Wordless Wednesday : Pine

I've never participated in Wordless Wednesday before. But this one seemed worth it. Taken in the pinewoods at Eraclea Mare. Click on it to enlarge it.

Death of a Squirrel

We were back in Eraclea Mare on holiday this year, and one of the things I noticed was the exponential growth in the number of squirrels around. I posted two years ago about the little brown one I'd seen in the trees a couple of times, but last year I'd seen none. Then this year they were everywhere. The hotel owner confirmed that he too had never seen so many around.

And interestingly, it wasn't just the little brown ones. If you go back to the post of two years ago, you'll see that I said that the "red" squirrels we'd seen at Eraclea were brown with a white belly. And they get darker as you get further south. They're all the same species but three different subspecies - Sciurus vulgaris fuscoater (which I think were the ones we saw) in the north; S.v italicus which are found in central Italy and S.v meridionalis, the black ones in the south.




But even within the subspecies there is a lot of variation of coat colour, and unlike before, this year there were both browns and reds all over the place.

When we're on holiday, my son and I play tennis every evening. Don't ask who wins, because I'm not going to go into that ... But anyway, at the end of the court, there's a hazelnut tree. And every time we played, the game was interrupted three or four times by a cry of Squirrel on court! by whoever was facing towards the tree. They'd run down the side of the court, zap up the tree, grab a nut, and then run back straight down the centre line.




We called them Brownie and Ginger, presuming it was the same pair each time - though who knows. And there were evenings when more squirrel photographing was done than tennis. But then, at my age, any excuse for a pause in a game is a good one...

They were one of the highlights of the holiday. And a very positive sign, as most reports say that the red squirrels in Italy are being threatened by the advance of the greys in the same way as happened in Britain. Nice to know that in one area at least, numbers are increasing.



The last day of the holidays came, we checked out of the hotel and walked up to the bus stop where we'd get the bus back to Venice in order to pick up our train. When we got there, I realised I'd made a mistake. I'd looked at the summer timetable, not realising that it had changed the day before we left, and the bus we thought we were going to catch was no longer running. We had about forty minutes to wait, so as we sat there we started playing I Spy to while away the time.

I'd just said R-S- (thinking Road Sign) when Anthony said Red Squirrel. And sure enough, there was a red squirrel rushing down a tree on one side of the road, scampering across and whizzing up a tree on the other side.

We watched him for a while, and then went on playing - until Anthony suddenly said RRS - Radioactive Red Squirrel. Even I didn't realise what had happened for a moment. The squirrel was in the middle of the road, lying on its back and twisting and squirming horrendously. For a couple of seconds I thought it was trying to rub its back against the asphalt - but then it was obvious - it had been hit by a car.

We hadn't seen the car - but the occasional car had passed and we hadn't really been looking. I would like to think that the driver hadn't seen the squirrel and hadn't realised what had happened. But I wonder ...

I ran over. The squirrel was in the middle of the road and if I'd left him there he'd have been squashed by the next car that passed. Perhaps it would have been the kindest thing, but I couldn't do it. I picked him up - gingerly, and holding firmly to the scruff of his neck with one hand, so he couldn't turn and bite.

But he wasn't even thinking of defending himself. He just lay cupped in my hands, not even seeming scared. He was a young male, and had the softest fur I've ever felt on any animal.

It was clear that he was paralysed from about half way down his spine, and I wanted to put him out of his misery. I put my fingers around his neck to try to break it. You'd think it would be easy, but believe me, it's not. His neck was so unexpectedly thick and solid that I was terrified of just torturing him further, and couldn't do it.

By now he could hardly move at all. He could still slightly wave his front paws, but the frantic twisting that we'd seen when he was in the road had gone. I laid him down in the shade of a tree, where he just lay still, his eyes slightly glazed over. But every few minutes he would suddenly draw in a deep breath and then let out a whimper which rent my heart.

Twenty minutes later, he was dead. I don't know how much he suffered. The paralysis, which seemed to have been progressive, should have meant that there was no pain. I hope so.

But I was numb all the way back to Milan. It wasn't just for his death - these things happen. But I have never felt so powerless, so out of control. We were in a tiny village where there was no vet. Even if I'd known where the nearest one was, we had no car to get there - and anyway, it was likely that I didn't have the time to do anything. I knew that I should have broken his neck there and then but couldn't do it. I felt so guilty.

I don't want it ever to happen again. I've even used Google to try and find out how to break an animal's neck, so I'll be prepared if it ever happens again. But I couldn't find anything that helped.

Sleep well, little squirrel. I hope by now you're scampering around in a heaven full of hazelnut trees, and have forgotten that last half hour. But I won't - ever.

How do you water your plants when you're on holiday?

If you garden on a balcony where the rain never reaches, going on holiday means you have to find some way of getting water to the plants when you're gone. There are lots of possibilities - get a plant sitter, buy those special gels that dissolve into the soil providing moisture, get an automatic watering system - but they've all got disadvantages.

Plant sitters first of all. Unless they're really gardeners, they tend to overwater - so you come back to drowned plants sitting in saucers of water. I know - I've tried that one. And unless they're friends or relatives who you can do the same for while they're away, you have to pay them. And that can work out expensive.

So do the gels. They work - I've used them in the past. But at €3 a tub, they're really only an option if you have the odd houseplant. I worked out that I'd need seventy of them to do the whole balcony...

Then there are those systems where you have a water container with capillary matting or tubes running into the pots. Again, less feasible if you have a lot of plants spread out over three long balconies as I do.

Then this year I found these. Ceramic spikes that fit into an ordinary mineral water bottle. Turn them upside down and the water slowly permeates through. I bought a couple, and they do work - on my "test run" I gave the plants no other water for ten days, with temperatures between 25-30°C (77-86°F) each day. They were fine, and the bottle was still a third full at the end. So they could easily have gone on for a fortnight.

But again they're hideously expensive - €7 for two, and I needed seventy. So I tried Amazon and found something similar (though not quite so classy). Plastic spikes that release the water drip by drip.

They're still not giving them away. But unlike the gels, you've only got to buy them once, and can reuse them again and again. Which means that the initial outlay is a bit less painful to contemplate.

The only real disadvantage if you want to use them in quantity, is that you have to save and store bottles for months before you leave. We were getting to the point that every time you opened a cupboard a score of plastic bottles would fall out...

When I went on holiday, the balcony looked as if I was running a bottle farm. But who cares - I wasn't there to look at it.

If you want to try them...

The Tree of Heaven ... or Hell?

I love this tree, particularly at this time of year when the red seed pods glow against the green of the leaves. This one is growing on the canal close to home. But wherever you are in this area you don't have to look far to find it. Usually though it looks like this...



It is one of the most invasive plants I know of. It seeds itself everywhere - including in the containers on the balcony. I pull out two or three every year. And as soon as a piece of ground is left undisturbed for aseason, up pop swathes of the young trees. Our local railway line is lines with them on both sides of the track, not a centimetre of space between them.
What are they? Ailanthus altissima, also known as Swingle or the Tree of Heaven - a reference to its height, which can reach 25m. But for anyone trying to keep it from taking over their land, a more appropriate name would probably be the Tree of Hell.

Other plants must think so too. They don't have a chance - it not only reproduces so rapidly because of the huge numbers of seeds produced, but also because it produces a chemical which inhibits the growth of other plants (1). Some trees just don't play fair.




If you've been looking at the photos and thinking But isn't that some sort of sumac? No, it isn't. Whilst the leaves look very similar, they are actually two different species. Not sure what you've got? Well, they say that if you break of a leaf of ailanthus, it smells bad. I tried it this morning ...

The leaf I picked came from this one. Last year as I was hoicking the self-sown seedlings out, I took pity on him and potted him up. He's been attacked by something in the past couple of weeks (a fungus??) and I've had to pull various of the leaves off, so while I was at it I had a quick sniff.

I couldn't smell anything, but then it's common knowledge that when the sense of smell was being given out, I was standing way out of line...

Introduced into Italy in 1760, as an ornamental plant, Ailanthus has now largely taken over in many areas. A report produced by the Italian Ministry of the Environment together with various other institutions (2) gives a detailed description of ten of the most invasive plants in the country. Of those ten, Ailanthus altissima is the only one shown as present in every single region in Italy.

And it's not just in Italy. It's become a pest throughout much of Europe. When I was in London this summer I noticed them growing in the park at the back of the house - somewhere I'd never noticed them before. They weren't very tall, but they were maturing fast. Once they start to seed, there'll be no stopping them.

And they're right behind the garden.

References

1. Ailanthus altissima - Wikipedia
2. Plant Invasion in Italy - An overview

A Matter of Space

Earlier in the year I blogged about how much difference it had made to my wallflower seedlings whether I'd kept them growing in small pots or had planted them straight into their final containers. You can see what happened here, but basically the seedlings in small pots, with restricted space for their roots grew much better.

But there's an irony here - because potting seedlings in this way may mean less space for them - but having a multitude of individual pots lined up takes up far more space on the balcony. And when you're balcony gardening, space is at a premium.

So when my next batch of seedlings was ready to be pricked out, I hit on an alternative.

Some of them went into small pots, but then those pots went into a larger container and the spaces between then were filled with soil. And more seedlings went into the spaces, their growing room equally restricted by the walls of the pots around them.

It's worked a treat. If anything, some of the seedlings in the spaces between the pots have done even better than those in them.

Soon I'll be moving them to their final containers. But even here there's an advantage. The seedlings in the spaces won't have to be moved at all. I shall simply take out the pots and leave them where they are. So no disturbance to the roots at all. And where the pots have been taken away, I'll have neat "pot-sized" holes, where I can pop in other plants to add variety - again meaning minimum root disturbance.

It's been an experiment that really paid off, and one that I'll certainly be repeating in future.

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.