Another Dicentra near it was given to me by our postman, we used to swap plants when he delivered the post, such a shame when he retired, our new postman isn’t the least bit interested in gardening !

Iris japonica is such a gorgeous iris, but far smaller than I expected. Having seen photos of  it loads of times in books and magazines, I was expecting quite a large flower, but they are barely 2 inches across, still beautiful though with the most amazing markings.

Making a lovely backdrop to the bench in the pond area is the shrub Exochorda macrantha “The Bride”, this puts on a lovely display which lasts for about 1 month.

The Epimedium in the woodland walk which we have by the rhododendrons are almost finishing now, This lovely white one was new last year and is doing very well, it is E. grandiflorum ” White Queen “.

Another Epimedium is this sweet little pink and yellow one, I know I put a label near it but now it is nowhere to be seen, so I can’t tell you the name of this one I’m afraid.

Californian Irises are all so beautiful and seem to enjoy the shady conditions here along with the soil full of leaf mould.

There are so many lovely colours to choose from with delightful patterns, they remind me so much of the patterns on Paisley scarves.

Shining out of a very dark corner of the woodland is Viola cornuta, this seems very happy where it is so I think I will be taking lots of cuttings to spread it around.

My last narcissus to flower is the Pheasant’s eye narcissus and has the most wonderful perfume, it floats to you on the breeze and that is how I first came to know it. A few years ago we had a trip to a National Trust house in Cornwall, Lanhydrock House, it was one of the last trips we did with my mother before she died. We came upon a bank with thousands of these flowering, we could smell them long before we turned the corner and saw them. Havn’t quite got the same number here but the perfume is the same, brings back happy memories.

Paeonia mlokosewitschii is a plant that is so fleeting in flower that you must plan your holidays accordingly, it only lasts for a week or 10 days, so if you are away, you will miss it. It is so delicately beautiful while in flower, it is worth staying at home !

Polygonatum or Solomon’s Seal is making itself at home in all my shady borders, I will soon have to curb its enthusiasm before it takes over.

Cytisus or broom shouldn’t really be happy in my heavy clay soil but I mixed lots of grit with the soil before I planted it and put it on a slope so any rainwater drains away and so far, it looks perfectly happy, thank goodness.

Another Meconopsis, not from the Himalayas this time, not turquoise blue, but from Wales and yellow ! Meconopsis cambrica seeds very gently round my garden, other people pull it out in their hundreds as weeds. I think it goes mad in a much lighter soil than mine, but I keep sprinkling the seeds and each year one or two more plants appear, it is very welcome.

Lewisias, again, like very well drained soil, so mine are planted in an Alpine trough bought at the RHS garden Wisley. This is one of the cotyledon Hybrids and for about 10 yrs has been very happy where it is. The shells nearby were brought back from Sierra Leone last year to remind us of our time there.

Camassias are another plant that is beautiful but fleeting, so lovely when flowering but so soon over.

My first rose to flower started in April and is Annabelle, I think. It was here when we bought the house and so far I have moved it twice without it objecting. I think it will be staying put from now on.

I will finish with our English bluebells which have been fantastic this year. The colour seems much deeper, or is it that there are more and more each year, and the perfume, wow! When on my knees weeding among them, the perfume was delightful, so yes to Hyacinthoides non-scriptus and no to H. hispanica !!!

So many wonderful plants, it has taken me a long time learning which plants like the conditions in my garden, so many errors have been made,  but we all learn from our mistakes and eventually everything comes right, the plants look happy, this then makes us happy and we then go out and buy more plants, and so it goes on ! Are you like me, taking quite a long time to learn about all the different soil conditions in your garden or are you a natural gardener, getting it right first time for every plant ?!

To get to the woodland garden, you have to pass the pool garden, to one side. What a wonderful example of restrained chic, so elegant, so uncluttered and with such precision cutting for the yew hedges. I wish my hedges had such sharp corners !

Everywhere we looked, no matter which path we took, we found blossom and bulbs to delight the eye.

Tucked under a tree were these Cyclamen repandum.

Next we spotted Trillium grandiflorum spreading happily in the leaf mould, or is it Trillium ovatum ? I do wish there were labels, then we would know what we were looking at.

Most of the Magnolias were over but we found this one flowering in quite a shady spot.

Not just blossom for us to enjoy but also the new foliage, mostly from acers.

Bluebells were everywhere, English variety of course !

It looks as though we were here by ourselves but there were plenty of others enjoying the fantastic scenery and lots of children enjoying the Easter Egg treasure hunt !!

This Azalea makes a statement all by itself – what a beautiful colour.

Yet more bulbs and blossom, the little white plant on the left is a double wood anemone, absolutely gorgeous, hope my little ones spread like that in my woodland.

Lots more Cyclamen repandum, oh, for a drift like that !

Nearly at the end of our tour round the woodland now, it will be such a shame to leave it.

Found another lovely magnolia with huge flowers,

and another which was more of a bush.

A last look at the woodland before coming back to the formal garden.

This shows part of the house and the terrace , which runs in front of the pond garden.

If you look closely, you will see that the yew hedge has been clipped to represent the hunt chasing a fox. You can’t help but admire the hard work involved in keeping a hedge clipped like this.

Next to the house is this Mediterranean style garden planted in very free draining soil. The 2 trees at the back are Wisteria trained as standards, they will look fantastic in a few weeks time when in flower.

I hope you will agree that the garden at Knightshayes is a very special place. It is one of our favourite places to go when we have visitors – really special no matter what time of year it is and such an inspiration.

In spite of this the early flowers have looked lovely, when we got back from Sierra Leone the small woodland looked wonderful with thousands of snowdrops- the Hellebores which normally flower at the same time didn’t like the freezing temperatures and flowered beautifully a month later. Lots of other Spring bulbs followed the Snowdrops, then the Primroses, Narcissus & Bluebells took over. It was certainly worth going for a little walk each day just to see what had popped up overnight.

My passion, apart from Snowdrops & Hellebores, is Meconopsis and I am nursing about 200 seedlings, having just planted them out in their final places.50 were grown from seed which I bought in Canada at the Metis Garden (fantastic garden) and the other 150 from the seed of a plant I bought of Meconopsis “Lingholm”. While everyone else here will be hoping for a hot dry summer, I’m afraid I will be hoping for it to be cool & drizzly so that they will feel as if they are still at home in Tibet! Now each day I am searching for flower buds on my plants — do I let them flower in their first year? – I have read so much conflicting advice. At the moment I don’t think I would have the heart to cut the flower spikes off but would have to sacrifice one plant to collect seed to try and grow more plants.

At the moment we are frantically trying to get our garden ready for our opening for the National Garden Scheme next month (June 12/13) — non stop weeding. We thought we were on top of the weeds but after the last lot of rain the weeds are popping up everywhere again – it never stops!