum and Elizabeth.

And roses. I often had a rose bud in that Christmas bunch. The constitution of many roses is to repeat flower, but often they don’t get the chance. This year we had a lovely second flush of Shot Silk, the rose on our house wall and a few blooms on Madame Isaac Pereire .

The David Austin Roses Alan Titchmarch, Tam o Shanter. and Prospero have bloomed well, but I have struggled to Get the Alan Titchmarsh roses to open even in the house. They actually looked their best when the petals fell.

Luxury.

Next years roses have just arrived bare rooted from David Austin, they look excellent and Don is potting them today.