Category Archives: attracting birds

attracting birds, bulbs, months 01-03: winter

Snowdrops – January Gems

02/16/2012 svseekins 13 Comments

The first year at Richmond House I was ecstatic to see snowdrops blooming on January 11. Months earlier I’d planted some & the early pay off was thrilling. Happily more were proving that they’d previously been naturalizing around the yard.

The following year, having a better idea of where to seek out the delightful little blossoms: January 1 – discovery!

Another winter it was December 27.

But this year, even searching vigilantly through the Christmas & New Year holidays, it took until January 11 for my first snowdrop encounter.

With West Coast’s winter being dull and drizzly, a promise of the spring to come is like a ray of sunshine. So even though white flowers are not usually near the top of my list, I celebrate January snowdrops.

These plants are treasures. When hit with snow for a few days in the middle of the month they barely twitched. If anything, by the time I went back outside, more were blooming! In the cool days of our winter snowdrop blooms last for weeks & weeks – well through February.

I like to get down close to the earth & take a close look at them. It’s fun to discover the little green tatoo on each petal. And who knew there were so many varieties?

Clusters in my garden haven’t yet become abundant enough to divide, but now is the time to do it. Usually the recommendation is to wait until a plant is in dormancy before moving it. With snowdrops that rule doesn’t hold true apparently. That’s pretty handy, because once they die back I can never really remember where they are.

I’ve used this time of year to shift snowdrops into different locations, as it was a mistake for me to attempt growing them in a spring-flowering meadow. Although they bloom before the grasses start to grow, their leaves are still busy storing up for next year’s flowers when C has the uncontrollable urge to dust off lawn mower in late February. Zip, there goes the meadow.

Shorter bulbs, like crocus, might stand half a chance in our lawn, but not snowdrops – – nor daffodils. Those are best left to naturalize in our beds & borders.

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© copyright 2012 SVSeekins

attracting birds, months 10-12: fall, projects

The Dandelion Dilemma

01/04/2012 svseekins 16 Comments

In my mind dandelions have pretty yellow flowers. They’re deer resistant. Long blooming. Survive drought & famine. They’re tasty as salad greens. And even make wine.

To C, that’s just not enough.

C carries a big grudge against dandelions. He harbors dark thoughts & plots their demise. He’s carried bucket loads away from the lawn after battle. But still he lives in fear that the common dandelion will win the war.

This fall I initiated a new plan.

After having some success during wet seasons past, I decided to have another go at digging the dandelions out – and this time replacing them with crocus.

Fall is the proper time to plant bulbs. Considering I’ve dug the hole to get the dandelion out, I might as well take advantage of the effort, right?

My good friend AT planted the idea in my mind years ago. When she was very young, her dad had employed the same reasoning in his yard: replace dandelions with crocus. I’ve never seen that lawn, but in my imagination it is wonderful.

The crocus of choice promises to grow no higher than 4 inches tall. They bloom in mid February. Even if they’re still blooming when C brings out the lawnmower, they should be safely below the blade. Cross my fingers.

After some rain in the fall, most plants can be dug out quite easily. The soil is moist, and therefore softer, and easier to dig. Dandelions however, have multiple, deep, sometimes cork-screwing roots. If any section of root remains in the ground, it’ll happily renew itself.

planting crocus in lawn — photo by SVSeekins

For this project I chose the dandelion patch just outside the fence-line. It was especially resplendent in dandelion. It’s also a high visibility area that C is the most embarrassed about. I gave special attention to get as much root as possible.

Working an hour or two at a time, I slowly made progress. There was so much digging that the lawn looked pretty rough for the first while.

Well over 400 crocus bulbs were planted.

I’m hoping that by spring there will be a colorful blooming meadow.

So much of gardening doesn’t seem to be about having a green thumb. Having a strong back is certainly a plus. So is crossing fingers. Wish me luck. 🙂

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© SVSeekins and Garden Variety Life, 2012

snow crocus, woodland crocus, early crocus, summit park, crocus, garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

PS – here’s the follow-up post a year or so later:

Meadow Blooms 1 – Crocus

… and one from an established meadow

Summit Park Crocus Meadow

attracting birds, months 01-03: winter, months 10-12: fall, projects

For the Birds: Suet Logs

12/29/2011 svseekins 9 Comments

Quick link to Recipe
(thanks to DavidSuzuki.org)

Each December, the urge to CREATE sweeps into our home. C looks forward to taking a few days off before Christmas to play in Santa’s Workshop.

This year the project idea came from a store-bought gift we’d given C’s mum this summer. It was a bird feeder – a Suet Log to be more specific. It’s just like a tree branch with holes drilled & filled with a suet mixture. The birds, especially the woodpeckers, flocked to her 3rd-floor deck. They LOVED it

The fellow at the store said many birds find their food inside the bark of trees, so these feeders attracted more birds than those looking for seeds. Customers had reported over 110 different varieties of birds using this feeder.

C had to make some himself. His Santa’s Workshop project plan was in place early.

All summer & fall, we put commercial ‘bark butter’ into Mum’s feeder each time we were at her apartment. After a while, the cost added up, so I figured it was time to try making the birdfeed from scratch, too.

A year or so ago Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary gave me instructions for pine cone bird feeders. They were stuffing homemade bird suet into open pine cones. The idea intrigued me. I figured the fat should work just as well inside the drilled holes of C’s logs as it would inside the pine cones. Although I came across those instructions this summer & put them ‘somewhere safe,’ do you think I could find them now?

In the end, I found a recipe from Garden Wise magazine that would do the trick.

suet bird feed ingredients — photo by SVSeekins

Procuring most of the ingredients was straight forward. Peanut butter, dried fruit & breadcrumbs were already in the kitchen. I washed eggshells & stored them frozen until needed. The sunflower seed & millet was sourced in the bulk section at Buckerfields, a local feed store.

The rendered fat (suet) was a little tougher. I looked around for plain suet blocks that could be melted down & converted into this pliable recipe for the logs. Even on sale, these wouldn’t be cost-effective.

It turns out, suet is available from the butcher. I went to a butcher that specializes in British fare. The British use suet in spotted dick – a steamed pudding. Who knew?

Once I’d collected all of the ingredients for our bird suet, it didn’t take long to put it all together.