April turns out to be my best month in 2018
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
After 4 cycles of chemotherapy in 3 and a half months from
the beginning of January, with numerous debilitating side effefcts,
I was delighted when my oncologist informed me in late March that
because the treatment had slowed the progression of my cancer,
there was no need for me to have the further two cycles that
it was originally planned for me to have especially as it was
having an adverse effect on my quality of life. It will still take
in excess of 4 weeks for my body to start to recover and for me to
rebuild my strength and fitness
I can return to a normal diet and to meet up with
friends and attend club meetings of our Hardy
Plant Society Group. I am feeling better already but there is some
room for further improvement However there are plenty of less
strenuous jobs jobs to do all over the garden which I have been
dying to get done and friends have pitched in to do the more
onerous tasks which has been an enormous help. It is so good to
feel almost normal again and to lose myself in the gardens which is
where I always am at this time of year with so much to
do.
Our first outing for 4 months was to Cardiff RHS Flower
show
Weather
A typical April with very changeable weather ranging from cold
to hot and wet to dry. Two spiteful frosts in the last 2 days
of the month played havoc with a wide variety of plants affected
including persicarias, podophylums, hydrangeas and corylopsis. 13
days with sun max 20C, 21 rain days min -2.5C on 3 occasions,
2 inches of rain recorded
Garden Update
Lawn mowing started again on 9 April with the grass having
grown vigorously after treatment with lawn weed and feed and plenty
of rain. Weeding the borders was less onerous than I can ever
remember after the early application of Glyphosate to all the weeds
that were showing in February. It turned out be a great success and
I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Help came in the form of our
friends Bob and Annette, Bob with his dining fork to prick out the
most recalcitrant of weeds that had missed the treatment, and
Annette tidying all the pots in the nursery to make them ready for
sale.
A well deserved tea break with Bob and
Annette
The first cut of the Paddock garden lawn and look
at those tidy borders
When the vegetable beds had dried sufficiently our friend
Robert who has been my lawns guru for some years showed his
versatlity by rotovating the beds to make them ready to get the
vegetables in. Somewhat later than usual, because of the poor
weather early on in the month. but planting and sowing seeds will
take place as conditions permit and the soil warms up. So far there
are potatoes, onions and early brassicas, carrots and beetroot in
the ground and plenty more to come with all the tender veg like
beans, courgettes, celeriac and sweetcorn growing on in pots in the
tunnels until it is safe to plant them out after hardening off in
the cold frames.
Just in time after the rotovating was completed there
was some heavy rain and Kit Kat came to inspect the fine work.
There is nothing I like better than the earthy smell of freshly
turned soil and the prospect of all the crops to come over a long
period
In the tunnels, which have cost me a fortune to heat this year!!
there are many fine plants which need to be potted on or
pricked out and watered well on fine sunny days as they dry out so
quickly particularly plants you would not expect to like salvias
and pelargoniums. A presssing priority is now to make room to
place the tomatoes in large pots -, about 30 + plants in
total:- trying to make amends for the very poor season last
year.
What's looking good?
A gallery of pics to illustrate some of the very
best
Daffodils in variety and a particularly good show of
honesty
Even before plants reach maturity and they were very
slow this Spring some plants like this hosta can still look
attractive. This is always the stage that I scatter slug pellets
which I find most effective
After a long wait the shrubs began to flower and
this old magnolia stellata put on a great show as it always
does
And the first of the viburnums, carlessii, has gorgeous
pink fading white flowers and the stongest perfume of any of
variety in the garden. Not bad for a very old and
increasingly weedy shrub
The promise of flowers to come on
cardiocrinum giganteum one of 10 mature plants in the gardens. They
stood the cold weather very well. Unlike those in pots, 2 years off
flowering, which I foolishly left outside in the nursery and were
wrecked by the continuing cold
Paris polyphylla in humus rich soil in a choice
shady spot. A good ground cover and intriguing flowers
Podyphyllum "Spotty Dotty" looking much better
than it did a few days later when scorched by the late
frosts
The first hosta to break leaves was "Wolverine" a
choice selection and a manageable size at 18 - 20"
across
There is a good variety of later flowering daffodils in
the gardens and a special favourite is cyclamineus
"Jenny"
As the daffodils fade a selection of erythroniums begin
to flower particularly "Pagoda"
This particularly fine atragene clematis that came to me
as seed from the British Clematis Society labelled as c. Alpina but
has turned out to be very large flowered an unusual hybrid in an
attactive shade of clear blue
Another atragene clematis is macropetala "Markahams
Pink"part of a large collection of this group that we have
scattered all over the gardens normally growing up shrubs which I
believe is the best way to present them.
Wildlife and countryside
Swallows only seen once on 20 April, the latest I have
seen the first one for many years. The Mallard duck is often seen
on the Paddock Pond but not with any mate nor the hoped for
ducklings.
Wild flowers on the other hand have put on a great show in
fields and woods and along roadside verges and in some of the
public gardens we have visited.
On an embankment on the A40 just outside
Llandeilo is a collection of primulas, some of which appear to have
hybridised into interesting forms
A fine spring meadow of ladies smock, fritillaria
meleagris and dandelions at Aberglasney gardens
And a fine naturalised bluebell wood also at
Aberglasney, the best stand of bluebells we have seen so
far
Pussy willow at Cilgwyn Lodge
Lambs in the surrounding fields continue to grow and the
older they get the more thugish they become, butting each other,
running away from their mothers and every Spring they play havoc
with the plastic sheeting covering next years firewood logs. They
are obsessed with it!
Visits
So good at last to start visiting gardens and shows and feeling
well enough to enjoy them
Our first outing was to Llwyn Garreg the superb garden
of friends Liz and Paul and one of the finest of many fine NGS
gardens any where in Wales. The latest addition of a Japanese red
bridge has just been completed For more info about the garden go to
www.llwyngarreg.co.uk
There is always something new to admire in this
fabulous garden and this pic shows in the foreground, last
years project a sunken garden built by Paul of stone from the
garden
Cardiff RHS show
Our friend Richard Bramley of Farmyard Nurserie
put on an excellent display of spring flowering woodlanders which
surprisingly was only awarded a Silver Gilt Medal
Every year there is always a teriffic
display of daffodils by Ron Scamp from Cornwall a major breeder
with some stunning selections.
It is a great time to show off daffodils but it
always amazes me how the exhibitors manage to put on such a fine
display of tender flowers and plants out of season.
Dibleys Nursery can always be relied upon to put on a
great show of begonias which I am very fond of and my eye
caught this recent introduction. "Silver Spirit a cross
between a foliage and a cane begonia
Cardiff Castle in Bute Park which has a marvellous
collection of magnolias which are always at their best in time for
the Show
And the most recent trip was to Abergalsney
Gardens which just gets better and better every year. Membership is
great value, especially when we are only 20 minutes from there and
at last we joined up to be able to visit the garden in all seasons
open every day save Christmas Day
A particularly fine large flowered
cornus
For more info go to www.aberglasney.org