The cruellest month.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
This April has fully lived up to it's undeserved cruel
reputation, for often cold, unprecictable weather. However over the
last 5 years it has been one of our best months here, last year
recording our lowest electricity usage in any month of the year.
This year it has been more like March with 10 air frosts so far
which have taken the edge off newly emerging leaves. Thanks to the
miles of horticultural fleece we now have (only joking but we do
have a lot!) we have saved young growth on all manner of more
sensitive plants including acers, hydrangeas, dicentras, the big
gunnera, fatsia japonica and the early breaking arisaemas ringens,
speciosum and nepenthoides and even the more vulnerable forms of
our hosta collection.
Arisaema nepenthoides in flower the earliest in
the garden but rather frost tender. The so called Cobra Lily is
generally found from India to the far east tending to favour
similar conditions to our our own native arum macualtum (Lords and
Ladies), found in shady hedgerows and woodlands.
Hosta "Remember Me" one of my all time favourites
showing frost damage on the earliest emerging leaves, but newer
leaves are fine.
Whatever the weather April always brings blackbirds singing
their hearts just before dusk, the sharp smell of woodsmoke, the
freshest greens in such variety, a clarity and sharpness of light
unrivalled by any other month, the magic of new life emerging and
all the good things still to come. "The trees are coming into leaf,
Like something almost being said........Last year is dead they seem
to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh." (Philip Larkin "The
Trees")
Weather
A total of 10 nights of air frosts with lowest at -6C on 2
occasions. Some very heavy rain, winds consistently from the
northerly quarter, some bright sunshine at times, but no warmth
with a max of only 14C. Hard to remember that just last month I was
in shorts with a max of 23C - I did say all too prophetically we
would pay for such a fine spell of weather!!
Garden Update
All borders made over (2 weeks of solid work - some major public
gardens do this 3 times a year!!), weeded, plants split where
necessar and lawn edges trimmed so that the entire garden looks
good again with all the promise of the gardening year laid out
before us. Now we can get on with some planting out. Tidied up and
cut back some shrubs that have grown too large and if you know the
Gardens we have had to remove the diseased eleagnus maculatum
"Limelight" which stood sentinel at the entrance to the Paddock
Garden for 20 years. It has left quite a gap. We are pondering with
what to replace it.
Another gap has been created today when I dismantled the pergola
at the side of the house where for the last 10 years we have served
teas to our many visitors, enjoyed our large tender plants like
brugmansias on soft summer nights, and taken many meals throughout
the year. It was erected on the occasion of the Queens Golden
Jubilee in 2002, and we will be celebrating her Diamond Jubilee in
our new conservatory on which work commences next week. It is also
as Moira pointed out to me tonight, her Diamond Jubilee Birthday in
August which is an even better reason to celebrate our new
building.
The pergola as most vistors will remember
it
Going---
Going ---
GONE!!
Grass seed sown earlier this month on the scarifed parts of the
Paddock Lawn is just starting to show green, at last, and it will
be so nice to see the many bare patches covered with grass again.
Hopefully some pics. next month.
What's looking good?
Lots of herbaceous plants are on the move now, and even
without flowers, the shapes, leaf colours and variety of all
the different forms are alluring, but star performers at
present are dicentra"Goldheart" and the huge dark leaves of
ornamental rhubarb in the form rheum palmatum Atrosanguineum.
Dicentra "Goldheart" the yellow foliage of which picks
up the emerging foliage of physocarpus "Darts Gold" in the
background
Rheum palmatum Atrosanguineum - how's that for in your
face? and it gets to 5 feet tall! For a big garden and not for the
faint hearted
Hostas having just about recovered from the sharp frosts, are at
that magical stage when if you ever wondered why you grow them (and
we have over 250 cultivars), you would know now. Lovely colours on
the emerging leaf scapes and the beautiful shapes of the unfolding
leaves. If you have hostas that may have grown too large this is
the perfect time to split and replant them, either in another part
of the garden or to pot up for sale or to give to gardening
friends. I hate to mention the "s" word, slugs and snails, but if
you want hole free hostas all season long now is the time to attend
to them by whatever is your chosen method of protection.
Emerging hostas in the hosta walk along the front house
wall
Nothing moving yet in the veg garden but the peas sown with
optimism in the heat of March have been devastated by the number
one pest, the humble mouse. Re sowing and pest precautions are
necessary. Some consolation is the great purple sprouting still
cropping well, the first time it has done so for 3 years.
In the polytunnels it is a different world away from the wet and
cold outside and even on a dull day temperatures can easily climb
to 20C ensuring rapid growth. It is said that a polytunnel advances
the seasons by up to 6 weeks. I can't explain the joy of opening
the tunnels first thing in the morning and being greeted with the
alluring sweet yet musky smell of of growth. If someone developed a
perfume with that scent I would happily wear it, and I don't care
what anyone would think about it - they probably wouldn't come near
me for a variety of reasons!! The pricked out seedlings, slow at
first, are at last beginning to grow away, and some of the large
mature plants coming into flower. Coronilla is at its peak now with
yellow pea like flowers in profusion. rehmannia elata, the Chinese
foxglove revelling in the protection, has started to put on a
flowershow that will continue non stop until the frosts.
Rehmannia elata with its exotic flowers. Makes up to 3
feet by the end of summer.
A perennial. but a shame it isn't that little bit hardier
although Annette and Andy, friends of ours in balmy Swansea have
had one in flower in a pot all winter. Swansea is a great place to
grow more tender plants thanks to the influence of the sea.
Just having come into flower and one of those "wow factor"
plants, is indigofera pendula, a real eye catcher with wisteria
like racemes of lilac pink flowers all summer on a large
shrub/small tree which is hardy but you don't get the same flower
power outside where it is susceptible to frost. I move our large
pot outside in late May when it intigues all our visitors who
wonder the identity of the wisteria that flowers so late into the
year!
Tumbling racemes of flowers on indigofera pendula, an
underrated and unfamiliar shrub
Wildlife and countryside
All about birds this month. First the swallows are back in good
numbers, arriving on 17 April. earlier than last year. In spite of
all the bad weather - incredible. The pied flycatchers have also
returned prospecting the same nesting box in an old alder by the
river where they raised a brood last year. They were in for a big
surprise as there was a tenant already in residence - a very feisty
blue tit who came out to vigourously defend his property. There was
an almighty stand off which lasted for an hour or so before the
flycatchers gave up. A shame because they are lovely birds but you
have to admire the pluck of the blue tit in defending his property.
Finally last Friday on the Paddock Pond a mother mallard brought
her family of 11 newly fledged ducklings to show them the wider
world. A real treat and we watched them for a long time before she
lead them off in single file back down to the river where they came
from. The ducklings are so tiny but are fast and strong swimmers
and seem to float likes corks. All the time they are chattering to
each other. Enchanting but they are such prey to predators I doubt
if more than a couple will make it to adulthood.
Mum and the babies - no waterwings needed!
Time to go home guys!
Some lovely wildflowers in fields and hedgerows including ladies
smock in the wetter meadows and primroses and wood anemones in
shady areas along the roadverges together with Jack by the Hedge
and Queen Anne's lace, a lovely lacey umbellifer. Bluebells only
just beginning to show colour, at least 2 weeks later than last
year.
Visits
Just 2 talks at the beginning of the month to clubs in
Llansadwrn and Bwlch near Brecon. The most requested talk has been
"Designing with Perennials - Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden".
On 20 May we are at Builth Wells for the Smallholder and Gardening
Festival talking at 1.00pm on "My Garden Year". If you will be at
the show please come along to meet us. In the meantime happy
gardening and let's hope the weather picks up soon.
This weekend we are off to Painswick, Glos for the wedding of
Ed, my IT Guru without whose help and continuing support our humble
website would not be possible, and his childhood sweetheart
Lisa. We don't know what took them so long! Hope they have a great
day and long life together.