In January and February all the shady areas of the garden were white with snowdrops, then came the yellow daffodils of March, now in April it changes again as Mother Nature washes everywhere white once more with later narcissus and other white flowers. This is just in time for Easter when the vestments at church and the beautiful flower arrangements are all white.
Shown below are some of the Wood Anemones in the shady areas, they take over from the snowdrops.
I thought I would update you with our fight to try and save the habitat of the dormice and bats that we know are in our garden. If you remember from last December, the school next to us has closed and the owner wants to build 2 more houses as well as extending the school into a huge dwelling. In the process he wants to cut down various trees and the hedge which are on his boundary of the lane between us.
One area of the little woodland at the back of the house is always rather damp, I found out the hard way, by planting lots of things and watching while they died because there was too much moisture in the soil. A few bulbs of snakes head fritillaries, Fritillaria meleagris, were planted and they obviously loved the conditions.
By reviewing what we have done in the month, I can make sure that I am keeping up to date with what I had planned to do, or that is the idea! Hope it doesn’t go the way of New Year’s resolutions!! The main area that I am concentrating on is the bog garden where I am splitting plants, moving plants and buying a few new plants, hopefully to make it more interesting and extend the flowering period.
Doesn’t look much at the moment does it! The wheelbarrow on the right is holding all the lovely primulas that I bought in Scotland last year and didn’t get round to planting because I felt so awful with my muscle problems. Thank goodness they survived the winter in their pots and are now sprouting .
The narcissus, St. Patrick’s Day, has never let me down before. It has always flowered on March 17th, St. Patrick’s day, no matter what the weather has been like. This is how it was this year, tight bud.
It took a good week for it to open up and flower properly on March 24th.
I have used this months Garden Bloggers Foliage Day to concentrate on all the new shoots that are bursting everywhere around the garden. Lots of plants have been cut back and buds are now opening with a promise of what is to come in the summer. Other plants and shrubs are waking up after their sleep over the winter and showing that they haven’t died in the frost!
The purple Berberis has looked pretty dead all winter so I’m rather relieved to find all these lovely new shoots all over the bush.
Mother’s Day came early to this household, on Saturday instead of Sunday. We went to Docton Mill Garden in north Devon, which is quite famous for its daffodils, had a good look round the garden and then had an absolutely gorgeous lunch there too!
Would you like to be woken up at 4.30am each morning if you are retired and didn’t have to get up early to go to work! ? Lately a pheasant has taken to roosting overnight in the garden and decided that if he was awake at 4.30 then everybody else should be awake too! Thank goodness the last few mornings have been very foggy and misty and he hasn’t woken up until 6.30, an improvement!
Spring has certainly arrived in March, the flowers are coming thick and fast with new ones opening up everyday. Wave after wave of new ones are making the little woodland so pretty at the moment, definitely my favourite part of the garden at this time of year. Other parts of the garden are also waking up, today the sun is shining and has quite a bit of heat in it, the birds are singing and we have seen them collecting nesting material, yes, spring has sprung! One flower that has been out all winter is the heather which is by the dead oak.
Slowly but surely, the colour in the woodland is changing from the white of the snowdrops to the yellow of the narcissus as they gradually open. It is as if a wave of yellow is slowly expanding across the garden, like an artist picking up yellow pigment with their brush and spreading a colour wash over their paper.
