We have had some very pleasant days this week, warm and mostly sunny and never uncomfortably hot, so lots of gardening jobs have been done – perhaps as well, as our open days are suddenly creeping up really quickly. I still took time out to go for a walk on one of the days, choosing a route I have avoided for some time because it crosses fields which will have been muddy and difficult to walk through for many weeks. Taking a slight detour, I entered a small woodland which from experience I know is host to naturalised bluebells. Unfortunately, a fallen tree and overgrown paths meant I failed to get the full experience this year, but it made me aware just how realistic our own little woodland is. Despite being planted with trees, bluebells, wood anemones, wild garlic, fritillaries, snowdrops, comfrey and more, many other things have arrived uninvited and there is a real woodland feel to it, even more so at this time of year, as the green canopy closes in and brings an air of coolness and greenness. Lovely…
Out in the sunshine again, each day another rose surprises me with its first bloom of the season, like ‘Strawberry Hill’ and ‘Cécile Brunner’ below; the latter should be climbing over the shed roof, but since being pruned it hasn’t been tied back in so is going wherever it chooses:
So far my aquilegia have been fairly well behaved and have resisted interbreeding, although there are a couple that should perhaps be in the blue & white border rather than the main borders, which are reserved for pinks and purples and perhaps a bit of white. However, there are several pretty anemone flowered specimens, like this pink one, grown from seed:
Also on the pink spectrum is yet another bountifully blooming rhododendron, an unnamed specimen from Aldi with huge blooms, this one in the corner of the woodland.
Back in the shade and just outside the back door, I spotted some pristine spathes on Arum italicum ‘Marmoratum’; once the bright red berries emerge towards the end of summer the leaves will die back, temporarily removing one of the most useful foliage plants in the garden.
My priority at the start of the weekend was to finish planting up the cutting beds, now duly done, other than the zinnias which were sown later this year. A more fiddly and less satisfying task was to then fit the horizontal netting which will support the plants as they grow and protect them from passing cats. Having emptied the greenhouse prior to moving it, it took a considerable time to find where I had stored the posts, and erecting them and attaching the netting involved a lot of bending and stretching on what was probably the hottest day of the week, but at least it is done now and all that’s needed is to water the plants as required and watch them grow before being rewarded in due course with months of blooms.
Thank you to Jim of Garden Ruminations for providing us with the opportunity to share six things from our gardens every Saturday.
Having cut spent flowering stems from all the hellebores over the weekend, amassing a large trugful of them, rather than compost them all I decided to use several stems in today’s vase. Not only was it the last opportunity this year to use hellebores in a vase, but this time I could also be sure, with seedpods well-swollen, that the stems will remain upstanding, unlike vases when the blooms were fresher. I wish I could tell you what colour the original blooms were, but I can’t; now, they are a very pale green with dark speckled centres, giving them a kind of vintage appearance.
The bundle of stems, perhaps 20 or more as there were several multi-stems amongst them, were placed in one of my Caithness Glass ‘Ebony’ vases, always a pleasure to use but generally too big for my usual more modest bunches, and joined by a Playmobil cowboy (or cowgirl, more likely, judging by the hair), which came to light during a sort-through of childhood toys belonging to my now very grown-up girls. I am sure he or she could soon sort out any trouble in their local saloon!
Having mentioned before that the rhododendrons seemed to be flowering better than any other year, I can also say that I don’t recollect ever seeing anything with blooms as dense as this before – R. yakushimanum ‘Vintage Rose’ is absolutely astounding! Mind you, I don’t think I remember seeing destruction quite as quick or efficient as that experienced by Fritillaria imperialis either!
April has been a mixed and breezy month, with April showers and sunny periods, and although it has been pleasant in the sun we have not really felt much warmth from it, with temperatures rarely rising above the mid teens (centigrade). Today has seen a change, however, with a mild night and blue skies from daybreak onwards, and our weather monitor recording temperatures over 19°C – but we still have the breeze! We are forecast more days like this, and I feel confident of beginning to plant up the cutting beds.
The grass border and two bold borders are filling up, but there are still gaps to fill:
As promised, I have made a video recording today, which should make up for the low resolution of the photographs – and give a better idea of the abundant growth throughout the garden. I haven’t added any music this time, so you should be able to take in the birdsong and rustling of leaves instead (as well as my footfall!). If you look under The Garden tab above, you will find a map of the garden along with the usual route of the video and the position the photos are taken from.
Averting my eyes from the tulips which were shouting “Pick me! Pick me!” as I walked past, I headed towards the bottom end of the garden to pick some of the marauding Spanish bluebells that have sneaked their way in under/over/round the fence. The impact of bluebells in the garden has really registered in recent days, with the uninvited guests and the more local residents joining forces to provide by far and away the biggest splash of blue in the garden out of all the seasons. There may be little patches of blue from spring bulbs and isolated spots in the summer months, but bluebell season is something else and the splashes will only get larger and more widespread as time goes on, with even the English bluebells popping up in other parts of the garden than the woodland. By picking the Spanish bluebells, however, I can at least try and restrict their desire for dominance!
knew? Joining the ferns and bluebells in my favourite 1980s blue-grey ribbed vase is a curl of Elder Daughter’s hair, not baby hair as she was all but hairless for her first three years, but from her first haircut. In truth though, it is only a curl because it has been curled up in this teeny box (which has a lid with a peacock design), made from coloured straw and lined with red silk, for nearly 40 years!
Once again, a large degree of editing was required to get today’s selection down to six or thereabouts, to meet the rules of Jim’s 
There are currently many late spring stalwarts in the garden, most of which proving to be earlier than usual, but perhaps none are as reliable as the three As – allium, astrantia and aquilegia – not yet flowering together in the same border, but individually making their welcome presence felt in their joint role as bridge between spring and summer:
Technical issues will keep this post brief as a mammoth Windows ‘update’ and ‘cleaning’ of my laptop yesterday evening would have kept me up way past my bedtime otherwise!
Rambling in the Garden 