All winter the bog garden slumbers away with not a sign of the delights to come later in the year. Nearly all the plants die back to nothing, some disappear altogether, so there is nothing to tempt me to go to that part of the garden, until now that is. All of a sudden, it was important to get all the weeds out as the plants are rushing into flower faster that you can say “candelabra primula”!
Primula japonica Millers Crimson and Postford White.
Many, many years ago, I visited a garden in the next village, along with lots of other members of the organisation Plant Heritage or NCCPG as it was known then. (The National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens, thank goodness they changed their name!).
I remember that we had a wonderful time there and we were very impressed with the beautiful garden and the keen elderly gardener, she was probably as old as I am now!
Fresh foliage is everywhere I look in the garden and it is all growing so fast with having alternating sunshine and rain. There is such a big difference in all the ferns, hostas and heucheras, in the garden since last months GBFD, kindly hosted by Christina on the 22nd of each month.
Harts tongue fern, Asplenium scolopendrium.
Mixed weather this month has made everything grow, including the weeds. Sunshine and showers have had everything rushing skywards, flowers have been popping open every day, bees buzzing, butterflies fluttering. The garden has also at times felt like a steaming rain forest with lush damp greeness steaming in the sun after a heavy shower.
Narcissus poeticus is my last narcissus to flower, it has such a wonderful perfume which carries quite a way on the breeze. In the background is a Japanese Azalea.
I find it much easier to plant up a border if it has a theme. It doesn’t matter what the theme is, whether it is a colour, sun or shade, dry or wet, as long as there is something to help decide which plants to use. Our overall soil is very heavy clay which has been improved over the 25 yrs we have been here, but still needs more leaf mould and compost adding each year. We get a lot of rain here in the South West corner of England, that is why everywhere is so green and lush!
Sunset over the village.
A quick look at the Yellow Book this weekend for gardens open under the National Garden Scheme found a garden inland from the coast at Dawlish. It was also the garden of sculptor Heather Jansch who uses driftwood from round the coast to make her fabulous horses and other animals.
A very realistic horse in the beautiful Devon countryside.
The month of April has been a strange month, some days we seem to have had all four seasons in one day. We have had lots of lovely sunshine, but also lots of frost, hail and sleet. We have had gales which have ripped off the lovely new foliage which has just emerged and flattened some of the flowers. Temperatures have been low for this time of year, even though the sun has been shining, the strong wind coming straight down from the Arctic has made it bitterly cold. In spite of all this, the garden has coped very well.
The clear cold evenings have given us some wonderful sunsets.
April is such a wonderful time of year with new growth bursting forth everywhere. Trees are beginning to look green once more and everything in the garden is waking up and showing new leaves. Even evergreens are showing new growth in a different colour from the old leaves. Once again, it is time on the 22nd of the month to celebrate the importance of leaves with GBFD. thanks to Christina.
Acer Sango Kaku
This is my only Acer showing its leaves as yet, my others are still in tight bud.
April saw a rise in the temperatures but also saw a few gales to batter the newly emerged flowers, tempted into flower by the warmth. The garden is definitely waking up and I can’t keep up with all the jobs that need doing! However some days I just wander round the garden and enjoy all the flowers with bees buzzing everywhere and we now have butterflies fluttering by, what could be better?
Chaenomeles
With the warm winter that we had, some of the narcissus were flowering way before Christmas, which seemed very strange. A cold spell in February put them back on track and once again N. St. Patrick’s Day was late again, not opening it’s flowers until April 1st!
Narcissus pseudonarcissus.
The experts say that this is the daffodil that Wordsworth saw in the thousands, “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”. I don’t have that many, but they make a nice show in the woodland. Continue reading
