Foliage is bursting forth everywhere in the garden, you can almost see the leaves growing, getting larger and larger every day. This first photo though is of a road I drive along most days and the leaves on the beech trees are just so beautiful, I felt that they ought to be included.
To make up for the lack of flower photos in my last post, this post will have thousands!! All of them will be the English bluebell, Hyacinthoides non scripta.
We were told that Saturday and Sunday were going to be sunny and yes, the forecasters got it right, it was wall to wall sunshine, even though it was blowing a very cold wind from the north on Saturday! So what did we do, rush out into the garden and start trying to do all the work that we hadn’t been able to for weeks because of the torrential rain? No, we went out for the day because it was my husbands birthday during the week. Off we went to Dartmouth on the south coast of Devon, travelling by steam train and ferry. We drove to Paignton where Hercules was waiting for us, just being topped up with water.
Having almost non stop rain for a month, with a gale or two thrown in, the flowers are still managing to put on a colourful display. The garden is absolutely sodden so there isn’t much that can be done at the moment, trying to garden when you are paddling causes more damage to the structure of the soil so best to retreat into the green house and prick out all the primula seedlings that are ready. Have still managed to take some photos each time the rain stopped, the first is of one of our Pulsatillas, which I think is a lot later than last year, probably due to the cold weather.
May might be Meconopsis time this year, but last year they were flowering at the beginning of April, definitely a month late this year due to our cold, wet spring. Excitement starts as soon as we can see the new growth that has survived the winter.
The golden peony that I am talking about is of course Paeonia mlokosewitschii, which is a native of the Caucasus mountains in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Dagestan. It grows there on rocky slopes in oak, hornbeam or beech forests, which makes me wonder why it is so happy in my bee and butterfly border in full sun?! It was discovered in 1897 by polish botanist, Ludwik Mlokosiewicz and named by Aleksandr Lomakin. Over time it has aquired the name of Molly the Witch, by which it is now commonly known, although how a witch could be so beautiful is beyond me! Even when it is just the foliage beginning to emerge, she is beautiful.
OK, I will hold my hands up, I should have realised that I was tempting fate when I wrote a post called April flowers need April showers !! Since then we have had almost non stop rain, Wednesday was when Exeter was declared the wettest place in the country with a month’s rain in just one day. Each night we are treated to views of reporters standing knee deep in water, but they aren’t in a river, just standing on the flooded roads. The rivers have all burst their banks in places, these are the rivers that were so low, that a drought order was placed on the south west and apparently it will stay in place for a while yet. How has all this affected the garden – weeds are now growing furiously, and so are the plants. The pond has now filled up again, it hasn’t been so full for a long time.
New growth is all around us at the moment, such lovely fresh greens, copper tones and burgundies which will turn a dull green in the summer, must enjoy them while we can. First thing in the morning, with the low sunlight shining through them, they are so beautiful, like a stained glass window. I will start with my favourite tree in the garden at the moment, Amelanchier lamarckii. This tree has everything, flowers for the bees, beautiful copper coloured leaves when they first come out, black berries for the birds later in the year and fantastic autumn tints, what more could you ask!
We are so used to having rain on and off during the winter months and of course the April showers are well known here in England, that it doesn’t seem the same having it dry day after day. There is now talk of a hosepipe ban in the south west, the same as the south east, not because our reservoirs are low, but because our rivers are very low. If the rivers fall below a certain level then the fish die through lack of oxygen, if the fish die , then so do the birds and mammals that feed on them. Also, farmers usually extract water from rivers to water their crops and for their livestock. No rain means no grass growing for them to eat, so eventually the crops die and the animals struggle to survive.
I have mentioned a few times, that a very dear friend of mine, who sadly died a number of years ago from cancer, gave me 3 plants of cowslips, Primula veris. I planted two of them in the woodland and the third by my greenhouse. The one by my greenhouse did really well, it was on a slight slope in semi shade, soon I had plenty to start putting them elsewhere in the garden, especially at the end of the bog garden. This photo is of some that are determined to stay by the greenhouse.
