Another hibernator.

Another interesting creature, which, like the newt, is also in its Winter hibernation, and which we occasionally come across, is the Common toad. It likes to sleep by day and hunt for its food at night. We sometimes find one hiding in the outhouse behind a pile of terracotta pots or stones. They like dark places.

When we go out to work in the garden, we often sit down at the back door to pull on our wellies, leaving our slippers on the step. One day one of our sons had an exciting surprise at the end of the day, when he went to put on his slippers, for there, hiding in the toe, was a toad.

They are darker in colour than frogs, more brown than green, and have blunter faces and fatter bodies. Their skin, which is dry and warty-looking, is shed several times each Summer. They scrape off the old ones and eat them.

In Spring, the toads can travel for up to ten days to reach their breeding ponds. They mate like frogs, but lay their eggs in ribbons about two metres long. We find evidence of these ribbons of each year though we haven’t actually seen toads mating, unlike their more gregarious and noisier cousins, the frogs.

A eureka moment.

Newts spend most of their life, not in water as you might expect, but on land. They prefer to hide by day and come out to feed at night. They look rather like lizards, but, unlike them, they have no scales. They are shy creatures by nature and not easily spotted, unless you know where to look.

We can't say exactly which year newts came to our ponds. The frogs with their spawn are easily seen and heard each Spring and cause no end of interest in our garden. But look though we might, we never actually saw any newts. We saw movement which might have been the flick of a tail, but nothing more definite than that. The underwater forest of pondweed was excellent cover.

However, one day, when our elder son was about to wipe his feet at the back door, he noticed something wedged between the rubber slats of the doormat. Thinking it might be a slug, he picked it up so as not to squash it with his feet. The excitement on his face, at being the first to discover we did indeed have newts in our ponds, was worth a camera shot of him holding the newt before he returned it to its hiding place.

Since then, we regularly see newts in Spring each year when they come to the ponds to breed. We also look for their eggs which they lay singly on the water plants. I have on several occasions come across one under a stone when I have been working in the garden. They always lie very still, as if playing possum, but a few moments later, they are gone.

My friend, the wind.

Gales and strong winds cause havoc in many places and this area is no exception. Greenhouses are smashed to smithereens, trees are knocked over like the pins in a bowling alley, and tall plants and flowers are decimated. In fact, anyone can tell the direction of the prevailing winds in this area by looking at the bent and bowed trees in our garden.

However, I regard the wind as my friend as well as my occasional enemy. By blowing seed from a variety of plants from one side of the garden to the other, it has given our cottage garden a more natural appearance. This is true of my annual seeds, which meander here and there giving a most pleasing effect.

Also, I have been able to double and treble the quantity of plants we have in the garden through self-sown seedlings on the gravel paths, having been carried there by the power of the wind. Many of the plants I pot up and give to friends are also from seedlings on the paths or between paving stones. So I've learned to appreciate the bounty from the wind.

From my childhood scrapbook.

Like little fallen drops of snow,
Fair maidens in my garden grow.

Because they are the first bulbs of the season to bloom in my garden, snowdrops are my favourite. They hold a special place in my heart for other reasons too. I like the idea of them surviving all the ravages of Winter’s mixed bag of rain, hail, sleet and snow, to push their way through the soil and make their journey into the world each year.

They seem to me to be quiet little flowers, not blowsy or garish like some of the other bulbs. And though they look dainty and fragile, they are very hardy little plants. The white heads have a virginal quality about them. I love the green frill on their dresses and the way they seem to dance in the breeze.

We have several varieties scattered around our garden, all growing in profuse little bunches. The first ones we were given by a friendly neighbour from her elderly aunt, who had gone blind, and wanted her bulbs to go to a good home. The others we have bought “growing in the green” from a local man who splits and divides them each year from his great harvest of snowdrops.

As I admire the snowdrops, my mind goes back to an afternoon in my childhood when my mum and I were looking through my scrapbook. I remember telling her that of all the Flower Fairy scraps I had, the Snowdrop Fairy was my favourite. This gave her an idea.

Equipped with white and green crepe paper, scissors, pins, two sewing needles with white and green threads, I watched in the mirror as she cut and pinned and sewed me a costume which transformed me, as if by magic, into a Snowdrop Fairy. Later that evening I won the Prize for Originality at my Brownie Hallowe’en party.

Heralds of Spring.

Walking around the garden this morning, after having had a week of heavy frosts, and torrential gales last night, I see evidence of the first signs of Spring in the abundance of bulb shoots pushing their way through the soil. I always feel it's a bit like meeting old friends again, in that, like your best friends, they stay with you throughout your life. Year after year they are faithful in appearing once more in all their glory. Each one is a joy, each heralding the coming Spring.

We have many varieties of snowdrops, aconites, grape hyacinths, crocuses, cammassias, alliums, anemones, daffodils and tulips to greet us on our daily walks, from January all the way through till June. Many of the bulbs were bought from catalogues or Garden Centres over the years. Others were given to us as presents, which makes them doubly precious, as they are forever associated with their giver.

Our aconites come into this category. When we first came here sixteen years ago, and went to the local church, a dear lady, an octogenarian by then, baked us a loaf of bread to welcome us, the newest family, to the village. As our friendship grew we realised we both shared a passion for our gardens. We exchanged many seeds and cuttings over the years and enjoyed walking in each other's garden.

The best present we received from her, however, were five little aconites, which by last Spring had multiplied to a grand total of thirty. My friend passed away two years ago, but each Spring when I see her aconites, I remember our friendship and feel we are saying hello to each other once more.

A Garden For Sharing.

Any garden is best appreciated when shared with family and friends, and passing strangers, and ours is no exception. Mostly, I want those who come to visit our garden to have a complete sensory experience, and to take home with them a sense of the garden being in harmony with nature.

Obviously there is something of interest to see every month of the year. In high Summer, the spectrum of colour is at its highest because it's mainly a cottage garden with an abundance of cultivated and wild flowers, each a delight for the eyes.

As well as a variety of birdsong, the garden buzzes with bees, hoverflies and wasps. At particular times we also have frogs chorusing, which is a bit like the sound of distant motorbikes. Most evenings throughout the year a large number of sparrows roost in the ivy-clad walls of Little Dublin and chirrup amongst themselves. We also have martins and swallows who nest on the eaves of the house and in the barn, and their song can be heard throughout the Summer months.

Throughout the garden I have strategically placed herbs so that their different aromas can be experienced by visitors as they brush past them. Thymes, eau de cologne mint, oregano, lemon verbena and fennel are a few of these. Some of the flowers with strong perfumes are roses, lupins, peonies, and day-lilies. On an evening walk, the air is perfumed by the strong scent of nicotiana, oriental lilies and the heady aroma of honeysuckle.

In the herb bed I encourage everyone to "taste and try" by rubbing a leaf from a herb and eating it if so desired. When in season we share our strawberry harvest too, and we often drink refreshing mint tea on hot Summer days.

Finally, no one goes away empty-handed. I pot up many of my plants from seeds, cuttings and seedlings each year so that I am able to share my bounty with anyone who has space to use it. I also gather seeds in late Summer and early Autumn and share these with family and friends too.

Paradise Gardens-the perfect retreat

To find Jaffa and Monster and Baby so sweet,

Home to the hedgehog, frog, toad and newt,

Peacock, red admiral and tortoiseshell cute,

Poppy, corncockle, and marigold too,

Daisy, anjelica and harebell blue,

And where can your eyes this treasure behold?

Why, at Barleycorn-

The rainbow's pot of gold!

Populus candicans

Two of the most striking trees we have in our garden are poplars, "populus candicans" to be precise. In Spring their leaves start out a shade of pale lime-green combined with a shade of pink and with pale cream edges. As Summer wears on, the shade becomes more green, but still with the cream edge. The species is fairly common in the sense that most garden centres would have them for sale, and yet, everyone who visits our garden always asks the name of the tree.

The main reason we bought them, apart from their intrinsic beauty, is in the hope of finding the caterpillars of the puss moth. These are delightful creatures with pink faces, black eyes and lime-green bodies with black patterns on them. Most striking of all is that when disturbed, these little larvae extrude two red "tails", which are modified claspers. They are mainly found on willow and poplar trees and cause no end of fascination to children and adults alike.