When we moved in here two years ago, there was no garden. The whole plot was a meadow cut several times a year to feed cattle. It was an ocean of green forage grass. No trees, no bushes, no flowers.

We planted our first trees in late 2016. Among them were a walnut tree, a pear tree, a few apple trees and two medlar trees. We put up a raised bed for herbs and over the past two years a number of bushes and flowering plants have been planted as well as black and red currants and gooseberries. We have come much nearer to something that can be labelled a garden.

Spring this year is giving our garden a hard time in a way. To begin with there was the „Beast from the East“, or as we called it here „March Winter“. It came with two bitterly cold snaps, and to make things worse, there was somethig like a week in-between with pretty mild temperatures. By the time the second Siberian snap hit, some plants had already switched into end-of-hibernation-mode. To make things even more challenging, shortly after the rather late winter frost there followed a period of summerly temperatures reaching up to 30 degrees in April. Add to this there was not much rain over the whole of April and we have had barely any rain in May so far. Instead, we are having blue sky, sunny days with an at times gusty wind and temperatures well over 20 degrees for weeks. There are a few newcomers in the garden planted only recently, which now need some shelter from the sun and the wind. The willow baskets I made last year during a workshop come in handy now.

Sheltered rose

We have had losses and near-losses. And a considerable number of plants can clearly be seen fighting through the challenging conditions. Some of the herbs, mainly thyme, which is very much to the liking of a great number of butterflies and bumblebees, have frozen back to almost nothing. They are still struggeling to recover, but, pretty surprisingly, it looks as if most of them would be back for their visitors in time. The two buckthorns went strong after the winter, but one of them went all floppy recently and needed to be watered. Of the two wild pear trees we have, whose home are the dry regions in Turkey and the Balkan peninsula, one suffered from the dry conditions and needed to be watered. The wild pears are, as is our common juniper, supposed to be drought tolerant. They both seem to be approaching their limits these days.

Somebody checking the cover of a new bed

All the new beds we laid seeds in need to be watered almost on a daily basis. Something that has been ongoing for several weeks by now. It means getting up at 6am and going out to water the beds and plants in need, as later on the sun will be shining from a spotless sky without mercy and the wind will take up speed over the day. When preparing the new bed for parsnip, beetroot and mangetout, we, again, unearthed bricks, roof tiles and beautiful broken floor or wall tiles, shards of glass panes and all sorts of rusty somethings.

Unearthed treasures

Oriental poppy

We have, well, I’d prefer to say: almost, lost one of our medlar trees to a hungry root vole. We realised the tree had stopped growing its leaves any further and took it out, finding there were not even traces of roots left. For whatever reason the vole managed to overcome the wire basket we had planted the tree into, to keep it safe from any root predators. We now try to nurture the medlar tree back to health in a pot placed in a shaded corner. Fingers crossed.

Young apples

Pumpkin

We are going for sweetcorn, broad beans, mangetouts and pumpkins again. And we are having a go at carrots, parsnip and beetroot this year around. It looks as if we were expecting a nice harvest of black and red currants and gooseberries. There is some hope for our first home grown apples and some pears. We might even have medlars again, the second tree has not been mauled by the root voles and there has been no disruptive late frost during bloom, but many bees and bumblebees busily pollinating.

Red gooseberries

Mangetout

The rhododendrons are in bloom now. We planted them last autumn. Even though they were exposed to the bitterly cold winds in March they are still going strong. But the continuing dry conditions are not quite to their liking.

Perennial flax

Chrysanthemum with rosechafer

The sunflowers are growing rapidly. The perennial flax and chrysanthemums are in bloom, as are the many varieties of sage. The lupines, that were lucky enough to not end up as dinner for the hare, are now showing off their whites and pinks and purples. And the poppies have opened their bespoke simple red flowers. There are so many more visitors then we had in our first summer. We have honey bees, solitary bees and bumblebees, all sorts of butterflies and moths, dragonflies, hover flies, black lice and lady birds, spiders and grasshoppers. The hornets have become regulars since last autumn, when they discovered that our mature ivy is a pretty good hunting ground. We do have beetles. Lots of, particularly cockchafers. This is no surprise knowing there are legions of their grubs in the soil of our garden.

The onions I put out last spring as a vague experiment to chase away root voles are now getting ready to push out their flowers. And, after all, we managed to give our bryonies their long time home. It is a raised bed of sorts and is secured against soil living rodents. The bryony instantly started to grow vigorously and is now in bloom already.

Bryony

As I write this, I have already spent over an hour with watering early in the morning. There are clouds in the sky but they do not carry the promise of rain. The swallows and house martins are feasting out there. The sparrows are chatting happily, they have discovered our huge compost heap only recently. And the wee blue tits, who readily moved in at the nest box we had put up in late winter, are bringing in eagerly caterpillars of all colours to feed their chirping young.

Scarlet lily beetle on imperial fritillary

Time is flying, even though winter has been clinging on for quite a while this time around. We have seen snow in February.

And even before the snow came there were birds coming to our feeders. They did not do so during the previous winter. But they seem to have developed some sort of liking for our young garden. We have great and blue tits visiting, a pair of wrens, a pair of chaffinches has started coming only recently. There is a robin, and blackbirds. And the cheeky magpies are clearing the crumbs off the ground. Even some crows come for the larger bits that dropped off the hanging feeders.

We did not cut the sunflowers in autumn, but left them for the birds to feed from instead.

Can you spot the onions? I was eager to find some winter onions to put in the beed . Not only did I have an early harvest in mind. But I’m still  trying to keep the root voles at a good distance. Some say the scent of onions and leeks is not to their liking. Others say the voles don’t really care.

The old oaks along the small street are utterly unfazed by the snow. They are beautiful throughout all seasons.

And right over there, in the northwesterly corner of our garden our rhododendrons wait for spring to come. Their buds are large and strong and we hope for a colourful April and May bringing out whites and deep purple and golden yellows.

One of the rhododendrons got some special decoration: a black nightshade chose to grow over the strong branches. It still carries plenty of its berries.

We have had a sparrow hawk visiting our patio. Casually sitting on the rim of one of the plant pots trying not to look to where the feeders for the little birds are. We have put up the nesting boxes regardless.

This is what the daffodils looked like in mid February. The cold has been following us far into March. Two periods with bitterly cold air from the east swept over the garden – one almost a week long the second one slightly shorter. I had wrapped up many a plant pot and some of the herbs. But the rosemary bushes still suffered and will need to be cut back. During a short slightly warmer spell in March we managed to plant a few ferns as companions for the rhododendrons.

Elsewhere people have put in a lot of effort to beautifully lay a hedge. We saw this along a road in Oxfordshire, some miles north of Burford, after staying on a few days following the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair in late March.

As I write this the sun is out again after a little bit of early spring rain. I have started digging out new beds for new flowers in our meadow. There are many lovely seeds that want to be given a space that suits them. There will be a wealth of flowers for bees and birds and butterflies – wind and weather permitting.

January full moon

November morning

The days have become short and the trees are balding. Some mornings come with a hundred shades of grey and silver while dense fog flows like a giant’s veil over the barren fields. Summer has gone, winter is not yet here. A few of the many cranes have not departed so far.

The untimely frost in late spring did not allow us to have apples or medlars. But we did get a wealth of pumpkins instead. We had beans and mangetouts and many a cob of maize. We had small forests of sunflowers. The place got invaded by butterflies, bumble bees and lady birds.

We had a stoat visiting in early spring. We had hares boxing in dusk. And we had three little ones in September at the foot of one of our apple trees.

Young hares

Where the beans and maize were grow winter onions now. Many of the sunflowers are still standing. The birds were quick in finding them devouring their seeds.

Bird feeder

October sunflowers

And there are still flowers – even in mid-November. The nasturtiums shine in bright yellow and orange and a beautiful brown-burgundy.

November orange

The white dead-nettles are still in full bloom. They are the first to go ahead in late winter feeding the early bumble bees. They still fed those large bumble bees when we were working outside in early November. There is a second generation of borage flowering right now. And we had butterflies baking in the autumn sun in late October. A large oriental poppy braved the autumn storms.

Oktober poppy

Hops

Our garden has changed. Some of the changes result from the change of season, some have come about through us working. It took us almost four days to get all the shrubs planted that will grow into our hedgerow over the next couple of years. Most of the time we had to spend on clearing the strech from weeds, mainly quitch. The long striped roots in some places looked like a pack of spaghetti. There is sea buckthorn now, and broom, juniper and cherry laurel, elder and a young birch tree. All of them with their roots neatly safeguarded by wire baskets to prevent the root voles raiding the newly planted.

As I write this we have not had frost yet. It is mid-November and it was a day of heavy showers and strong blustery winds. However, there was the odd sunny spell. The oak trees have not yet lost all their leaves. Some mornings the dew looked as if it was white frost. It was not, but it might well be any time soon.