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.
greenbenchramblings 