Baby Birds

I love this time of year as everything springs to life, this year blue tits have nested somewhere roundabouts and I can hear their calls all day. The chicks have now fledged but mum and dad are still feeding them away from the nest. Although there should be plenty of food about at this time of year in the form of bugs and caterpillars I still choose to feed the wild birds peanuts and seed regularly. Really it's more for the parent birds than the youngsters as all that flying about looking after chick really takes it's tole so they need a quick place for a easy meal.

The chicks have been out and about for nearly a week now so the parents have brought them to the feeders too. I always make sure there's water for them too. Baby blue tits once fledged are the same size as the parents but have a yellow face rather than white, mum and dad look rather bedraggled now as they put all their energy into their chicks.

This is mum/dad and baby, you can see the parent's looking a bit un-kept. 

Oh and here's a coal tit who prefers seed to peanuts, it's always good to have a variety of food out, the collared doves love seed too. 

If you do have a garden no matter how big or small buy one of these feeders for under £20 from B&M or The Range, once the birds get used to it it's lovely to watch, and you may even get a squirrel.

A Bit about House Plants

I haven't blogged for a while but I thought that letting you know I've done more weeding and trimmed the bushes every couple of days was a tad unnecessary. Everything is just growing nicely in the garden and we should soon have strawberries but I thought today I'd make a post about my house plant collection who all have names by the way.

Many house plants have lots of other uses other than just looking good or producing pretty flowers. The peace lily (spathiphyllum) of which I have 2 is probably the best well known for it's benefits, my fella has asthma and reading up on what can ease his condition I came across the peace lily. This plant this plant can improve air quality by removing airborn contaminants like mold, lots of people put them in bathrooms, I do have one in the bathroom and it thrives there, both lilys are small breeds I think they're easier to keep. They need watering on a regular basis and now and again a shop bought plant feed and they're happy as larry.

Of course some of my house plants bare fruit so it's easy to see the benefits of both my lemon and fig trees. These plants are indoors rather than out because the make great indoor plants where they thrive as long as they are fed, watered and not allowed to become pot bound.
Lemon trees in particular are very hungry so Mr Lemon gets a special citrus formula plant feed as well as sugar water occasionally to produce sweeter fruits.

Most of the plants I grow indoors are easy to care for and grow happily, however there's always one isn't there? When I was dating Ash he bought me a Orchid (Phalaenopsis) which was beautiful with dappled purple/pink flowers. This was 3 years ago, I've never see a flower on Florance since. She gets fed with special orchid drip feeds and orchid spray, her water can't come fresh out of the tap it needs to be left to stand for 24 hours, her roots can't be left to stand in  water, orchids must be free draining. I've changed the position of the plant several times, from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen. I think we may have something with bringing it to the kitchen though, as yo can see there are new green growths 5 in all sprouting from the bottom of the plant, these are new roots which could go into the soil or hang around in the air to catch moisture in the air.
The roots grow fast when they get going so fingers crossed I wanna see some flowers soon.  






I have 2 cacti which can be hard to keep, I'm no expert on cacti and bought Bob (the round spiky one) because it looked like a nice cactus, but I've had him about 5 years now so must be doing something right. My newest plant is the Easter Cactus Ellie, Easter/Christmas Cacti are so called because of the time of year they flower. The Easter/Christmas cacti is also good at air purifying and removing toxins from the air and of course they release oxygen into the air.

I have 10 house plants in total not including the veg plants and herbs I start off indoors many I've bought reduced and looking a little sgraggley from shops like B&Q and Aldi and nursed back to health, so you don't have to spend alot and you can give a unwanted plant a second chance.