Mad birds

I have been hiding inside today away from the gusty rain and have been sewing prototype decorations and presents. This year I have collected and dried lots of lavender, lemon verbena, rosemary and mint from the garden and some of this is going into a range of hand made scented bags and decorations which I can sell at Christmas.
My favourites so far are a series of mad looking birds made out of chintz with vintage button eyes and red wire legs.
Outside, our own mad chickens, are jumping wildly to get the grain that has grown up in the dahlia beds but being blown sideways off course and crashing into the flowers.

Bulbs arriving

I am so excited - the boxes of bulbs have started arriving, marking the end of the fresh flower season and the time to prepare for next year. Tulips can wait a while, but narcissi need to get into the soil as soon as possible. I don't grow many narcissi - large scale bulb growers harvest their narcissi flowers and sell them below cost, so people have become used to the idea that they should be cheap flowers. The two narcissi that I do grow are Narcissi Geranium - a scented tazzetta with an 8 day vase life and great resistance to bad weather - and Pheasant's Eye Narcissi - late blooming, pure white with an elegant deep orange trumpet.
So today I have been pulling out the spent sunflower haulms - some of the stems were 8 " across - beefing up the soil a bit with some horse manure - and then putting in the narcissi to line the main path. Mice and deer are meant to dislike narcissi bulbs as they are poisonous - perhaps a stout line of them at the edge of the raised beds will protect the tulips further back.