the Greenhouse comes into its own...

...preparing for the cold...

Citrus trees start to suffer when temperatures get below 5 degrees Celsius. Recently there were a couple of nights that were pretty close to the limit, so we decided, for caution's sake, to retire our citrus into the greenhouse: one clementine, two lemons and a lemon which has reverted to its scion and become an attractive Seville orange...

  
...are now safely housed in our new greenhouse will be put to the test for the first time this winter...

The citrus will be in the company of a gardenia, two plumbagos, a polygala, three amaryllis, a cactus, a recovering orchid and a small mandevilla, not to mention their permanent hosts: jasmine, a large mandevilla and a stephanotis...

The greenhouse has been fitted with a special red light to promote growth and warmth. We hope our tender plants will be cosy over the winter.

And we look forward to quiet winter days when we hope to sit inside enjoying the green and the - relative - warmth.

A Wood in Winter

A wood which has become the extension 

of a 
Chianti garden

Once the woods around here were cultivated for their various uses: brush for fires and ovens, wood for fuel, tools and farmwork and to make charcoal.

 Friends of ours near Panzano in Chianti have spent endless hours clearing the brush, brambles, stunted trees and bushes from the wood above their house.

Winter Trailer

Coming soon to our neighbourhood

December sunrise view

Coming Home

 Autumn Clearing

After some weeks' absence we return to a changed scene: although according to the calendar it is still strictly autumn, it is picturesque autumn no longer: rain, wind and lack of sunlight have drained the colour from the land. Nature is resting. 

the bronze and copper leaves of the hortensia quercifolia, a gift of autumn

Yet the garden is greener, bushier, leggier than when we left. And since our return the sun has been shining every day, which makes for tingling, beaming mornings in which to work outside.

Birdfeeders and Italian Birds

The Avian Learning Curve 

British blue tits, already wise to feeders

At Le Ripe we have always been keen to feed our birds. In winter, when it is frosty and cold, the small migratory birds which stop at Le Ripe, as well as those which are resident,  can generally be assured of a square meal each day.

Coming Home

 Back to Le Ripe in Winter

We have been absent, in the southern hemisphere, for some weeks. In the meantime winter has set in and changes have taken place.

The Birds are Back!

Coming for dinner, not coming 

as dinner

blue tit - cinciarella - Parus caeruleus

For two winters now we have mourned our little birds, the ones that in the winter of 2012 came so merrily to feed on our new bird tables.  

no takers?

We wondered where they had disappeared to: was it the unseasonally warm weather which kept them in more northern climes; was it the scoundrel cat which had discovered it could access the goodies on the bird-table by jumping from the old hay-cutter (goodies signified birds and bird-feed, two for the price of one jump)? 

Winter walks

Here and There 
at 
5 degrees Celsius and below

the view from halfway up our hill, looking east-south-east towards the Monti del Chianti

northeast towards Panzano from our hill

zooming in on Panzano, soft morning light

due north from the top of our hill towards Monte Bernardi, Piazza and Sicelle

river in the valley below Badiaccia Montemurro, near Radda

The Return of the Robin

Who killed Cock Robin?

     Who killed Cock Robin?
        I, said the Sparrow,
        with my bow and arrow,
        I killed Cock Robin.

        Who saw him die?
        I, said the Fly,
        with my little eye,
        I saw him die.

        Who caught his blood?
        I, said the Fish,
        with my little dish,
        I caught his blood.

        Who'll make the shroud?
        I, said the Beetle,
        with my thread and needle,
        I'll make the shroud.

        Who'll dig his grave?
        I, said the Owl,
        with my little trowel,
        I'll dig his grave.

        Who'll be the parson?
        I, said the Rook,
        with my little book,
        I'll be the parson.

        Who'll be the clerk?
        I, said the Lark,
        if it's not in the dark,
        I'll be the clerk.

        Who'll carry the link?
        I, said the Linnet,
        I'll fetch it in a minute,
        I'll carry the link.

        Who'll be chief mourner?
        I, said the Dove,
        I mourn for my love,
        I'll be chief mourner.

        Who'll carry the coffin?
        I, said the Kite,
        if it's not through the night,
        I'll carry the coffin.

        Who'll bear the pall?
        We, said the Wren,
        both the cock and the hen,
        We'll bear the pall.

        Who'll sing a psalm?
        I, said the Thrush,
        as she sat on a bush,
        I'll sing a psalm.

        Who'll toll the bell?
        I said the Bull,
        I am strong, I can pull,
        I'll toll the bell.

        All the birds of the air
        fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
        when they heard the bell toll
        for poor Cock Robin.
 

The first robin redbreast of the cold season appeared yesterday in our garden and the lines of this old rhyme came to mind. 

The Cold and the Wet

 The weather this winter

There are Heat Waves and there are Cold Spells but what do we call grey days of unremitting rain, and cold, blasting wind - Sodden Wuthers?

 

At least they afford time for writing.

 

Blackbird Days

I giorni della merla 

The days of the blackbird

the female blackbird is in fact brown

In Italy, 'blackbird days' are three days at the end of January and the beginning of February, reputed the coldest in the year. The popular belief is that if they are indeed very cold, spring will be early and warm; if they are mild, spring will be late and colder...This is a bit of country lore I have heard locally in Chianti too.

Various folktales are associated with the so-called days of the blackbird hen - merla being feminine, this is a female of the species. The simplest and most pleasing could be narrated just so:

In the beginning, all blackbirds were as white as snow and prided themselves on their plumage. One day in the cold heart of winter, a mother blackbird and her chicks sheltered in a chimney for three frozen nights. When they emerged on the first of February, they had turned as black as soot. From that day forward, all blackbirds were black.

(This works better in Italian where blackbirds are called merli, which has nothing to do with the Italian word for black..) 

a white blackbird: perhaps this one did not hide in the chimney

Winter Daybreak

Red sky in the morning

  

January 2014

These were the pre-dawn views southeast towards Radda at around 8 o'clock, taken a few days apart. 

No special effects in the camera-work, but plenty in the sky.

Winter Wood Work

 Wood Clearings

We have been absent on and off from Le Ripe for the past two months but Paolo and his helper have been hard at work, continuing to clear the northwestern section of the (extended) garden. Paolo likes to refer to this converted area as parco or parkland.

before - a wilderness

Winter Blooms

Hellebore - Helleborus Niger - Christmas Rose - Elleboro

and friends and relations

Christmas rose

Many years ago, walking in the hills above Griante, Lake Como, towards a small church with a view, San Martino, we happened upon an unforgettable scene: dozens and dozens of white hellebore growing in a dappled forest. They were so perfect, so abundant and thriving, it was a marvel. The sight is probably not mentioned in the guides because our walk took place at the end of winter, an unusual time for a hike in the hills. I now know that the hellebore were the well-loved Helleborus niger.

The middle to end of winter is when hellebore appears in the woods: first the dark green pointy leaves bursting up from the ground in a bush, then the ranuncula-like open-faced flowers which are white in this case, although many varieties and hybrids are cultivated nowadays and along with the glorious Amaryllis lily, seem to be the flower of the decade. 

from white to darkest purple

At Le Ripe we are lucky to have two varieties, though not the niger. Spread around our lime-rich woods in pleasing clusters, is the less appealing but still striking Helleborus foetidus, otherwise known as bearsfoot, dungwort and stinking hellebore, which has green, cup-like, drooping blooms edged with purplish red. It turns out not to be stinking at all. Research for this post has led to the satisfying discovery that this native, abundant 'stinking hellebore' is graced with the 'award of garden merit' by the Royal Horticultural Society. So there. 

our very own foetidus - such a shame, the name!

Spring signs

Yes!

Snowdrops!

Galanthus Nivalis

Bucaneve

literally the first buds

Galanthus Nivalis flowers in winter but it presages the end of that season. It has three other appealing characteristics: it will poke up undeterred through snow, it spreads over time creating carpets of nodding white flowers, and perhaps best of all: the deer do not like it. I am not sure it is native here but even if not, it seems to be naturalising.

The common name snowdrop first appeared in the 1633 edition of John Gerard's Great Herbal. Other British traditional names include February fairmaids, dingle-dangle, Candlemas bells, Mary's tapers and, in parts of Yorkshire, snow piercers like the French perce-neige or Italian bucaneve.  Adapted from Wikipedia.

 

many clusters are now springing up and spreading

Feeding time in the orchard

Feeding the Trees

This is the time when you must feed the trees, before the growing season starts again. Last year and this I have supplemented my organic feed (compost and manure) with something stronger, called simply 'Gold' here. 

"Complete feed in every granule" so they say. It seems to work well.

Our fruit trees were sorely in need of extra help because our soil is stony and poor, winters harsh and summers hot. 

I feel like Florence Nightingale, wandering around the wards, offering succour to my ailing charges.

Now I trust their roots will stir and strengthen as they benefit from this extra care. Actually, the trees look happier already!

The next treatment will be copper sulphate and lime (bordeaux mixture) which I will spray on them, to ward off weevils, bugs and parasites.

early morning light

 

Responding to Explicit's comment below, (re bordeaux paste painted with a brush onto just the trunk of the fruit tree...): an excellent idea but what about the airborne bugs? In any case Explicit has kindly sent a photograph of this rather striking experiment. The trees are daubed in woad, like the Picts of old, ready to face Caesar and all other invaders. This reminds me of the much-beloved nectarine tree in Panzano which for a large part of the year is a glorious bright blue...

going native

Snow

Horizontal Snow

8am                                                                                                          10am

The snow is falling, or rather flying by, since the wind is carrying it horizontally. It must be rather wet as not much is sticking. But that always reminds me of the priceless moment in Fellini's Amarcord when someone says "It won't stick", "Non attacca mica" and the next day people are walking through tall walls of frozen snow...Have a look here where you can also watch the touching scene with the peacock:

Amarcord 'nevone' scene

They say that it will be raining by the afternoon, so I thought to record what we hope is a fleeting, sleeting snowstorm. Shall keep you posted....

1300: It is now raining heavily. No risk of an Amarcord scenario...

Primulas

Primula or Polyanthus,
Primula Hortensis,
Primula!

Your native cousins primula vulgaris or primroses will be appearing before too long beside the streams and in the woods at Le Ripe, but I am impatient and couldn't resist your splash of cheering colour on a winter's day.

Birds in Winter

a bird ballet

starling (sturnus vulgaris) planning today's choreography

Two winters ago I was in the parking lot in Greve in Chianti towards dusk. A loud chirping and rush of wings made me look up at the darkening sky. Thousands of birds were streaming and wheeling above me, calling and settling on surrounding trees then rising again. I stood there fascinated, surprised that no one else seemed to bother with this scene. On asking a passerby what the birds were I was told "storni" which is starlings.Of course the locals see the birds every year, they are commonplace, like pigeons in the city. Still.

Just yesterday I was working near our vegie patch when a very sudden and loud gushing, whooshing noise from a little higher up the hill startled me. My first thought was of a mass of water released from a dam or pool. Of course we have no such thing, but that was precisely what it sounded like.

Seconds later a host of starlings rose into the air from behind a stand of trees. There must have been hundreds. As they wheeled and turned in the sky their wings whirred and almost sang.

Just today on the Italian paper il Corriere della Sera, this film was published, which I have tracked to YouTube. It doesn't reproduce the sounds I heard but it does record the extraordinary annual dance of the starlings. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV9wOTqOQw0
 
Here is a reference from the International Business Times 
which explains more ... 

"...breathtaking phenomenon called murmurations. This is when a huge flock of birds that are in migration form a magical shape-shifting flight pattern in the sky. The birds tend to flock together for protection and can reach speeds of up to 20 mph/32kph...Scientists aren't sure how the starlings do their complex dance...the birds have a quicksilver reaction time of under 100 milliseconds, which prevents them from colliding with each other in the air."

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/starling-flock/ 

This is another clip which apparently has gone 'viral'; it includes some scientific explanations of the starlings' startling steering abilities.

Here instead is a curiosity regarding one starling and Mozart. It appears that the birds are excellent mimics: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart%27s_starling

 Here, in 2015, a starling murmuration in the Middle East

Aconites

First signs?

winter aconite - eranthus hyemalis - pie' di gallina

Is it too soon to hope? The winter aconites would seem to say no. The weather has been sunny and mild, yet it is only the end of January....According to my (extensive) records, they usually appear in February, so are indeed a little early this year. Delightful, bright blooms to cheer us in the latter half of winter. The Italian name means hen's foot: quite descriptive really.