Bulbs and Dogs

A horrible, eyeball busting, nose aching, throat scorching cold complete with hacking cough. That's my weekend sorted then. So no gardening this week and I restricted myself to wandering into the garden between sneezes to check on the progress of various spring bulbs I had literally sprinkled around the garden in a mad rush sometime in autumn. This is a wonderful time of the year. The first, very first signs that the gardening year is about to kick into action. Not the sight of my first crocus at the end of the lawn - delightful as that radiant yellow is. No its the sudden sign of bulbs revealing where the heck I had planted them. My memory of last week is hazy at best so trying to remember where and what bulbs I planted last year is hopeless. So my spring planting scheme "planned" some months ago is a complete mystery and consequently a nice surprise when it reveals itself. What a joy then to see the green tips of these unknown bulbs (likely to be tulips - i remember ALOT of them) poking through the compost and bark mulch I had thrown everywhere in November,


What wasn't so nice was watching my two terriers deciding to wander over every part of the border and flowerbeds  of the garden (ignoring grass and stony areas - obviously) and over the very green  very new shoots of my bulbs. Peeing and crapping on everything they could find they stomped and did that strange scrapey dance with their back legs which I understand is a territory marking thing.


It is kind of obvious that two active dogs and a small garden wont mix. In my case it is 2 small dogs, a cat, the neighbours cat and 2 large foxes which live on the railway embankment nature reserve.The cats usually confine themselves to hissing at each other and stalking the resident squirrel. Later in the year they will scratch up my wild flower seedlings but this is not yet their time to be labelled as a "garden enemy ". Our cat also catches the rats around the compost bin - good and bring them into the house as trophies - not so good. So cats get a pass.


The dogs understandably are very curious each morning to see what the foxes have been up to. This takes the form of pissing on absolutely everything everywhere. It would appear vice versa in the evening with the foxes carefully crapping where the dogs have been, This is a battle for territorial supremacy in which the innocent victims are - at the moment - my spring bulbs.


I have a corner of the garden where I keep my supply of bamboo sticks of various lengths and pea sticks taken off the fruit trees. I have about 70 or 80- of these ready for deployment during spring and summer when everything start falling over. They are also useful at the first sign of hostilities between garden and dog. And they are now deployed punji stick style. All shoved into the flower beds at crazy angles designed to give errant dogs, foxes or cats a poke in the eye if they wander too near. I topped it off with a cats cradle of garden twine intended to be kind of a temporary fence to provide a warning to the two dogs that flowerbed are not an area for them. We will see if it works


Spending wise this week - managed to convince the other half to take me down to the garden centre in my invalided man flu ridden state. Vermiculite (for my seedlings and hanging baskets i plan this year) - some gravel and half price tomato feed. Noticed a few more plants there than last week - so the garden centre is beginning to ramp itself up . Loads of spring bulbs in floral pots for the grannies - yuk. Still a half price sale on shrubs - except the conifers. I have space for a sky rocket - but they are never on sale. We also bought a small ornamental "bronze" bid bath from B&Q on the way back from the garden centre (checking the last knockings of the January clearance sales)  for £20 which I thought was good considering the same one in the garden centre was priced at an inexplicable £39! Our local wild birds use any bird bath we provide and often,  but my latest DIY model using a large terracotta dish on an upturned flowerpot, was smashed by the foxes - twice. So this metal one from B&Q wont get smashed, is not too offensive looking and will be further enhanced by hiding it in with the longer ornamental grasses. I shall move it about to see where it looks best and where the birds will use it.


Now I have run out of tissues.