At this time of year we love turning up the drooping heads of our hybrid hellebores. They can flower from mid-winter on through spring so are such useful garden plants and loved by most gardeners.
Enjoy my photos below of some of the hellebores that are in flower mid-March.
I found this unpublished post originally written back in mid-February of 2018. I hope you enjoy it!
Back at John’s Garden for our February visit in the cold we can carry on with our exploration as we wander further along the canal-side borders to the canal bridge. In part two we will move along the canal borders before returning along the opposite side of the patch, while along the way discovering a pool, sculpture and a terrace and lots more exciting plants and plant pairings.
Conifers, grasses and trees and shrubs with coloured stems and bark give a common theme throughout. The first two photos below show the matching gold coloured foliage of a group of conifers and a swathe of grasses.
The Rhodendron above has a surprise for you if you turn over its leaves! Who would expect orange on the reverse side of a touch dark green leaf? And it feels like the softest felt.
Skimmia “Kew Green” has unusual green flowers instead of the usual reddish shades, while the Witch Hazels sport many shades of yellow.
Snowdrops in drifts light up the ground beneath the tree. Ilex “Ferox” sparkles with variegated leaves curled and heavily spined, probably one of the best hollies available for the small garden.
Metal panels with cut-out shapes of fern leaves reflect the planting beneath them in the border. John features many different versions of the low growing evergreen shrub, Leucothe. This one was a real beauty!
White can be a powerful colour when the winter sun catches it, as in the bleached stems of Teasels, the trunks of white-bark Birch and the ground covering Carex.
Along the way a beautiful pool gave a space to slow down and take a deep breath to take in all we had so far seen.
Every garden however small needs seats and they must be chosen to fit the design and atmosphere.
Sculpture is scattered around the garden providing us with pleasant surprises among our delight at its plants.
Turning at the far end of the garden we had a quick look at the new garden which has just begun being created, Adam’s Garden, designed in memory of John’s gardener who died very young late last year. This will be a great addition to the garden and we look forward to seeing it develop. We then returned on the opposite side of the long garden making interesting discoveries all the way.
The terrace is a place where you need to stop and study the small details, the pots full of original planting ideas, trimmed shrubs, interesting foliage and some floating blossoms.
Exploring an interesting little terrace garden finished our visit and we returned to the cafe via John’s lawned area with Betula, Snowdrops, Crocus and sheep.
We have a list of the other few open days the rest of the year so aim to return. All of John’s open days are to raise money for charity including some for the National Garden Scheme, the NGS. We will be back!
Here we are visiting my garden journal for the second time in 2019 with my February entries. My first double page spread was all about the week that spanned the last few days of January which delivered snowfall and the first few days of February which gave us a heavy frost.
The photos on the left hand page illustrated some of our winter flowering scented shrubs topped off with a layer of deep frost. I wrote, “The last few days of January shared a week with the first few days of February. It was a cold week cheered greatly by the appearance of flowers on our winter shrubs, which also delighted with their rich scents.”
“The delights of scented winter shrubs. Food for winter flying moths.”
Opposite my photos showed the effects of snow on our sculpture, both man-made and created by Mother Nature, the seedleads of grasses and perennials.
“The snowfall that came and went all within a day.”
Over the page my next two pages concerned with a period of strong winds and the earliest of bulbs to flower in our patch.
I wrote, “February 9th delivered gale force winds overnight so firstjob on the 10th was inspecting for damage. Luckily very little was to be found just a few minor happenings.”
“One broken stake of a support trio. Plant labels blown around the garden.
“Part of an insect home blown down. Plant protection bags blown off delicate shrub Loropetala.”
“Collapsed Calamagrostis”
On the opposite page I wrote, “February sees the first of our bulbs coming into flower.”
“A pale crocus and an deep purple Iris reticulata.”
“Snowdrops have bulked up nicely.”
“Winter Aconite give winter gold”
“Cyclamen at the base of our Field Maple.”
The next double page spread is all about Hellebores and we have so many.
I wrote, “Hellebore hybrids and self-seeders are blooming throughout our garden.”
“Euphorbia foetidus grows to small shrub proportions in the rich soil in our patch. Its acid-yellow bracts sit well against its deep green deeply cut foliage. It has a rather unfortunate common name of “Stinking Hellebore”, but is also called “Barfoot”.
“Even more of our Hellebore hybrids.”
Turning over the page one more time I looked at some indoor gardening related jobs and wrote, “Wet days in February afford us the opportunity to catch up on indoor tasks such as chitting potatoes, starting off Dahlias and Cannas as well as sowing seeds of perennials and a few annuals.”
I continued, “Meanwhile outside we continue to tidy up border by border. Sorting our gravel garden, the Chatto Border, is a major task so we do that work on days when Ian, our part-time gardener is around to help us. We also dug up and divided Day Lilies.”
About Crocus I wrote, “Whatever the weather, sunny or overcast, the gold of Crocus shines through, even the purple coloured varieties have spots of deep yellow, almost orange.”
Turn over and I share the surprise of a wildlife visitor, about which I wrote, “There is a surprising amount of wildlife activity in our February garden. Recent sunny, warmer than average days have encouraged our resident birds to start singing and calling. The Song Thrush calls loudly from first light along with Robins, Dunnock and Wren while overhead Buzzards and Red Kite mewl as they soar. As the light levels drop Tawny Owls called for long periods of time. Sunshine also brings out Bumble Bees and Honey Bees to feed off early flowers of bulbs and the first butterfly of the year makes its appearance. A stunningly beautiful Red Admiral rests on a wall taking in the extra warmth of the sun on the bricks.
As we struggle to keep our garden going in our current drought and extremly high temperatures, here is a post to remind us of cooler times!
Hellebores! Everyone loves them. Here are some of the latest colours from breeder of new cultivars, John Massey.
I began my April entries in my Garden Journal 2018 with the words, “April this year is a month to play “catch up” as the poor weather in the first quarter of the year has held us up so!” But as will be revealed during my entries this month things didn’t play into our hands as far as the weather was concerns. It rather dashed our hopes!
I continued, We had two weeks at home to garden before we went away for a Spring holiday. There was very little sign of the new season, a few daffodils and other Spring bulbs flowered but little fresh growth on perennials. Strangely, our Witch Hazels had a quick second flush of flowers.
Coppicing and pollarding feature strongly when we turn over to the next page, two of my favourite garden activities.
We usually aim to coppice and pollard our shrubs grown for their colourful stems, Cornus and Salix, before the end of March. The weather prevented us doing so this year so we tackled the job in early April. It is a job I love because I like to picture the results of my actions.
Some pruned stems are selected as cuttings to produce new plants to sell or as replacements.
Hazel rods become bean poles and the brash become pea sticks to be used on our allotment. We tidied up around the hazel stools and gave the footpath a mow over.
On the page opposite to the notes about coppicing and pollarding, I moved on to look at re-instating some of our grass paths, writing, A major job for this April was to repair and re-seed our grass paths. This is a result of having so many visitors when we open our garden for the National Garden Scheme.
We used my big vintage Bulldog fork to spike deeply into the lawn surface and top dressed the lawn with compost. We brushed this in and added fresh grass seed into bare patches. To stop our garden birds eating too many seeds we spread prunings over the surface.
Over onto the next page we can see that I shared a quote from Dan Pearson’s Natural Selection, then looked at more of this month’s jobs.
Dan Pearson in his book Natural Selection wrote early in April, April is spring at its best, with the intensity of green being notched up daily until it is as vibrant as it ever will be. It is the time of some of my favourite plants and an opportunity to get to know better those that flourish in this brief window.
He moves on to speak of three of his favourite spring flowers namely Magnolias, Snakeshead Fritillaries and Tulips. We do not grow Magnolias here at our Avocet garden as we feel it difficult to justify growing a plant that performs for such a small period and sits static and dull for the rest of the year. We enjoy those growing in our neighbours’ gardens instead. Snakeshead Fritillaries and Tulips however we grow in profusion.
For the first few weeks of April this year there was no sign of the “intensity of green” mentioned above. We left to go away for the third of April, leaving our patch still firmly in the grip of Winter.
Before we left however we had jobs to do such as featured in the previous pages and several others which I feature next.
Our key job of this month was to add a single step to the slope into our Japanese Garden. The gravel tended to move beneath our feet as we stepped down the slope. A half-sized “railway sleeper” did the job nicely.
We topped up the log edging to the wildlife pool, topped up the bark paths and spent a day cleaning and sharpening all our secateurs and loppers.
Turning over to the next double page spread I wrote about the birds in our garden and then mentioned a sudden sign of spring.
I wrote, When we work in the garden we do so to a soundtrack of bird song as birds mark their new season’s territories. The loudest songbirds of all are members of the Thrush family, the Blackbirds and Song Thrushes and the more diminutive Robins. All the Titmice and Finches join in calling busily from songposts.
We enjoy watching all of our garden birds collecting nest materials and taking it off to well-hidden places. Throughout the UK people have nicknames for our most common birds. I did some research and came up with these.
Robin – Redbreast, Bob Robin
Song Thrush – Mavis, Throstle
Blackbird – Merle, Woofell, Colley, or Black Uzzle
House Sparrow – Spadger, Spuggie, Spaggie
Wren – Stumpy, Toddy, Sumpit, Old Lady’s Hen
Dunnock – Creepie, Shufflewing, Scrubber
Greenfinch – Green Olf, Greeney, Green Lennart
Great Tit – Black Capped Lolly, Black Headed Bob
Blue Tit – Tom Tit, Blue Cap, Pickcheese, Blue Bonnett
The most exciting bird spotted this month was an early Cuckoo who sat on top of a bush. This is a bird often heard but rarely seen, so it was a memorable sighting.
The third week of the month saw Spring arrive very late and very quickly and dramatically after a few days of record setting high temperatures. Suddenly our spring flowering bulbs burst into life and leaf buds opened to reveal the brightest of greens, bronzes and pinks.
Tulips take over every part of our garden splashing their brightness among fresh greens of perennials growth.
A cold easterly wind blew back into our patch as the month came to an end. It has been a destructive force in our garden this Spring, burning leaves of even the toughest of shrubs. Every variety of Mahonia has been hit hard but do seem to be fighting back, dropping the dead browned leaves as new buds thrust from the branches.
So here I finish my report on my April pages in my garden journal. I will return in May when the weather may be more kind to us.
It feels so magical when you discover a chance seedling that is a natural hybrid that has happened under your nose with no help from the gardener. It is equally special when a surprise seedling is so special and different that you want to give it its own name. We have a few of our own Avocet plants that occurred in this way, two Hellebores, two Hollies, a Cotoneaster, a Willow and a Cornus.
I thought it would be interesting to share them with you and let you see some photos of them to see what you think.
Firstly I will share our two Hellebores, the first pictured below we called Hellebore “Jo’s Jewel”after our daughter Jo who creates beautiful jewelry. It has flowers of a delicate pink with tiny purple dots inside and faint hints of green at the base of each petal turning deep green at the base. The reverse of the petals are of a deeper pink colour. The petals are rounded in shape.
Our second selected Hellebore has purple-pink outer petals with fine lines of a deeper purple and spots adorn the inner petals. Each petal, although rounded comes to a point. We have named this seedling after our daughter-in-law, Sam so we call it Hellebore “Sammi’s Smile”. So these sister seedlings are named after two sisters!
Our Ilex was selected from dozens of seedlings grown from berries from our garden at our last garden prior to our Avocet patch. We grew them on our allotment nearby and watched and waited to see if anything special developed. After a few years they began to show their potential and naturally most were pretty ordinary apart from half a dozen with very dark stems and foliage. We kept these and composted the rest. We carefully watched these finalists develop until we could identify their growth habit, leaf and stem colour and their flowering and berrying. Eventually we ended up with a select three with very dark and shiny stems and leaves, two we thought would make good standards that we could topiarise, and a third which seemed more delicate.
Our third selection we have called Ilex “Avocet Flat Black” and after ten years it has grown to just 3ft tall and 5ft across. It has delicate dark shiny foliage and black stems, it flowers well and its flowers attract bees and hoverflies. The deep red berries are enjoyed by our resident Blackbirds and the shrub is enjoyed by our garden visitors.
Here is our Ilex “Avocet Flat black” in flower and attracting bees.
Salix alba britzensis “Wendy’s Orange” is a plant we grew by taking cuttings of a few branches of a friend’s Salix alba britzensis which showed very rich orange coloured stems. These stems glowed so brightly when caught by the sun. The friend was called Wendy hence the name we christened our plants, Salix alba britzensis “Wendy’s Orange”. We grew our cuttings on until large enough to take cuttings from them and so on. We grew a few on as standards that we could pollard and three of these now grace our Rill Garden. They look wonderful and so brightly coloured! See how the sun brings out the orange and makes the branches glow brightly. The first photo is taken under cloud, the second and third in sunlight.
We pollard these willow trees to thicken their trunks and force them to grow fresh, colourful stem growth each spring.
Our selected seedling Cotoneaster was again planted out on our old allotment near our previous home and garden. We selected out one very strong growing plant which looked far superior to the rest, its stems darker than usual, its leaves also darker coloured and heavily textured. When it matured enough to flower it did so profusely, attracting bees and hoverflies. These were followed by deep red berries, ruby red in fact, and highly glossy. Each berry is like a red gem, a ruby, and so we named it Cotoneaster “Jude’s Ruby”. It is much admired by visitors on our garden open days and group visits, who often ask if we have cuttings for sale. We are now trying to build up stock. Cuttings seem slow and not very reliable so we will also try growing from collected seeds.
Our other shrub seedling also features the colour ruby red but not berries, coloured stems instead are its main feature. We named it Cornus “Avocet Ruby”. We selected it from seedlings which appeared on the bank bordering the wildlife pond, and were hybrids between Cornus Midwinter Fire” and other dogwoods grown for their coloured stems. We are now taking cuttings to help build up some stock from which we will be able to sell specimens to our garden visitors. The picture below shows its autumn colouring. Once these yellow leaves fall the brightly coloured stems of yellow, orange and ruby red are revealed in readiness for glowing so brightly in late winter sun.
Here is the second time in 2017 when I share with you my Garden Journal, so please enjoy my February pages.
On the first double page spread I look at Snowdrops and some early plants of interest. I wrote, “February, the month when gardeners’ working hours increase and the light values improve strongly. The snow white of the humble Snowdrop intensifies in the special brightness.”
On the opposite page I wrote, “Our native Primroses, Primula vulgaris, begin to flower in February ready to be at their peak in early Spring. Pink “rogue” Primroses appear as self-seeders. Foliage of Primula vulgaris is beautifully textured and patterned.”
“Other early flowering plants giving bright spots in our borders include Crocus and Pulmonaria. This golden Crocus has a bright green Pittosporum as its partner. The pink Pulmonaria is partnering a fern and an Arum, A. italicum “Marmoratum”.
A February flowering shrub features on the next double-page spread along with Hellebores.
The flowering shrub is Cornus mas, which reliably flowers profusely early every year. I have selected it as my “Plant of the Month” for February. I wrote, “The star of our garden this month has to be Cornus mas, the Cornelian Cherry, with its bright yellow flowers with just a hint of green. We prune off the lower branches and select main boughs to improve the structure of our’s and this also exposes the texture of the bark on the lowest boughs.”
I moved on to show a few of our many Hellebore hybrids and wrote, “Hellebore hybrids start to put on a colourful show from green to yellow and from red to purple. Lots more will come into flower throughout the coming weeks.”
The last photo is not a hybrid Hellebore like the others but our native Helleborus foetidus with its pale green flowers, a subtle beauty with an upright habit.
On the turning of the page we discover my account of re-developing an old border, the Shade Garden”.
I wrote that “By mid-February we had finished re-vamping our “Shade Garden”, an opportunity that arose when we moved a shed that was situated part way along it. The shed was just 6ft by 3ft but the space released by its removal seemed far more significant that that. Its removal opened up the border. We decided to add a couple of Maples, Acer palmatum “Koto-no-ito” and Acer palmatum “Eddisbury”, and increase the variety and number of ferns and grasses, We liked the idea of mixing ferns and grasses, a new plant combination for us.”
“Mr and Mrs Green Man”
“Rotting wood pile, Acer and Ivy, Ivy and Fern.”
“New growth appearing in the Shade Garden”
Ivy is the feature plant over the next pair of pages.
I wrote of the ivy, “The humble English Ivy, Hedera helix is a stalwart of any wildlife garden and we grow dozens throughout our Avocet patch. They clamber over fences, climb inside our covered seat and act as ground-cover. They attract wildlife who welcome their pollen and nectar late in the year, their berries in winter and shelter and nest sites.”
“We grow this unusual shrubby variety, Hedera helix “Erecta”, a bit of a novelty!”
“Another shrubby variety which flowers and berries profusely, Hedera helix “Arborescens.”
“Variety in variegation.”
Finally two climbing ivies growing in our Shade Garden.
“Hedera helix “Emerald Gem” “Hedera canariensis “Gloire de Marengo.”
Next I featured the birds that share our garden with us, particularly the ones who take advantage of our feeding stations.
“The birds have been busy in the garden during the month, feeding heavily to compensate for the cold nights. Their new year songs fill the garden from dawn until dusk. The Tawny Owls keep going, calling loudly from dusk through the hours of darkness.”
“Birds are singing now to attract mates and make declarations of territory. In January birds just called but now they sing so powerfully and tunefully. Recently a Reed Bunting (photo bottom right) has become a regular visitor as have the pair of Collared Doves.”
“Goldfinches are now the most common bird in our Avocet garden. The population of most UK birds is dropping and this is especially marked in our song-birds. The wonderful Goldfinch is an exception, with its population on the increase. It is the entertainer of the bird feeders, being agile and fast-moving.
We think of it as our garden’s clown with its bright red face, black and white striped head and bright yellow wing flashes. We managed to increase the numbers visiting our garden by filling some feeders with sunflower hearts. Goldfinches love them as do other finches who visit.”
We next turn over to a double page spread all about early flowers and a plant that displays amazing unusual foliage.
I wrote, “The variety of bulbs that flower in the period when Winter becomes Spring, increases greatly in February. Snowdrops dominated the January borders in our Avocet garden but in February they get new flowering partners, Crocuses, Cyclamen, Muscari and the golden-petaled Winter Aconites.
Sunny days see these flowers open wide to greedily absorb the new light quality that February brings.”
Concerning the unusual Arums we grow I continued, “Arum italicum ssp. italicum “Marmoratum” formerly known simply as Arum italicum “Marmoratum”. This is a tuberous perennial which we grow in our Shade Garden and beneath the shade of small trees. We like them for their foliage, arrow-shaped, extremely glossy and varied in its leaf patterns. Leaves are best described as being “marbled” with white, silver, ivory or cream markings. It flowers in Spring, producing cream spathes and in Autumn vertical columns of bright red berries shoot up to a foot tall. In addition to those attributes, wildlife loves the Arum Lily, bees, butterflies, moths and lots of beneficial predatory insects.”
We are so pleased to have established a clump of the rare Arum Lily called “Arum italicum Chameleon”, seen in photo below.
More foliage features over on the following pages, the newly emerging foliage of perennials.
I wrote, “In the second half of the month we had a special treat in store, a few days of heatwave with daytime temperatures reaching 15 C in Plealey. This resulted in rush of new growth from the perennials that had died down after their display last year. The photos show perennial growth with new leaf growth penetrating the soil like the blades of swords.
This final picture of new growth illustrates how new growth of Pulmonarias shows both foliage and flower bud shooting together.
Opposite I share photos of broad-leaved perennials displaying their new growth, where I wrote, “Elsewhere broad-leaved herbaceous perennials were unfurling their fresh foliage ready for the new year. Here we have new leaves of Primula vulgaris, Sedum, Aquilegia, Polemonium, Centaurea, Fennel and Geranium palmatum. More growth appears daily as February comes to an end. It all bodes well for Spring and Summer.”
And so that is my February report from my Garden Journal. We will visit again in March.
It feels good to be back sharing my Garden Journal with you once again. So here is the first for 2017, my report on what was going on in our Avocet garden in January.
For 2017 I will share the beauty, the happenings and the stars of our Avocet garden month by month. I will consider the wildlife that visits and shares our garden with us and see what it is up to. I aim to record the birds we spot, the creatures which live in our pond and the mini-beasts who appreciate our plants in our borders.
I hope to set up my moth live-trap and carry out a pond dip regularly. I will record using words, photographs, paintings and drawings.
My 2017 Garden Journal opened with a comment about the weather, the favourite subject of the English and particularly English gardeners, “We were well into the third week of January when we were pleased to get typical January weather, frosty mornings followed by bright glue skies. Fog joined in on odd days. Until then every day was dull and wet, dull to the point of darkness at times. Not a good start to a new year of gardening and enjoying our garden.
Extra colour and movement, and of course sound, is added to the atmosphere of our garden by the birds who visit. This winter we moved our main bird feeding centre closer to the house so that we could observe the birds in close up. Surprisingly this had the extra bonus of increasing the birds visiting, in particular the finches.
Birds of our January garden:
Blackbird Goldfinch Blue Tit
Robin Greenfinch Great Tit
Wren Chaffinch Coal Tit
Dunnock Blackcap Long-tailed Tit
Jackdaw Siskin Collared Dove
Mistle Thrush Song Thrush Nuthatch
Turning the page finds me discussing scented shrubs starring in our January garden.
Scented shrubs add an extra element to enjoy in our Avocet garden all year round, but winter-flowering shrubs are probably the most important of all. Their rich scents, warm and sweet and spicy, spread far to attract the few insects flying in the colder months. In January we are enjoying the welcome aromas of Mahonia, Sarcococca, Witch Hazels and Daphne. The local honey bees are drawn to the Mahonia and we can hear their gentle humming whenever the sun gives some unexpected warmth and brightness.
I used my watercolours to create a painting of a Honey Bee, Apis mellifera, and it was a very difficult painting to do.
On the page opposite my bee painting, I included photos of the “Scented flowering shrubs of our January garden at Avocet, our home in Shropshire, a very cold county in winter.”, Sarcococca confusa, Daphne bholua “Jacqueline Postill”, Hamamelis Jelena and Diane and Mahonia “Winter Sun”.
Over the page we look at “new” gardening tools, one brand new and one new to me which is a vintage tool.
“Acquiring new tools to use in the garden is always a pleasure. Recently I have treated the garden, and myself of course, to a few interesting implements”.
Firstly a pair of Japanese secateurs, with the unusual problem of instructions written in Japanese. As I had ordered them from Japan I should not have been surprised really!
I painted a picture of my new Japanese secateurs, which was a lot harder that it looks.
“Okatsune secateurs are the favourite of professional gardeners in Japan. They are manufactured from Japanese high carbon steel so they sharpen easily and well.”
“My second “new” gardening tool is actually a vintage piece, a 1930’s turfing spade made in Birmingham by a company called Vaughan’s. The long handle is crafted from solid forged iron and the handle is made from Ash wood. The long wooden shaft reduces the workload and the beautiful “D” handle makes the tool comfortable to use. The shape of the blade makes it efficient at even lifting an even 1 inch thick slices of turf. The unusual shaped metal shaft increases the efficiency of this wonderful old tool. So my turf lifting spade is vintage circa 1936 but “new” to me.
I moved on to show how Ian, our gardener, used the vintage turfing spade to replace the grass on some of our paths.
“We bought the Vaughan tool specifically to use in our garden, to lift the turf paths in our back garden. Our gardener, Ian, loved using it and found it easy to use, a real joy. Now it is part of my vintage garden tool collection, a great addition.”
“The old turf from our worn paths is soon removed and new rolls are soon down.”
I next looked at a beautiful totally dried seed head of an Allium, which, with its spherical shape, tends to get blown around the garden with several others. We meet them at random times and places all overthe garden. We are always surprised by their simple beauty. I drew the Allium seed head using just a pencil. Looking and studying the Allium took much longer than the time spent with pencil moving on paper.
“The dried spherical seed heads of all our different sorts of ornamental Alliums remain in the garden through the winter months. They act as our own Avocet “tumbleweeds” as wind takes them on journeys.”
I hope you enjoy the close ups of my drawing below.
By turning the page we see little white birds and colourful bulb flowers. I wrote: “We bought three new stoneware sculptural pieces for our garden, three cheeky and chirpy Sparrows. We loved taking them around the garden seeing where they looked their best. We decided to keep moving them around as the mood took us. They, however, decided that their favourite place was our garden bench in “Arabella’s Garden”. Cheeky chappies indeed!
Opposite the photos of the sculpture birds are photos of early flowers, Irises and Hellebores.
“Iris reticula, the first bulb to flower in 2017.”
“Meanwhile Hellebores are budding up strongly, so we will have flowers in Feb.”
January frosts feature on the next double page spread.
“On the early hours of the days following cold frosty nights, the flowers which give colour to our January garden, were topped off with cold, icy halos.”
“Cold nights also gave our sculpture pieces a thin layer of icing sugar.”
My next page was titled simply “January Frosts” and featured a series of photographs of foliage and seedheads covered in a thin covering of frost and icy crystals.
Turn over to the next page and we leave the frost behind and take a look at one of our Birches, Betula albosinensis “Septentronalis”, one of the best Betulas around.
“Plant of the month – Betula albosinensis “Septentronalis”. This Birch is an elegant tree with an open canopy so casts little shade. We grow it mostly for its colourful bark which peels to expose clean, more colourful bark beneath. This is best described as pale salmon coloured which peels back to show gingers beneath. This tree also produces beautiful long catkins.”
I collected up some peeled bark from the tree and glued two pieces side by side to illustrate how different the layers of bark can be.
Betula albosinensis “Septentronalis” is probably one of the best trees for the small garden and no garden should be without one. Larger gardens can host a trio of them!
And that is it for my Garden Journal in January. Perhaps in February winter may be biting deeper or we may be experiencing one of our occasional February heatwaves when temperatures can reach 17 celsius.
We returned to the Dorothy Clive Garden for our second visit of the year. In January we walked around the gardens with snow on the ground and we had to wrap up warm against the cold winds. For our February visit we left home with dark grey skies overhead and a slight drizzle in the air but the closer we got to the garden the better the weather became. Patches of blue sky appeared and the clouds turned ever paler. The temperature had reached 15 degrees Centigrade as we parked the car and made our way to the cafe for the obligatory coffee and cake essential for a successsful garden visit. Our visit was going to have an added dimension as there was an activity day for children all to do with wildlife and the natural world. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildlife Trust were there as well as a bird of prey group. Children were given the chance to make bird boxes, bird food cakes and to handle skulls of native mammals. There was also a quiz sheet and a trail for them to enjoy.
As we walked from the car park to the cafe the first photo I took was of a view that in January was simply snow with a few evergreen shrubs rising up. Around the next curve of the path we noticed that a new project was in hand (see right hand picture below). The area had been cleared of old untidy evergreens which were well past their best. The area has already been leveled and large blocks of local sandstone await close by. We look forward to watching this develop over the coming months. The plant sales table looked much better without its covering of snow.
On the lawn outside the restaurant we were enthralled by getting up close to some beautiful owls and falcons. After enjoying our coffee and cakes we took off to walk towards the Quarry Garden, passing a border dotted with tiny pale blue flowering bulbs. As we entered the Quarry we noticed a family making nest boxes.
The Quarry garden was much greener without its snow blanket and early flowering bulbs were adding colour allied with Hellebores in full flower and a few blooms on Rhododendrons and Azaleas.
The textures and architectural shapes of trees come to the fore in winter before the leaves return in the spring. Unusual foliage such as the Rhodendron with orange-ginger undersides to its leaves provide brightness under the shade of taller trees. The upper side of the leaves are glossy but the underside have a matt, powdery feel to them. Close up it gives them the look of a windswept desert landscape.
Leaf shapes and their patterns and textures provided added interest under the tree canopy.
We wandered around a bit trying to find the stag sculpture we found in January and kept getting the wrong path. When we did find him he looked much more majestic without his white coat of snow. We then moved off towards the new Winter Woodland Garden, which is a juvenile garden having been created in early 2015. It already looks and feels a really good seasonal garden, with many shrubs and trees with coloured stems and bark, evergreen groundcover such as Bergenia, several different Carex and Luzula many with striped or golden leaves. Flowering bulbs were putting on an excellent show for us.Ggiven a few years and this will be a beautiful woodland winter garden and will be one of the best close to us so will become a place we visit often.
We left the Winter Garden by walking under the Laburnum arch still devoid of any growth and enjoyed a wander through the Upper Garden where trees and shrubs reigned supreme. A shy sculpture maiden welcomed us.
Having indulged in the powerful scent of this delicately coloured pink Daphne we followed a path that led us around the front of the coffee shop and then down the sloping gardens to the pool.
Species tulips demanded a close look to appreciate their beauty and delicacy.
Can you spot the bee at work collecting pollen from the blue crocus? Great to see this.
So that was our February visit to the wonderful Dorothy Clive Garden. We can’t wait to be back with camera in hand to see what March will bring, perhaps a few touches of spring!
As we entered the month of March we looked forward to increased temperatures both during the daytime and at night .We thought with luck the danger of frosts would be diminishing, although this year we have had few to talk of and none deep enough to cause many problems.
So let’s have a look at my Garden Journal for the month of March.
“Early in March we treated ourselves to two new Hellebore hybrids to add to our dozens already adding colour to our borders”
One displays simple single deepest red flowers and the other pale green petals edged with a picotee fringe in deep plum and in the centre a similarly coloured collar of petals. Let’s look at the simpler one first.
In complete contrast the “colarette” Hellebore shows so much more colour and variation.
Pleased as we were with our new purchases we were even more pleased to find a chance seedling Hellebore which has sneaked its way into our Rill Garden. The problem is that it has settled in tight into the base of the stone wall of our raised pool. “We were also surprised to discover a beautiful new self-crossed hybrid in the Rill Garden. Each petal is a subtle combination of blush pinks and pale greens, its centre the deepest yellow.” It really needs moving out to replant it where it can be appreciated properly. This photo shows it in its chosen home. We love it for its subtle combination of pink and green with delicate spots, and of course for choosing our garden to grow in. What do you think of it?
My journal moves on to look at the first tulip of the year, this beautiful species one with such unusual colour combinations within its petals. “Our first tulip is out, a beautiful deep red-blue colour. Each bloom is so delicate it seems the gentlest breeze will disperse its petals.”
I reveled in the challenge of representing its flower, shaped like the flame of a candle, in watercolours with pen and ink detailing. I had great fun mixing so many tints of blues and reds together and even brought in a touches of green.
The bird life at Avocet starred next in my journal. “Wrens and Robins are becoming dominant in the garden. Robins are developing territorial traits resulting in chasing and flouncing. The nimble Wren hunts in every nook, crack and cranny for insects, spiders and their eggs. They still roost together in the pouches we have, scattered throughout our garden. Soon they will be considering them as potential nesting places.” It will be interesting to observe the changes in behaviour and attitudes towards each other when this change of emphasis occurs.
I quoted a further passage from Jenny Joseph, “March is certainly coming in like a lion – a roaring beast. After the gale had torn wider and wider the covering to the sky to let the blue in, it was a bright sunny enticing outside world.” In my journal I wrote “But for us here in Shropshire we have had no strong winds at all, just sunny days alternating with cloudy damp days and cold nights.” But March was to prove these words to be dreadfully premature, for as the month was preparing the way for April to follow in its footsteps we did indeed get gales lasting several days and taking us into April. This strange atypical weather isn’t helping the garden, and definitely not helping us as we prepare for our first opening for the year on 16th April. I noted this in the journal, “This is confusing the garden. It doesn’t know which way to turn. Plants are behind where they should be. Few Tulips or Daffs have displayed their blooms. Leaves on the Acers are showing little inclination to burst from their buds.”
As my journal closes for March we are preparing for our April opening and we could do with some help from the weather and from Mother Nature herself! We can only wait as spectators and see what April brings with it.
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