Coypu

Now that the summer is showing signs of waning and the city is cooling down, I've been venturing out again occasionally for a walk. We were walking along the Martesana canal (1) last week, and talking about the ducks and moorhens, which seem to be more plentiful than usual this year, when someone said to us : Excuse me but do you know what that animal over there is?

Animal? On the Martesana? Apart from the occasional infestation of rats which the Council soon steps in to deal with, I've never seen any sign of wildlife on the canal. But yes, there they were - two little Coypu (2) happily going about their business on the far bank.

The coypu (Myocastor coypus)is widespread in Europe. A relative of the beaver, they're originally native to S. America, but are bred for their fur (and sometimes their meat, which is very low in cholesterol). Animals which have escaped from the fur farms have gradually colonised the continent. They are usually considered a pest - here in the north of Italy for the damage they do to the rice crops (Lombardy is the most important rice producing area in Europe) - but elsewhere for a range of reasons ranging from the destruction of other crops such as sugar beet, to the damage their burrow do to river banks, to the threat they pose to other species because of their impact on the environment (3).

But I'd never seen them, or even heard of them, in Milan. And I'd never noticed them on the Martesana before. True, I'd not been there very much for a couple of years - the canal path was closed while they built a new railway bridge for the high speed lines and, as always what was meant to take a matter of months went on .. and on... and on.

A quick bit of research on the net solved the mystery. It's all the fault of the recession.

When the recession hit, people stopped buying fur coats (at least one positive result, then). And rather than pay to have the animals put down, the fur farms often just released them. A few found their way to the Martesana and the population has been steadily increasing ever since.

And wow, has it been increasing. From nothing two years ago, the canal is now overrun by them. We didn't notice that day, but as I didn't have my camera with me (you never do when you want it, do you?) we went back the next day to try and get some pictures. Not that I had much hope - I was convinced that they'd have disappeared.

No way - as we walked down the canal, I estimate that we saw a pair every three or four hundred yards - and we walked for about two hours. I was amazed at just how quickly they'd established themselves.

So there you go - my London garden has its urban foxes, and here in Milan I've got coypu in the back yard. Almost like living in the country.

References

1. The Martesana Canal
2. Coypu
3. Global Invasive Species Database

Growing Avocados

This summer, I've been growing avocados. Not a great challenge - they're dead easy. The question is, whether they're worth it.

Avocados are a rain forest plant. They've evolved to survive as seedlings under a canopy of leaves which blocks out the light. How do they manage? By putting all their energy in to growing as tall as possible as quickly as possible to reach the light. Result - a tall, spindly plant with a long thin stem and a cluster of large leaves at the top. Not desperately attractive as a houseplant or balcony plant. I've had them before and, quite honestly, they ended up looking dreadful.

But I thought I'd see that I'd try again and see if I could keep them lower and bushier. How ? First of all by making sure they have plenty of light, so they don't feel the need to become ganglier than necessary. But I've started off two pots, and they're each going to get slightly different treatment.

Pot number one (top photo) contains seeds that were started off at different times - the tallest went in at the beginning of the summer, the last one yesterday. Starting from now with the two tallest, I shall pinch out the growing tips to encourage them to spread. And I shall start pinching when each one is slightly smaller than the one ahead of it. That way I'm hoping to get bushy growth at different levels - the lower ones masking the spindly trunks of those which are taller. Well, that's the theory...

Pot number two has three seeds. They've just gone in, and as they grow I shall braid the trunks just as you often see done with Ficus benjamin. I'm hoping they'll eventually fuse together (as Ficus benjamin does). But in any case, the effect should be less height (because each trunk has been wound around the others), an apparently thicker "single" central trunk, and a mass of leaves on top. Again, that's the theory. While I can find plenty of advice on growing avocados on the web, and also plenty of advice on braiding other trees, no-one seems to have thought of putting the two together. Or perhaps they have and it just doesn't work. We shall see ...

If you want to grow them, use a fresh seed - plant it almost as soon as you eat the fruit. Let the brown outer coat dry and peel it off. Then just pop the seed into some fertile soil, broad side down and with its nose just showing above the soil level. Keep the seeds moist (not soggy) and wait. Forget all that stuff about sticking toothpicks into them and suspending them over water - would you like toothpicks pushed into your tenderer parts? Just plant them in the pots and keep them warm - I've seen around 20°C (70°F) recommended, but mine have zoomed up this year in temps of around 27°-35°C (77°-90°F). They are rainforest plants, after all.

Then you need to be be patient. It will seem for the first month or so that nothing's happening. Not true - they're developing long thick roots. This is one that I pulled up yesterday because after waiting for weeks and just seeing it get drier and harder, I did decide it had died. But you can see that a long root had already formed before it gave up.

So wait. And then, sometime in the second month, you'll see that the top of the seed has split, and very soon the stem and the first leaves will be poking through. And growing at a rate of knots. Keep them moist (but again, never waterlogged) and feed regularly with a fertiliser containing balanced nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and also zinc.

Size can also be controlled by trimming the roots annually and keeping them in a small pot, but the size of the leaves means that they're not really suitable for bonsai treatment. Huge leaves on a tiny tree would just look daft. There are dwarf varieties, but I don't think you're likely to find them in your local supermarket.

Avocados are not hardy. Once the temperature drops below 7°C (45°F) they need to come inside - which may become a problem if they do get really big. Cold may also kill the seeds too, so don't store the fruit in the fridge before you plant.

But then, you wouldn't be silly enough to put fruit in the fridge and destroy all the vitamins anyway, would you? And avocado has lots - it contains vitamins A, some of the B group, C and E and is also full of minerals : it has three times more potassium than a banana, weight for weight, as well as calcium, iron, magnesium and phosphorus. And despite it's high fat content, it's mostly mono-unsaturated fats and is low in cholesterol. (1) What more do you want?

Sadly, though, the only avocados you get to eat as a result of growing them may be the ones you buy in order to get the seeds. Sources differ as to how long it takes a tree grown from seed to bear fruit - around ten years seems to be the average estimate (2), but some websites put it at as long as twenty. Don't think our local supermarket need feel too threatened ...

References

1. The California Avocado Commission
2. Flower and Garden Tips

Feeding the Foxes

I hadn't been home in London for ten minutes last month when one of the local foxes came to visit. I'd gone out to see how the garden was and we came face to face as I turned around the hebe bush. He ran off about twenty yards to the compost heap, and then looked back over his shoulder with a look that quite clearly said What are YOU doing in MY garden? before disappearing into the park behind the house.

He looked a bit scraggy, and so for the ten days that I was there I put some dog food out each evening at about the same time.

I've blogged before about whether it's a good idea to feed urban foxes, and I think if I was there permanently my answer would be no. Not regularly anyway. However, when I'm visiting I admit that I can't resist the temptation of watching them every evening.

Not that it's that easy to feed foxes. In fact, you have to be prepared for quite a challenge. The first bit's easy - you just wait till evening, plonk the food down and go inside to wait at the bedroom window, where you can see but not be seen, camera at the ready. And then the fun starts...

First you have to chase off all the neighbourhood cats and convince them that they really don't want to eat your scraps, or dog food, or whatever it is you've put out that evening, and that there's bound to be something much nicer waiting for them at home. By the time you've done that, you've run downstairs to the garden at least five times. But getting rid of them just means the coast is now clear for the heavy mob to move in...

And before long word has got round the whole neighbourhood that there's a party on. Gatecrashers arrive from all directions...

However, finally, the dog fox arrives. He eats precisely half of what's there and then leaves, peeing on your roses as he goes (gee thanks). Sainsbury's dog food not good enough for him?


No - he's just left half for the vixen, who arrives ten minutes later. How do I know it's not just the dog fox just come back? Look at the tails. And how do I know which is the dog fox and which the vixen? I told you - the dog fox pees on the roses...

And who's this? One of the young maybe? Seems in considerably better form than his father - look at that nice glossy coat. Though, in fact, all of them look much healthier than in previous years. Perhaps I'm not the only one in the neighbourhood who invests in Sainsbury's dog food when they haven't got a dog ...

It's been a long, hot summer...

It's been a long summer. July was unbearably hot and humid - well, unbearable for me anyway. I have naturally low blood pressure, and in the summer here it nose-dives to somewhere around my ankles. I just wilt. My husband, who has the opposite problem, suddenly perks up. Ah well, you can't please all of the people all of the time...

I finally managed to escape to England for a fortnight, hoping for a cooler climate and expecting to find the garden overgrown again.



But no. The heat they'd had there too meant that the grass had hardly grown and the weeds were nothing like when I'd gone back in April. There was still plenty to do - it took me a day's work to trim the hedge, and there's still borage to fight against - but even there I think I'm winning. Almost all of it seemed to be this year's growth, and relatively easy to pull up. Still the odd plant growing off long, thick taproots, but after two years fighting, I'm gradually getting somewhere. I've managed to stop it going to seed this year too, which will help - though I have few illusions. There must be enough seeds scattered around from past years to last for eternity. But all in all it wasn't bad. It's not going to make garden of the year, but neither does it look totally neglected any more. The hebe was wonderful - and, I'm pleased to say, full of butterflies - and the hydrangeas were as wonderful as ever.

Some of the things I'd planted last year and this spring were in bloom too - the lavender is doing really well, some of the nasturtium seeds I'd scattered had come up, and there were marigolds and petunias blooming their heads off all over the place. I even managed to harvest a handful of runner beans to bring back. Not bad for a garden left almost entirely to its own devices.

Back on the balcony in Milan though, its been a different story. Hardly anything seems to have done well this year, no matter how much tender loving care it's received. The pelargoniums ar fine - there's still been no sign of the Geranium Bronze Butterfly this year - and the plumbago has been pretty, but there have been years when we've had far more flowers and much larger blooms ....


And as for the rest... Even the Four o'clocks (Mirabilis Jalapa) have been sick and weedy, and they're usually a stalwart. I noticed something was wrong quite early on. I'd planted a lot of seeds, but very few came up - unusual for a plant which tends to be invasive. And those which did looked thin and weedy. And then, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that they'd been attacked by red spider mite - unheard of. If there's a plant which I've always said didn't succumb to pests, is was the Four o'clocks - the main reason I grow them is because they're still there when everything else has been killed off. They're currently still hanging on, but by now they should be in flower, and there's not so much as a bud.


The seeds I'd planted were some that I'd collected last summer. They came from vigorous, healthy plants and I was expecting a great display. It was a lemony-yellow variety which I'd never seen before, and very attractive - much more so that the pinky ones I've grown in the past. I didn't plant any of those this year, and now regret it - because the only plant I do have in flower is one which self-seeded from last year's plants. And yes, he's doing well - but looking a bit sad all on his own in his pot. Four o'clocks really need to be planted in clumps to be really impressive.

After the first week or so, August cooled down and most days we now have pleasantly warm temperatures in the mid-twenties, going up to twenty nine or thirty occasionally, but never over. Like the balcony, I'm slowly feeling less wilted and getting back to real life. And to work, and to blogging. I've just not had the energy for the last couple of months. I have gone on taking photos though, and if I can claw back enough enthusiasm to get them written, posts should be appearing regularly from now on. Fingers crossed ....

Heron

It has been so hot here. Daytime temperatures have been up in the high 30°s C (97°F+), with humidity at around 50% plus. One night at 3.30am when I couldn't sleep, I checked and the temperature in the house was 31°C (88°F) and the humidity had reached 86%. Plants have been wilting fast, and so have people. We daren't open the windows at night because of the mosquitoes (including tiger mosquitoes) and so fans and air-conditioning have placed such a strain on the electricity supply, that blackouts have been frequent.

The only time that it has been possible to consider doing anything active has been around dawn (anti-mosquito lotion having been applied.) So just as it got light one day last week, Anthony and I grabbed the bikes and headed for the Parco Nord.

We weren't the only ones with the same idea - joggers, dog-walkers and other cyclists were out in force, despite the time of day. But not enough to frighten off the wildlife, which was also taking advantage of the few hours respite from the heat. We headed for the ponds, where we saw moorhens, turtles, shoals of fish, swallows and this grey heron.

We got quite close, and he didn't seem too fazed. But then he must have decided that enough was enough, and took off ...

Lombardy has two types of heron - the large Grey Heron that we saw, and the Little Egret - a smaller type, completely white in colour. Both types are fairly common in Europe (as well as Africa and Asia), but because Lombardy is an important rice growing region (the largest in Europe), they are particularly common here. They hunt in shallow water and, whether near rivers, canals, ponds,or flooded rice fields, both types are fairly easy to spot wading through the water in search of the frogs and fish that are their main prey.

I don't think I've ever seen one quite so close up though.

Bees

I said in my last post that there didn't seem to be many butterflies around this year, either here in Milan or in my garden in London. Well, for bees Milan is just the same - I've not seen any this year. The hard winter again, or more problems of colony collapse disorder?

But when I was in London I was pleased to see that they were absolutely everywhere - and snapped away like crazy taking photos.

There were some honeybees (at least I think that's what this one is)...



But the vast majority were bumblebees. Which made me realise that I didn't really know very much about bees at all. How many types were there? What were the differences ? I knew that honeybees lived in colonies but that there were also solitary bees. What was the difference? How did you recognise them? And where do the bumblebees fit in? Were they social or solitary? And was CCD affecting all types of bees or just the honeybees?

So I did some research - and found some excellent websites, which are listed below. I'm not going to regurgitate it all, but I was surprised to find out that in the UK alone there are some 300 different species of bee - about 270 of which are solitary.

Solitary bees make a nest by burrowing into soil, soft brick or whatever. The female then gathers pollen and nectar, forms it into a patty, pops it into the far end of the burrow, lays a single egg on top and then seals that section of the burrow up before doing the same in the next bit - and so on up to the end. The very last egg is always male (bees have this strange ability to decide the sex of their children). The eggs hatch, and the larvae consume the food left for them and then pupate. The pupae all hatch at the same moment but the male, being closest to the exit, is the first to burrow his way out. He then waits for his sisters, mates with them, and the whle thing starts all over again. All a bit incestuous, but there you are.

So how do you identify a solitary bee? Well, by Googling them, obviously. I think this may be one ...

... and possibly this one too. Or is it just some sort of fly desperately trying to pretend he's terribly fierce?

Bombus bumblebees, on the other hand, are social and live in colonies. Unlike the honeybees, however, they don't store large quantities of food and all but the young already fertilised queens will die off in the winter. The queens hibernate and then in the spring secrete beeswax to form little cups which they fill with nectar and pollen, laying an egg in each one. As the new workers reach maturity, they start to collect food for the later-hatched larvae. But having only one season in which to form, the colonies remain quite small - whilst a honeybee colony may contain up to 70,000 individuals, bumblebee colonies rarely exceed about 300 and are often smaller.

But what I didn't realise was that there are nine species of Bombus bumblebee in the UK, some very common others quite rare. What were mine? To me, they all looked quite different. This one seemed to fit the description of the most common British type - the Buff-tailed Bumble bee. But the others? The colouring and stripes didn't sem to match. So I sent a few photos off to the Bumblebee Conservation trust (see below) for identification. Would I find that my garden was a home to rare bees?

Nah... the answer came back after a couple of days. All common as muck Buff Tailers.

Except for one. So far there has been no answer for the little one below who I found happily feeding off my borage. Could the delay be because I've discovered something rare? Doubt it. More likely that you just can't see enough from the photo to tell. My own suspicion is that this is not a Bombus bumblebee but a Psithyrus or cuckoo bumblebee - there are six species but don't ask me which this is. These are sneaky. They lay their eggs in the nests of the Bombus bumblebees and let them do all the work. You can tell the difference between the Bombus and Psithyrus bumblebees by looking at their legs. The cuckoos don't need to store food for their larvae and so don't have pollen sacs on their legs - sacs which you can see clearly in the photos of some of the Buff Tailers in the other photos, but which don't seem to be present here.



Will I be right? We'll see. If I get an answer I'll add it in the comment box below. But in case they don't get back to me - any bumblebee experts out there?

Read some more

Bumblebee Conservation Trust Bumblebee Identification
Natural History Museum Bumblebee Identification Guide
The British Bee Keepers Association : bees4kids - The Importance of Bees
Watanabe, M. Colony Collapse Disorder : Many Suspects, No Smoking Gun

Butterflies - the bad news, the good news

A whole post about butterflies and four photos without a butterfly in sight? Unfortunately, that's the point. I've hardly seen any this year.

Have you got butterflies in your gardens at the moment? When I was in London at the beginning of June I didn't see one, and here in Milan they are still very few and far between, despite the fact that there's plenty on the balcony to attract them. In the last week I've seen one or two fluttering around, but so far there's been no caterpillar damage at all - whereas by the beginning of June the hollyhock are usually lacy with holes and the caterpillarium is swarming with inhabitants munching their way through anything I've put in there.

Bad news. You may not like the caterpillars chomping at your prize flowers and veg, but they're an essential part of the ecosystem. Birds eat caterpillars, especially when they're raising their chicks, and the adult butterflies - apart from being a beautiful addition to the garden - are pollinators. Not the best maybe, but they play their part. No pollinators? No plants next year.

So why have they disappeared? I suspect it was the particularly hard winter we had. Here in Milan it went down to - 14°C one night. That's less than 7°F.

Butterflies either hibernate in the winter, or over-winter in chrysalis form. But I suspect that with temperatures that cold, a lot just didn't make it.

Which brings me to the good news. One type that I've not seen at all on the balcony this year is the dreaded Geranium Bronze Butterfly (Cacyreus Marshalli), which attacks both geraniums and pelargoniums and usually starts being a problem in May.

I'd decided not to bother with pelargoniums of any sort at all this year. Over the last couple of years I'd lost all those that I had to the GBB. It started slowly, with a couple being killed off each year, but then each year it got worse and worse, until not only had all the plants I'd had for years been destroyed but also any that I bought new would be dead within a couple of months. So no more, I said. The only way to solve the problem is not to buy them. And I didn't. Well, not for the house anyway. But for the office, I couldn't resist ...

And they're fine. No sign of public enemy number two (number one is red spider mite - and even that has not been quite so virulent as usual this year). They're thriving, keep bursting into flower and making me wish I'd bought more.

GBB is native of South Africa, so the idea that they couldn't survive the excessive cold does make sense. Hurray - perhaps that will check their advance through southern Europe a bit.

There is another possibility though. It could just be that they have hidden interests that entomologists have never suspected. And so they've all gone home to watch the football ...

Spiders

If you are an arachnophobe - that is, if you suffer from fear of spiders - DON'T SCROLL DOWN. There are photos that you might not like.

But then, I guess that the average gardener can't be too worried. You can't move a leaf without seeing them, especially at certain times of the year.

I have to say I love them. OK, place one of the really poisonous types on my hand and I might freeze. But for the danger, not because it's a spider. In our house, the yell,of "Call Mum - there's a spider in the bath" occurs frequently.

All right - you've been warned, and I hope there's enough text for the photos not to appear above the fold, so that anyone who hates them will have disappeared by now. But just in case we'll start with the least spidery.

What, I wondered when I was at home in England, were these little yellow balls sitting in my front garden hedge. To the naked eye they just looked like blobs. It wasn't difficult to guess though, and when I blew the photo up - baby spiders!

Whose babies, I wondered. I didn't notice any adult golden-black striped spiders in the garden, but I looked them up and Araneus diadematus seems to match. According to my book on British wildlife, it's supposed to be the most common British garden spider, so I'll go for that.

Not sure about this slightly out of focus but hugely pregnant lady. I know how she feels - I was once hugely pregnant in the June heat too. But haven't been able to identify her so far - ??



By far the most common type of spider in the garden seemed to be a small one with a green abdomen and dark legs. Possibly Araniella cucurbitina ?? But the legs seemed darker. They never stuck around long enough for me to take a photo. How many spiders are there in Britain, I wonder? Or in Italy ? I rarely seem to see them here in the city. And in the whole world?

The last type I saw was, potentially, much more scary. This is what my mother used to call a cob - though what the difference between cobs and spiders is (if there is any), I don't know. And I've not found a really similar picture. But she just sat there at the base of the compost heap while I rushed in to get my camera. So I doubt if she had any really evil intentions ...

Before and after - but mainly after

Oh, when you stop blogging for a while, how difficult it is to get started again. I had a good excuse in the beginning - I was too busy gardening. At the beginning of June I went back to London for a fortnight. I had a couple of days work to do there, but the rest of the time was dedicated to sorting the garden out. I had my laptop with me, but the long evenings were too tempting - it seemed better to be doing it than blogging about it.

But then I came back. Must get a post up. But somehow it didn't happen the first weekend, and then the following week got taken up with work. And the same the week after.

So there we are - four weeks without a post. Will I ever be able to hold my head up on the internet again without shame? Will I find myself drummed out of the ranks of garden bloggers? Maybe - but not having time to blog has also meant I've not had time to catch up with other people. And if it redeems me just a tiny bit, I have to say I've missed you all ...

One of the reasons I didn't blog in the early days I was in London was that I couldn't face another what-a-mess-my-garden-is post. It was, of course. The borage was thriving, the grass on the lawn was knee-high and goose grass was smothering everything. The roses had blackspot and if London snails were edible, I would have been able to open a restaurant.


But amongst all the weeds and chaos, there were also bright spots ...

I curse the pyracantha hedge every time I have to cut it. But I have to admit it's glorious at this time of year. It must be at least twenty years since I've been in London in June, and I'd forgotten ...


The front lawn had daisies - and do I mean daisies ... Shastas, I think.

The pansies which I'd planted last year were hanging on in there ...

The roses were trying hard ...


And there were several little geraniums scattered around...

The weigela was past its best but still splendid ...

And when I finally got the weeds out ...



...I found that three of the runner beans which I'd thrown in in April, had made it. I imagine the rest succumbed to the unusually severe temperatures which England suffered in early May. Will they survive the current exceptionally high temperatures (it's 31°C today, a friend tells me) with no-one there to water them?



That goes for all the other stuff I put in while I was there. It's not fair - England is just not supposed to have drought conditions in June ...



But maybe the stuff which has had time to get established will be OK. When I was there last year, I carefully replanted all the Michaelmas Daisies, Golden Rod and other self-seeded stuff in clumps. And in April I threw in a few seeds - such as the nasturtiums Briana sent me when Bilbo cam to stay. Once I'd got the weeds out, they seemed to be doing well.




The alyssum seeds which I'd scattered around had made it and were holding their own against the borage ...


And I found I was growing potatoes on the compost heap ...



And finally, my favourites - little clumps of campanula were bursting through everywhere .



I shall be back in a couple of weeks. Here's hoping that they all survive the heatwave ...