greenbenchramblings

We arrived at Bridgemere Garden Centre once again to have a wander around the show gardens. We were hoping for some signs of spring!

A triangular border lit up by golden daffodils welcomed us into the garden. The air here is so clean and the microclimate so damp that beautifully coloured lichen grow on any available twig.

The cottage garden is always such a calm place to begin our tour. It looks ready for the seasons to come with rhubarb being the only fruit almost ready to harvest.

As we moved on and entered the Winter Garden a most colourful combination of brunnera and Tete-a-Tete narcissi welcomed us. As expected the Winter Garden is one of the most colourful areas of the show gardens in March.

These patches of tulip foliage promise a kaleidoscope of colours on our visit next month. The well-trimmed topiary look good all year.

Colourful flowering shrubs and small trees are beginning to dominate the garden now. Next month they will be flowering even better.

When placed carefully in pairs and groups conifers can be quite interesting with their varying colours and textures.

So we enjoyed another blue sky day at Bridgemere and already we are looking forward to coming again next month.

I began my March entries by writing, “According to the Met Office we are now in spring because March has arrived. Frosts come most nights though, so in reality it is still late winter. (They continued until mid-month.) Throughout the first half of March we enjoyed beautiful and dramatic sunrises and more gentle sunsets. The sunsets emphasised the coloured stems of acers and salix.”

I then shared photos of these shrubs with coloured stems.

On the next page I noted that, “A light frost each morning and blue sky days enticed us out into our garden to do jobs.” The photos on that page show just some of the jobs we have been working on.

“We have been tidying up plants and weeding each border. We clipped the ivy over the arch over the seat. It is so important to get this done before birds start to nest.”

“Planting replacement euphorbias.”

“Watering newly planted euphorbias, picking daffodils for the house and sowing perennial seeds.”

Over the page, the next two pages consider firstly our daffodils and then our garden wildlife.

“So many different daffodils add bright shades of white, yellow and orange to every border. From the middle of the month they begin to be joined by colourful tulips.”

On the page opposite the daffodils I looked at some of the wildlife using our garden this month. I noted that, “Over the winter we have been feeding the birds in our garden and the feeders in both the front and back gardens are emptied every day. Sunflower hearts are by far the favourite food for finches and titmice alike.

The flocks of finches visiting for nibbles got as large as 40 for Greenfinches and over 50 for Goldfinches. Long Tailed Tit flocks are usually 20 or so individuals.

Our hedgehogs have been in hibernation until the beginning of March when they started nightly visits to the feeding station for both food and water.

Up until last year our frogs spawned in mid to late February but for the last 2 years they croak, mate and leave large clumps of spawn in mid-March.”

“Wrens and robins are searching for nest sites while the early morning songs of blackbirds are starting earlier each day. Most birds’ calls have changed to songs.

Bluetits and Great Tits are exploring nest boxes. The strangest wildlife experience of all this month was seeing a snipe flying low over the garden, with its distinctive shape and long bill. A real treat!”

Turning the page we find on the left side a look at new foliage on trees and shrubs, while on the right I feature my sketch of a salix. I wrote, “One of the most wondrous happenings of the second half of this month is the bright freshness of new foliage bursting out of their buds of shrubs and trees.”

Then I shared eight photos of fresh foliage.

Opposite the photos of freshly burst buds is a sketch I made using Derwent Inktense Crayons, depicting a branch of Salix gracilistyla ‘Melanostachys’. Its catkins are intense black and red.

Onto the last page of my journal for March, which features flowers of shrubs and climbers about which I noted that, “The last week of March and we have several flowering shrubs and climbers in flower and each one is special in its own way.”

The photos below show some of our colourful flowering shrubs and climbers.

The final trio of photos for this month show the flowers of the three different ribes we grow, all beautiful in their own way.

So with a look at these colourful shrubs flowering away in March I can finish this look at my journal. I shall return to delve into it again at the end of April.

As we are in a surprise warm and sunny spell in April I decided to have a look back to a garden visit we made back in September.

The last time we visited this National Trust property was years ago when we visited in February to enjoy the snowdrop walk. So this September visit would inevitably be very different.

This strange looking sign was found on the side of a van.

To get to the gardens and grounds we walked up a gently sloping driveway which took us to the side of the castle so we had to walk around the perimeter of the castle walls to reach the entrance.

Just past the castle entrance we found the turning into the garden itself, with signs of formality and some soft planting like the roses below.

Then long vistas opened up giving signs of the importance of topiarised conifers.

The background sound here was dominated by the voices of the hardworking gardeners with hedge trimmers. Such work takes the gardeners months each year.

From here on the garden was a combination of powerful topiary, calming green lawns and patches of colourful perennials, with roses and shrubs.

We wandered back to the cafe and carpark and after a quick coffee we decided to take a quick look at the kitchen gardens and whilst there we discovered a communal space called the “Quiet Space”. Such an interesting place deserves a post of its own.

We decided to have a few days away up in north Wales spending sometime on Anglesey although staying on the mainland on the opposite side of the Straits.

While on the island we always make time to wander on our favourite beach of all time, acres of sand, plenty of shells of all sorts and virtually no other people except a few dog walkers. The only downsides being the difficult access down steep, narrow winding lanes plus the strong winds which are usually cold as well.

The best way to share our walk with you is to put the photos I took in the order taken. You will soon realise that most of the time I was looking down.

I hope you have enjoyed our wanderings along this open expanse of silent sands and sea air.

Our second visit to the show gardens at Bridgemere Garden Centre looked set to be very different to our January visit. We followed, more or less, the same route as we did in January and once again we were on the look out for signs of winter and perhaps a few signs of spring.

We made a slight deviation from the pathway to look at the impressive brick and stone built Folly.

Returning to our original routeway, we enjoyed the rich sweet scent of Daphnes and low spring plantings. Below the photos show Daphne bholua ‘Spring Beauty’, the blossom of a prunus and the spring flowers of pulmonaria and snowdrops covering the ground below.

Nearby beneath a tree the ground in between its exposed roots was covered by scillas, white with the palest blue hue.

There were two more daphnes nearby for us to enjoy, Daphne bholua ‘Jaqueline Postill’ and Daphne bhuloa ‘Princess Perfume’, which had attracted a ladybird. The sun had brought out quite a few ladybirds.

In the Winter Garden patches of colour were glowing in the sun.

We returned to the circle of lawn beautifully edged by fan-trained apple trees underplanted with spring bulbs such as Narcissus ‘Tete-a-Tete’ and chionodoxa.

From a gateway we had a good view of the nursery where most of the plants sold here and other Blue Diamond garden centre are raised.

As we made our way back to the entrance we wandered around beds on the look out for more winter interest. But there were some signs of spring too, perennials showing fresh leaf shoots, roses shooting new leaves and catkins fluffing up.

I shall conclude with two wider shots taken from the top of a short flight of steps.