WINTER TOLL

 

We have lost so much this winter. One of our two cut leaved thornless hawthorns dead, one of our two native fuchsias dead, where is the big euphorbia wulfenii, the dahlias, the gunnera? We had mostly a mild winter but each time I go in the garden I ask myself where this or that plant has gone.

I wish I could say the same for the goose grass, creeping buttercup and ever spreading wood avens. But then I have a wonderful gardener who weeds so well when she is not doing the ironing. 😍

Suddenly we seem to be living in a small wood, leaves everywhere, snow on the hawthorn and in the roadsides with the hedge parsley.

Have just put in some sweet peas - no not grown by myself, bought from the greengrocer. Worked last year.

It is warm, not hot, and the forecast is for the dry weather to carry on for another two weeks - time for the hosepipe? Yes and a top up for the pond.

The tulips have died back and those in pots have been cleaned up and put in the shed - somewhere dry. 

We disagree over the pond as I think just the algal bloom should be removed - R everything almost. One good surprise is that the rodgersia I put in last year has come up - forgot about it.

This is bogbean on the left and being a wild plant likes to take over. On the right is the only candelabra primula this year  where have they all gone?

Then there is watercress growing in the lawn so it might be damp there still.

Mowing and the mower is playing up misfiring. Might have to take it to the mower men!

Have raised the canopy on the hanky tree (Davidia) so I do not catch my head on the branches when cutting the grass. More than sixteen years old and the tree is yet to have hankies.

Shrubs thrive, elder and here rosemary and lilac.

The guelder rose and Viburnum mariesii and suffocating the tree peony on the lower banking - will need some thought.

Yellow azaleas flourish and the red rhododendron is stunning. The big rhododendrons from Stonefield Castle in Argyll - lots of leaf but no flowers yet.

Of all the spring blossom the one I like the best is the Bramley Apple.

Elsewhere the fiery euphorbia by the shed, the ornamental strawberry Sylvia gave us and the oriental poppies are doing well.

One plant I have become very fond of is the camassia, white on the right grown in the flower beds and blue on the left on the upper banking. Each year I gather the seed and scatter it though I am unconvinced that, except for the white in the flower bed, it is successfully spreading.

Sometimes all does not go to plan - last year I dug out the Sweet Cicely and it was a thug to remove - so - this year it has come up with a vengeance.

The meadowy bits are doing ok with red campion, yellow rattle etc and the cuckoo flower or lady's smock. My daughter has requested some wild garlic so I must warn her how it can become a weed popping up all over the place.

And finally this is the time of Columbine - the aquilegias that self sow every year and flourish -

And finally finally the roe deer has been back - 

IT HAS GONE

 May is here and my ride on mower left this afternoon on the strict instructions of she who must be obeyed. The future is more long grass, more mulch mowing, and so on.

The sycamore has donated an abundance of seedlings to the garden carpeting everywhere. SIGH!

At least. Monty Don said every garden must have a great white cherry and I agree. Our tree is almost over but there is a sucker so we might have two.

The gardener dug a channel through the sodden grass to drain it and then we found the stream disappearing into a hole before coming up lower down. We could have just plugged the hole - now done.

Weather next - cold and dismal. No wonder the swallows and martins have not yet arrived. And we have noticed the almost total absence of a dawn chorus let alone curlews calling. What is happening?

There is a mixture of wild plants in  the long grass - no big mower now - like the ribwort plantain and down by the pond the Kingcup or Marsh Marigold.

One plant I had forgotten was the Solomon's Seal I planted in the hedge fifteen years ago and it is still there. The Sweet Cicely, a thug, I dig out last year and lo and behold must have missed a bit!

In the far garden the white birches thrive and some of the daffodil underplanting has survived - and we now have bluebells in the woodland. Forgetmenots all over the place self sown, even a few pink ones.

We like euphorbias and here are two flowering at present -

We do have other colour, wallflowers not eaten by the rabbits, the first poppies - this is the orange version of the Welsh Poppy, and tulips.

Note the errant celandines in the image below, I do not mind them, R is not so certain.

And so to some odds and ends - the dark leaves of our scattering umbellifer, the coils of unravelling ferns. Spring is here they say and my second Coronation - well not my Coronation but you know what mean.