A cosmic event eclipses the rest of the March News
Monday, March 30, 2015
The most significant news item by a mile this month (well 93
million miles to be precise!) was the partial eclipse of the sun,
Unlike much of the UK, we were blessed with a brilliantly clear
blue sky all morning allowing us to get a perfect view and to
experience the changes it brought about. I think it was the first
occassion I have ever had such an an unfetterred view and it was an
emotional and overwhelming experience. The gradual darkness like
someone gently turning down a dimmer switch. the rising mist
in the valley, the significant temperature drop, the birds
falling silent and the eerie stillness was something I had not
fully expected. Under an hour from start to finish but never to be
forgotten and reassuring that there is still some wonderment and
majesty beyond the reach of all conquering mankind.
The light mist creeping up the valley
Most of the memories are captured in the mind, which is
fortunate because it was exceptionially difficult to capture the
event on a fairly basic Bridge camera without filters but I had a
go with an assortment of rudimentry props including numerous pairs
of sunglasses!! Specialist viewiing goggles were available on the
iInternet but as the day came closer the prices rose
considerably to £45 for the goggles and £25 postage all for a bit
of cardboard and a couple of plastic filters. If I am around to see
the next one in a dozen years time I shall be better
prepared and buy some goggles well in advance and make sure I get
some camera filters and a better camera - who knows where they will
be by then..
Even only a quarter of the sun still cast a strong
shadow - love the patterns on the chippings.
The money shot!!
Weather
A very changeable month with many cold days and nights and
plenty of rain at times. A warmer and more sunny week in mid month
was very welcome and for the first time since November the soil
surface began to dry out. No exceptional weather events but the
continuing cold and lower light levels held everything back
not just here in our frost pocket valley but also it seems from
national foreacsts in most parts of the UK too.
An incredible 17 night time temperatures below zero. Min -4C on
four occasions. Max 12.8C on 29th a day of driving rain and no
sunshine - a strange month indeed.
Garden update
Nearly a week of fine weather in the third week was most welcome
as we were at last able to blitz many outdoor jobs. Painting for
Moira, the picket fence all around the property (now shining white
again) sets off the house beautifully, and for me beginning the
marathon border weeding. I managed to finish the House Garden just
before the rains returned and now the larger paddock garden borders
lie in wait - 2 x40 metres long and 7 metres wide and 4 other
smaller borders. It is hard going at times but the gardens
already look so much better for it.
The sparkling white picket fence - being alongside a
country lane it does get very dirty.
A lone papaver orientalis surrounded by a mat of
bittercress.
Still no opportunity to rotovate the vegetable beds
because they are too wet, I am now more sanguine about it than I
used to be as I know that we will catch up eventually when the
ground warms up and is in better heart.
The lawns have looked very good all winter thanks to a feed of
high potash and phosphate winter lawn fertiliser in late November.
These feed the roots and green up the grass. After a first cut on
22 March it was good to see the stripes again and lush green grass.
I see my farmer neighbour looking enviously over the gate!!
Sowing and potting on has continued throughout the month in the
tunnels and all my lily bulbs and bare root perenniials arrived
together so some urgent work was needed there. I am running out of
protected space and as soon as the weather warms up I need to clear
out some of the hardier perennials from the tunnels to the cold
frames and from the frames to the outdoors benching.
I have recently sowed into modules the main flush of summer
annuals - eschscholtzias in variety, cornflowers, poppies,
rudbeckias, dimorphotheca a South African annual like an
osteospermum. These will be infilled into the main herbaceous
borders during late spring I have however reduced the amount
I have sown this year because I intend to broadcast directly into
the ground a poppy, cornflower, ammi majus, cosmos annual mix from
a company called "Pictorial Meadows". This company have
supplied the seed for the Olympic Park in 2012 and for many
municipal authorities for roundabouts, roadside verges and the
like. In contrast to carpet bedding, reduced labour costs and far
more attractive planting. We have some stunning examples in our
part of Wales.
Spring carpet bedding on aroundabout in Llanelli using
only polyanthus in a range of colours. Not my choice by any
means but bright and cheerful on a dismal day
And less than 100 yards in a sheltered corner of recent
leisure development was this magnificient stand of euphorbia
characias var unknown. It blew me away as it is so unusual to see
such inspried mass planting of a single cultivar in an urban
setting. It made my day!
At this time of year I am always reminded of the role that
Bothy Boys played in the great gardens of the 19th and early 20th
Centuries. There was a hieracrchy of gardeners starting with the
Head Gardener and ending with the apprentices the so called Bothy
Boys, They did the most meniall and labour intensive work and lived
communally in structures built in the grounds . Some were
little more than wooden sheds but others were of more
permanent construction and therefore more comfortable. All these
buildings were called bothies, possibly from the Welsh
bwythyn which means a cottage or hut. One of the key tasks given
their proximity to the the gardens, was to oversee the stove
houses, the heated glasshouses containing the prized tropical
fruits to which great importance was attached by the garden owners.
This involved keeping the coal fires stoked overnight and covering
with fabric the more tender fruits like peaches and nectarines
grown outside on the walls of the garden. all this with just a
parrafin lantern for light.
As a one man band in the 21st Century at Cilgwyn Lodge, all
the chores fall to me so I encompass all the duties formerly
undertaken by all the levels of gardeners in the old days. Whenever
there is a serious risk of overnight frost, and with tender
emerging leaves breaking on shrubs and herbaceous perennials,
I have to cover them with hortcultural fleece every night
and then inspect the gas and electric heaters in the tunnels
and greenhouses often beyond midnight. With all the benefits
of modern living, a powerful LED head torch and a warm home to come
into it is still quite a chore that only makes me admire
those Bothy Boys even more.
What's looking good?
As with last month's news not very much! However the
hellebores at last reached a rather later peak than in the last 2
years to give a great show along with anemone blanda, pulmonarias,
muscarii, primroses and daffodils. Erythroniums are showing good
buds and full leaf growth and that thuggish self seeder honesty has
ensured another grest display this year all over the gardens. Here
are pictures of some of the best :-
An outstanding apricot hellebore cultivar at
Farmyard Nurseries
A wonderful display of the reproductive parts of a
large flowered helleborus niger
And what a large flower it is. It didn't come to me with
any cultivar name but it probably is from a form called "Potters
Wheel"
Hellebores in a corner of the woodland garden along with
a dainty 19th Century daffodil called "W.P.Milner" a first rate
form for naturalising and still readily available. None of that
searing yellow and large flower size that can really put me off
them.
A favourite woodlander of mine for early spring use is
hacquetia epipactis
And if scent is your thing then what about this sweet
violet "Koningen Charlotte" the scent of which carries many yards
over the garden on a warm day
Another little woodland treasure is hepatica nobilis one
of the few of the many I have planted that has become
established.
The striking large flower of asarum maximum "Silver Panda" an
unusual and sought after form of the genus. Good ground cover with
silvery green leaves after flowering.
And if you look hard enough you can see interesting
forms and shapes all over the gardens. I was wheeling away the
spent Brussels sprout plants when it struck me what simple
beauty there was in the rosettes a the top of the plants. Then I
remembered that coloured rossette cabbages are used in winter
bedding and even in bouquets.
Wildlife and countryside
Lambs are everywhere now as they continue to grow and become
ever more noisy and boisterous. Still more to come over the next
few weeks.
Mallard ducks are regular visitors to the Paddock Pond
as is a solitary and shy moorhen.
After the mass laying of the frog spawn there were many
bubbles caught up in the spawn and when the sunlight caught them
some glowed like precious jewels. If you look carefully you can
even see me reflected in the bubble! Another unworldly happening in
a cosmic month.
The toads, quietly and without fuss began breeding on 13 March
but not nearly as many as I have seen in the past so there may be
more yet to come when the weather warms up which they seem to
prefer.
Jiust before dark a few nights ago the menacing prescence of a
goshawk appeared over the Lodge scattering birds in all directions,
the blackbirds in a state of frenzy giving out their siren calls.
It flew in fast bursts away to the woods further down the vally and
disappeared into the trees. I hope it stays aroiund to reduce some
of our overpopulated magpies. The goshawk although a voracious
raptor with a bad reputation, is a magnificent bird and still very
rare. but having said that we don't want too many of them! A second
and more definitive sighting was made a night later when its barred
underbelly plumage was clearly visible and what a flier!
A lucky blackbird takes refuge in an apple
tree
Visits
Just 2 talks in March both to groups in Pembrokeshire and both
on "Growing Vegetables", the most requested talk this year. We have
3 in April including our long awaited trip to Dorset to speak to
the East Dorset Branch of Plant Heritage. My talk there follows
that given a week ago by Fergus Garrett Head Gardener at Great
Dixter when 300 people attended! No pressure then!! It is the first
presentation of my latest talk "Stunning Summer Perennials" which I
hope will find favour with the audience many of whom we already
know.
Just a remiinder that for the 16th consecuitive year, we are
again opening by prior arrangement for the National Gardens Scheme
from June until the end of August, If you would liike to
visit us either as a group or for individuals please get in touch
to secure the date of your choice. July is the most popular month
so if you would like to come then we recommend an early booking. If
you have a copy of the 2015 Yellow Book look at the section for
Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire and you will find Cilgwyn Lodge
as the front page featured garden. Quite an honour.
The garden nursery at Cilgwyn Lodge is open from April but as we
don't have set opening times please get in touch to confirm we will
be around when you would like to come. There is a wide range of
choice perennials for sale.
In a busy month we found time to have 2 days off to visit
Bristol for the first time in many years, and the National Botanic
Garden of Wales with friends after an excellent lunch at "Y Polyn"
an excellent local restaurant which we can highly recommend.
Bristol has the best shopping Mall I have seen. A great
feeling of light and spaciousness and some attractive architechture
especially the glazed roof.
And in the window of a sushi bar was this fantastic
aquarium like display
We really liked Bristol for its relaxed
atmosphere, history, open spaces and waterways penetrating deep
into the heart of the city. Parts of it with wide cobbled
pavements, plane trees and water look like Paris and in the "Glass
Boat" restaurant a cuisine to match. Followed if you like by a
cruise through the waterways and up the Avon Gorge. A place
definitely to return to soon.
At the National Botanic Garden of Wales it was
Mediterranean Spring in the Great Glasshouse, with sights and
scents to match.
The stunning blue of echium candicans , a huge sprawling
plant to 8 feet
A highly scented broom family member name
unknown
The European Section with large olives, rosemaries,
lavenders, cyclamen, and iris stylosa to name just a
few.
From South America this magnificent 10 foot inflorence
of puya chilensis a really dangerously spiky bromeliad
And finally from South Africa leucadendron gandrigan, a
sunny yellow to match the sunny news item at the
beginning.
