greenbenchramblings

March, according to the Met Office is the first day of spring but as gardeners we know it isn’t. Or is this year going to be the year when early March does feel like spring? Many plants seem to think spring has definitely arrived as we have strong fresh growth on many perennials and buds fattening on trees and shrubs.

These photos illustrate haw many different colours fresh growth comes in.

Over onto the next page I summarised some of the garden jobs we worked on.

“The first few days of March were bright and mild so we spent them in the garden. Our new shed is close to being finished – it has a door! I hand weeded the gravel bed alongside the conservatory as Jude tackled our Beth Chatto Garden. Ian, our garden helper, planted three new euphorbias while Jude made the new water butt area level.”

The next page in my journal featured purely hellebores and I noted that, “Hellebores are still going strong with some only just with buds fattening up preparing to flower. Here is a small selection.”

From hellebores we move onto coloured stems and the bark of trees. I wrote, “Coloured stems and bark of trees and shrubs are there to be appreciated early in the month prior top coppicing and pollarding before the month is over.”

“The second half of March means fresh growth. Plants bursting into growth, buds opening revealing so many shades of green from chartreuse to almost black. Flower buds open alongside.” Below are photos to illustrate this huge variety of colour in fresh foliage.

Instead of opening leaf buds on the next page I look at opening flower buds on climbers, shrubs and perennials. I noted that, “These opening flower buds offer shades of pink, yellow, orange, white and purples.

We have done so much in the garden this month that I added a second page relating to getting more tasks done. I wrote, “Of course throughout March we carry on gardening whenever the weather allows. But we got so frustrated with rainy days that we went out and just got wet – sometimes very wet!

A really colourful page comes up next with the array of colours coming from our tulips. “Towards the end of March tulips became a definite star of the garden even though they are more likely to be flowering in April.”

Below is a selection of just ten of our large collection of tulips. We plant more each autumn to make up for the inevitable losses.

So that gives us a very colourful end to my March journal, just like a jar of old fashioned sweets.

It is so hard to predict what our April garden will give us – it is already a confusing year.

February is never a month which is very predictable, giving us cold blue sky days starting with sharp frosts or often a short heatwave. This year on the first day of the new month I wrote, “February 1st. We woke to a dry morning, mostly overcast but with increasing patches of pale wintry blue. A robin joined us in the kitchen, probably the first of many visits to come. There is so much colour throughout the garden from winter flowering shrubs to the tiny spring bulbs. So many so-called spring bulbs actually flower in winter! Our colours come also from fungi, coloured stems and hellebores.”

I shared eight photos of sources of colour from around the garden.

Over the page we move on to consider the gardening tasks we still need to get done. I noted that, “Still plenty of gardening tasks to get done. We needed to get up an acer that had died. Ian, our garden help, did this for us and this was a long, hard job, especially when it came to getting up the very bottom of the stump and the roots. We then replaced it with a low-growing acer together with a small azalea. We then gave the Spring Garden a “spring clean”.

The problem we have currently when looking after the Spring Garden is the fact that the property next door is currently vacant and has been for months. There is a terrible mess behind our fence, mostly self seeded shrubs, ivies and brambles. We have to try to keep this area under control.”

Turning to the next page we shared three photos taken looking into three different borders.

“Creeping patch of cyclamen coum.“

“Golden crocus glowing beneath deciduous trees.”

“A row of Carex edge the border.”

The next page shows one of my sketches, illustrating hips of Rosa “Blush Noisette”.

Following on from my sketch I moved on to a look at February flowers. I wrote, “February Flowers. In the February gloom all colour counts. There may be fewer flowers around, but this makes each one special. Many winter flowers are scented in order to add another layer of attraction ,which brings in early pollinators mostly bees to start with.”

The next consideration was to look at more gardening tasks needing to be completed this month. I noted that, “The gardening tasks continue to be completed despite the constant rain. We planted an acer with a small azalea into a large grey pot by our front seat under the beneath the ivy clad arch. We have replaced a bench beneath the blackberry archway with a smart new one. I have been taking succulent cuttings, cleaning some succulent leaves and potting on divisions of perennials. Jude worked along the drive-side borders and curb edges.”

There is no better way to end my February Journal report than to share photographs of us working away in our garden.

For this year’s garden to visit every month of the year we have chosen ‘John’s Garden’ at Ashwood Nursery. The nursery is owned by plantsman John Massey and he opens his own garden for charities every Saturday throughout the year with the exception of January. His chosen charity for 2025 was Horatio’s Gardens and he also opens for one day for the National Garden Scheme.

For our January visit because John’s Garden isn’t open we decided we would show you the gardens within the nursery itself as an introduction. John’s special interests are hellebores, hepaticas, lewisias and cyclamen, which he breeds and of which introduces many cultivars and hybrids of these. The nursery is now famous for its Helleborus Ashwood Garden Hybrids. He has been awarded the RHS VMH award and has won several RHS Gold Medals and even an MBE. He is totally self-taught but is now known as a great plantsman, plant collector, plant breeder, writer and author. He has had many great friends in the plant world such as Percy Picton famous for his Asters, Christopher Lloyd, Princess Sturdza and Carol Klein from Gardeners World TV programme.

After our usual coffee and cake fix we slowly wandered around the display garden within the nursery itself. The one problem visiting here is that the cafe gets very busy.

The gardeners here show how trees and shrubs can be pruned to look at their best.

The borders here are truly mixed with trees, shrubs, grasses, bulbs and perennials.

The garden is designed with wildlife in mind too with nest boxes fixed in trees, a pool and tree trunks left on the ground to rot away for beetles and their larvae and lots of grasses and perennials left standing over the winter. Berries are present too ready to help members of the thrush family gain sustenance on their long migratory flights. Our own blackbirds and thrushes are joined by their cousins from the cold north-eastern countries alongside redwings and fieldfares.

The orange berries below are Viburnum opulus, a close relative of our native red berried version on the left and a crab apple on the right.

It was so good to see signs of spring in the form of snowdrops, narcissus and cyclamen.

A favourite shrub here as in so many gardens in winter is Cornus “Midwinter Fire” which shines out on dull days and sunny ones alike. A much more subtly coloured feature of a winter garden is the appearance of catkins on a contorted purple hazel and its plain green cousin.

Jude and I are not fans of conifers in general and we only grow a few small cloud pruned specimens in our own gardens. That was until we discovered a family of conifers new to us in Ashwoods in the conifer sales area. The family of Podocarpus,are conifers with colourful fine needles which change colours throughout the year. They also grow into great variety of shapes, and here at Ashwood are quite a few different varieties available in different sizes. We also enjoyed seeing some growing in the garden as we explored around its paths.

What a great collection of conifers Ashwood has for sale! We soon had four different Polycarpus plants and a fastigiate Yew. These were soon potted up in large terracotta containers to replace the succulent collection when cold weather made them migrate to the greenhouse. Here we can appreciate their colour changing trickery throughout the winter months.

I shall finish this post about Ashwood Garden Centre gardens with a trio of shots which I have not shared so far. I hope this will be a helpful introduction to the garden we will be featuring each month of the year from February onwards.