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The calendar says April, the spring equinox is behind us, we have lighter evenings so it must be Spring!   At last!   Today in this corner of the world we have April showers  –  brilliant sunshine for a while followed by gentle rain and even better it is ever so slightly warmer.   The daffodils are coming out and there are still plenty more to look forward to and the hellebores are flowering better than ever regardless of bitter winds and having been buried under inches of snow for days at a time.    Leaf buds on the shrubs are swelling and in some cases leaves are starting to unfurl and there is blossom on Magnolia stellata and buds on Magnolia soulangeana.   Progress has been made with the vegetable garden, regardless of the cold and wet weather.  Fencing is in place together with rabbit wire and with a bit of luck (and hard work) we will actually grow some vegetables this year.   The rhubarb is looking promising and we are looking forward to rhubarb crumble before too long.  Two raised beds are now full of compost waiting for their first crops to be sown.

Elsewhere in the garden, I have now started weeding and clearing away dead growth.  In the space of just a week or so herbaceous perennials have burst into life,  along with the weeds.  It’s rewarding to settle down to an afternoon’s weeding and discover all the “old friends” growing back after what seems such a long cold winter.    Peony “Molly the Witch” is looking good and I hope that this year she manages more than one flower!    This plant is probably around 15 years old, bought as a very weedy specimen in a local garden centre’s “dead department” and nursed back to health.   It has moved house with us and moved at least once in this garden, maybe this will be the year it has really settled in and will manage more flowers.  The flowers are such a beautiful pale lemon colour though that one is better than none!

Wildlife is always encouraged in our garden – it is theirs just as much as ours.  However rabbits are proving very tiresome at the moment.   Finally we think the garden is completely rabbit proof but the orchard definitely isn’t.   How we wish we had put up rabbit fencing at the same time that we had the stock proof fence put in.   I’ve had to take barrow loads of loam out to fill up the holes that they have dug in the turf and now they have nibbling the bark on the fruit trees.   One poor tree has been ring barked overnight,  prompting a quick check of all the tree guards.   The job has now begun of putting in new guards round some of the trees as they outgrow the old ones.  Squirrels are always amusing, lately taking leaves out of the stack in the leaf bin to line their drey.  However who knew that squirrels chase pheasants?   I certainly didn’t until I saw a very alarmed hen pheasant running across the lawn with a squirrel in hot pursuit!   Slightly calmer wildlife visitors have been a pair of Mandarin ducks,  so pretty and what a surprise to see in the middle of the lawn one morning.   Mallards usually visit around this time of  year for a day or so but we’ve never seen Mandarins before.

For now though the sun is shining again and the garden beckons….

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These first pictures were taken at the end of February,  the early spring flowers looking lovely on a bitterly cold but sunny winter’s day.   The views of the garden were taken on 24th February after two days of hard work with a digger,  taking the top surface off the muddy overgrown gravel drive.    Again a bitterly cold day but with glorious sunshine, and a day I spent sowing seeds which are now tucked up safe and warm in the heated propagator.       Another hard day’s work on yet another sunny day saw many tons of gravel delivered and spread out on the drive and what a good job we got all the work done because today – 2 March – what a different story ..

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The snow doesn’t look that deep until you find the spots where it has drifted up to a foot deep.     The snow is very powdery so hopefully won’t be damaging the flowers underneath.    Charlie, the dog, was happy to venture out to see what was going on but is now tucked up nice and warm inside.      The snow has also revealed lots of footprints – not only ours and the dogs but rabbits!    We thought we had blocked off all the places they were getting in but the evidence is there in the snow so fences will have to be checked again when it gets a bit warmer.

A treat today is watching two pairs of bullfinches in the garden, not at the bird feeders though,  unfortunately they seem to prefer pecking buds off Prunus trees and shrubs.  Can’t begrudge them any food they are finding but I hope they leave some buds!  Of course the bird feeders are being kept topped up and  are attracting long tailed tits, blue tits, great tits, nuthatches, robins and goldfinches with robins, dunnocks, wrens, magpies, blackbirds and pigeons also in attendance.

…relishes January days such as this.    An unpromising start when the curtains are drawn back to reveal darkness with just a sliver of moon still visible.   However it gets better as doors are opened and tawny owls can be heard calling to each other.    Within an hour the skies are lightening and as I set off on a dog walk the sun is just starting to rise above the mist that engulfs the surrounding fields.

Another hour passes walking the lanes with the dogs, the mist covering pockets of land along my route but all the time the sun rising and the sky now clear and blue.      On my return I grab my camera and set off on another walk, this time around the garden and orchard to see what I can find.

 

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In the orchard there are catkins both in the hedge and on the cobnut bush- should be plenty of nuts in the autumn for the resident squirrels;  beautiful coloured bark on dogwoods, contorted willow and Prunus serrula.   Two Betula jacquemontii Silver Queen in the corner of the orchard are looking lovely – but who decided that planting them underneath a power line was a good idea?  It seemed fine back in Spring 2008 when we put them in, they were just sticks probably barely three feet high.  Guess what – they grew, very quickly!    The optimistic gardener (me) is not going to panic.     We will enjoy them for as long as possible and they may have to come down in the future but quick research shows they could have a maximum height of 20ft which might be fine.    However more research indicates a maximum height well in excess of that – I will remain optimistic that they stay on the shorter side!   Over in the corner underneath a beautiful weeping willow some daffodils are growing.

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Back in the garden there is more to enjoy.   Snowdrops are coming into flower along with the first of the hellebores.    Prunus autumnalis rosea has its first delicate flowers, enhanced by spiders webs.  Shrubs including Magnolia and Camellia have lovely plump buds and Mahonia, Vibunum bodnantense Dawn  and Hamamellis have flowers.   Last year’s growth has now been cut back in the herbaceous borders and the sharp eyed will notice Peony buds starting to push through the earth.   Alongside all this new growth many of the ornamental grasses are still looking good, their seedheads enhanced this morning by drops of moisture.

The bird feeders are full of seeds and peanuts and are visited by flocks of Longtailed tits,  Great tits, Blue tits and Goldfinches, along with Robins, Blackbirds, Thrushes, Wrens, Dunnocks,  and Chaffinches that are seen in the garden daily.   An industrious squirrel was observed yesterday collecting fallen oak leaves and carrying them up an Oak tree and across into a Silver birch in which it appears to be constructing a drey.

It’s so satisfying to see the garden starting slowly back into life and although there are bound to be many more cold grey days to come before Spring there is plenty of room for optimism!

 

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No gardening today!

I love autumn and the best thing about this time of year is all the fallen leaves.    We’ll never collect them all up but we spent a recent sunny Sunday collecting a huge amount.  We filled a builder’s ‘ton’ sack many times over (6 to be precise, I was counting) but it was pointed out to me that I hadn’t actually collected up 6 tons of leaves which was rather disappointing.   However there were lots and husband and younger son set about making a second wire enclosure to stack them in.  We always have the problem of leaf mould ready to use but flower beds not cleared ready to receive it and leaves falling and needing to be stacked.  Solution – two wire enclosures, why didn’t we think of it years ago?!     Most of the leaves are off the huge Red Oaks but are still firmly hanging on to the Silver birches and most of the other shrubs and trees around the garden and orchard.    Many more hours will be spent raking and collecting but well worth the aching muscles when it all turns to lovely crumbly leaf mould.

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There is still plenty of colour to enjoy in the garden.   Leaves on the shrubs and trees seem particularly beautiful this year, particularly  Viburnum plicatum which is a lovely deep red and Cornus kousa which is all shades of yellow and orange.   Even better, this Cornus is now taller than the boundary hedge and I can see its lovely coloured leaves each morning from along the lane as I return from my dog walk.  Hardy Chrysanthemums are a particular favourite and I have recently planted Clara Curtis which is spreading nicely, Emperor of  China finally seems to have settled down in this garden (it came with us from the previous garden and I have moved it around a few times) and is looking lovely this year.    A new favourite is Chrysanthemum  Dulwich Pink which I obtained through the Hardy Plant Society Conservation Scheme this time last year.   It has settled well in the garden, is growing strongly and I have propagated it to pass on to other members next year.   Salvia Amistad is another new addition this year and is planted in front of a rather lovely tall ornamental grass with Salvia Wendy’s Wishes in a pot in front.    I keep meaning to plant more Nerines and forget but the two that come up each year in the front garden are looking particularly vibrant this year.

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As the nights draw in I miss being out in the garden until late in the evening but it is nice to come in and light the woodburner and think about new plans for the garden for next year.    As I bring in the logs for the evening it’s a treat to look over the hedge into the adjoining farmland and see the mist rolling in, there are sheep in there somewhere well camouflaged!   And with Halloween just past I am glad to say the “children” still insist on having a pumpkin, although they are well capable of carving it themselves now.

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..may indeed catch the worm,  but here in the garden at the moment the early rising Gardener is catching the sunrise.  And what beautiful sunrises we have had recently, the sun, now low in the sky, is casting a glorious soft golden light across the garden, just skimming the top of the hedge and illuminating the seed heads of ornamental grasses amongst others.  Just as atmospheric are the mornings when river mist swirls round the adjoining pastureland, right up to the hedge but never coming into the garden.

Swallows and House Martins are still flying round the fields but now also to be seen on telephone wires lining up ready for the moment they will depart for their long journey to warmer climes.

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Colour in the garden is coming from many sources.  Dahlias, Asters, perennial Sunflowers, annual Sunflowers, Zinnias, Chrysanthemum and Penstemon to name just a few.   However as we head into late Summer/early Autumn I am more interested in the leaf colour of various trees and shrubs.    We have planted many, many trees and shrubs always planning for autumn colour.   Leaves on a Persian Ironwood tree and a Liquidamber tree are both starting to turn; these trees now happily growing in their new home in the orchard with room to spread having been initially planted ten years ago in the front garden.   That is another story but suffice to say they were hard to dig up, heavy to carry and I will not be transplanting trees again (ever!).   More thought as to eventual size will be given before any more trees are put into the ground.   Two Viburnums are brightening the garden, Viburnum plicatum with beautiful deep red leaves and Viburnum opulus with glistening red berries and on the west wall of the house Virginia creeper is now turning all shades of red.

I have discovered a love of orange flowers!   Certainly at this time of year you can’t beat the small orange blooms on a dahlia whose name I have forgotten, together with the various flower colours of Dahlia Bishops Children grown from seed this year.  Both look particularly good when teamed up with deep red Dahlia Rip City in a jug in the house.  I have even found a stray orange nasturtium which has popped up unannounced and obviously self seeded from a previous year.

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Well no, more of a White Boot!   This is my selection of plants en route to the plant stall at Malvern Country Market on Friday.   Shasta Daisies were accompanied by Verbascum chaixii album, Phlox White Admiral and Campanula alliariifolia, what a lovely view in my rear view mirror!  Although white does seem to be a bit of a theme in the garden as well with the Myrtle in full bloom and looking absolutely beautiful.  The bees love it too, as I discovered as I took some photos – luckily they were too busy on the flowers to want to sting me. Saponaria Alba Plena ‘Betty Arnold’ with double white flowers is just coming into bloom and well worth its place in our garden, although it does tend to pop up everywhere including the lawn. Traditional late summer colours are also to be found with dahlias, this one is seed raised Dahlia Bishop’s Children, Solidago and Eupatorium purpureum and Penstemons, the one pictured is Bodnant.  Two new plants have found their way home today in the shape of  Helenium  Wagon Wheel and Chrysanthemum Clara Curtis, my priority now is to find a spot for them and then sit and enjoy the garden for a while!