We grow a couple of dozen pulmonarias in the shadier parts of our garden, where they give both interestingly marked leaves and plenty of flowers in pinks, blues and white. We have lots in flower now, mid-March but several others will flower in the coming weeks.
I hope you enjoy my gallery of those that are flowering now. To follow the gallery just click on the first photo then navigate using the arrows.
April is one of our busiest months in our Avocet patch, a month when we are busy, our wildlife colleagues are busy and the plants are growing apace. We have tasks to complete as well as usual garden routines.
As I often do in my journals I began with the weather and wrote, “April burst onto the scene with a crazy few days of weather. The first day, April Fools’ Day, was bright and mild after a frosty start which gave us hope for a few good days for gardening. Sadly this was far from the reality as during the following few days the weather treated us to rain, sleet, snow, hail and freezing winds! Not good for gardening!” I added a few photos of frozen rain after it had settled on the garden.
Frozen rain on the garden was an unexpected event.
“Succulents love hot dry areas but look good with hats of snow and ice.”
“Pitcher with snow and black lichen.”
“Frozen rain on fresh herbaceous foliage.”
On the page opposite my weather report I considered some of our flowering shrubs that add a fresh dimension to the spring garden.
“April seems to be the month when our collection of flowering shrubs come into their own, many of them will continue to give colour for weeks on end and then delight us with their foliage in summer and autumn and also the addition of berries.” I then shared a set of photos of a few of our spring flowering shrubs.
Next I shared a few of our spring tasks around the garden
I wrote, “Our list of “non-plant” jobs continued well into the spring, when we made a new shed, in a bright blue painted sentry-box style, specially to fit in our seaside garden.”
“The flat-packed shed arrived in a box and we soon opened it up and lined up all the pieces in readiness.”
“It took longer to make than expected and the finished shed was a bit flimsier than we would have liked so I will add more structural wooden struts to it.”
On the opposite page I looked at other jobs we undertook in April.
“More jobs to launch a new month ….. Jude created a new insect hotel.”
“We planted potatoes in bags.” “We sowed wildflowers in Arabella’s Garden.”
“Roses on arches needed a trim and some shrubs needed pollarding.”
When we turn over the page we see that the next two pages are all about those special flowers of spring, flowering bulbs.
I wrote, “We seem to have more daffodils to enjoy in our garden than ever before, and they soon get the company of tulips joining the Muscari, Leucojum and the little blue flowered bulbs.”
I shared a collection of photos of our tulips on one page and of our daffodils on the opposite page.
“This is just a small selection of our dozens of varieties of tulips spread around our garden.”
“Daffodils appear in almost every bed and border, like brightly coloured children’s sweets. The garden becomes a sweet shop of delights.”
Over to the next double page spread we return to the garden tasks we performed during April.
I wrote, “When we host visitors to our garden we sell plants and Jude has established what we call her ‘micro nursery’. We also take plants with us when we give garden talks around counties close to us and in neighbouring Welsh counties. We needed to increase our nursery space as we go out to give talks more and more. I doubled the size of Jude’s herbaceous plant sales shelves. We mostly used re-cycled wood.”
I carried on to the next page saying, “I also created a shrub nursery at the bottom of the garden in the space where our compost was made. We needed space for cuttings in ‘long tom pots’ and the individually potted shrubs.”
“The first job was to get Ian, our garden helper, to bag up our compost ready to be used as a mulch around the many borders.”
“We put up tables to show our shrubs on and put membrane down underfoot.”
“All that is left to do now is to put slate down on the membrane to give a comfortable and attractive surface.” That is a job to be done when we revitalize our central path, replacing slate that has been down for several years so now has a bit too mush soil mixed in, with fresh clean slate mulch. Watch this space!
So once again turning the page the next double page spread features bluebells and Primula auriculas. I wrote of bluebells, “Towards the end of the month the first of our native Bluebells come into flower. They give us a shot of bright blue and enrich the air with their sweet aroma.”
I then shared a couple of i-Pad drawings I attempted to show the vitality of these amazing flowers of spring.
On the page opposite the bluebells I looked at some of our Auriculas, with their unique colour range and combinations. I wrote, The wide range of unique colour combinations, sometimes enriched with a fine ‘meal’, seen in the flowers of Primula auricula are what made these flowers appeal to the enthusiasts and show men in their hayday. Today they are grown more as alpines. Jude bought a tray of mixed seedlings a few years ago and she has selected out some special ones.”
The final page for my journal in April features another popular collectors’ plant, the Hostas, “We love Hostas and grow many with a wide variety of leaf shapes, colours, sizes and variegation patterns in different areas of the garden.”
“These are some of our miniature and small varieties, surrounded by sharp grit to deter slugs and snails.”
And that is where my April entries into my garden journal came to a conclusion. The next visit to its pages will be in May when the garden should be looking even better.
Back with my new journal for a new year, my Garden Journal 2019. January is often described a s a quiet month in the garden and gardeners are often told to keep inside in the warm, order seeds from catalogues, clean their sheds and sharpen bladed tools and clean up all tools. But in reality a good garden is a good garden for 12 months of the year and a good gardener keeps his bladed tools sharp continously, all his tools are cared for througout the year and there is plenty to look at and enjoy in the garden and plenty of interest to be found in plants.
I begin my January journal entries with the words, “What is in flower in our Avocet patch early in January? A quick wander around on a calm, dry day with camera in hand provides the answer. I thought I wouls be out in the garden for 10 minutes or so but there was so much t lok at that it was three times longer.”
I shared a set of 8 photos showing “Violas, Cyclamen, members of the Primula family and even an adventurous Rose.”
I then went onwards with my camera into the greenhouse which is not yet heated at all, so we are simply keeping things ticking over. Soon we will put heat on and the heated propagating bench in readiness for the exciting task of seed sowing. I wrote, “The greenhouse is a busy place in the winter full to overflowing with over-wintering sensitive plants, autumn seedlings ticking over and cuttingstaken late in the year.”
Examples of these sorts of plants are shown in the set of photos, including seedling Achilleas, Fuschia thalia and Sedum Matrona cuttings.
On the opposite page I looked at some of our many grasses that shine in January and shared a set of pics. “Grasses come into their own in January both deciduous and evergreen. Carex are exceptionally valuable winter grasses.”
Carex elata aurea Carex elata aurea
Calamagrostis “Northwood” Miscanthus sinensis Carex “Evergold”
Carex elata “Evergold” Uncinia rubra Carex “Frosted Curls”
Carex elata “Bowles Gold” Anemalanthe lessoniana
Calamostris brachytricha Carex buchanii
On the following double page spread I moved on to look at some of our berries and foliage plants giving interest in January. On the first page I wrote, “Throughout the winter birds especially members of the Thrush family enjoy gorging on the berries on our trees and shrubs. We grow berrying plants for the birds to eat as well as for our own visual feast. By January a few are still left over.”
Guelder Rose Mahonia “Winter Sun”
Honeysuckle berries Malus “Admiration”
Native Holly Iris foetidissima
Cotoneaster Libertia
Sarcococa confusa
We can now look at the opposite page and consider some of our interesting foliage, where I wrote, “In January interesting foliage catches the eye, variegation, dusting with silver, glaucous or ruby coloured.”
Eucalyptus parvula Rhamnus aureomarginata Eleagnus ebbingei
Coprosmia “Pacific Night” Pinus mugo “Mumpitz”
Hedera helix “Long Trail Yellow” Hebe
Budleja “Lochinch” Euphorbia lathyris
Over the page I wanted to share the disaster we had with our old fence that backed our Seaside Garden. I wrote, “I shall now report on the progress we have made with our winter projects and look at work in progress too. You will not be surprised that strong winds broke down the fence panels backing the Seaside Garden so this area neededa complete renovation. The old fence was soon replaced jointly with our neighbours and the new, better quality fence presented opportunities to put up vine eyes and wires. We planned to plant plenty of new climbers as well as renew and replenish the other plants and artefacts. We decided to include more plants this time.”
The new fence ………………….
The trellis goes back up and the vine eyes and wires are being fixed up.
The climbers are planted ……………. and grasses soon join them.
To finish the month of January off, we can have a quick look at what the finished revamped seaside garden ended looking like, ready for the growing season ahead.
I wrote, “We had great fun rebuilding the Seaside Garden despite cold temperatures made more severe by the icy cold winds. So, wrapped up well against this typical January weather we put up old fishing nets from Scotland, sea-washed driftwood from Devon and Anglesey plus shells and pebbles.”
“Avian des res!”
“House Sparrows”
“Titmice”
“Wrens”
“Meanwhile we continued to change the 3 beds around the back grass into a new hot garden. Sadly we messed up the grass so had to also prepare this for repair. We have now finished planting the new plants and repaired the grass area ready for seeding in March.”
So there we have my entries for January in my 2019 garden journal.
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.
I thought I would look back at a visit we made with friends, Pete and Sherlie in the spring to a garden called Cartref. It was a “pop up” NGS garden which is a garden that opens unplanned but that looks good so the owner wants to share it with other NGS, National Garden Scheme, visitors. It is a way of seeing gardens at their best. It is a new idea so we look forward to seeing if it continues to happen. We certainly hope so as we visited two this spring and loved them both.
We decided to celebrate the glory of spring by visiting this NGS garden, a one acre modern cottage garden with borders, woodland and ponds. The main features of the garden were the lovely colourful collection of tulips which were at their best when we visited.
Throughout the rest of the garden we found relaxed styles of gardening and in places emphasis on enhancing habitats for wildlife and attracting wildlife into the garden. The wildlife pond had an island reached by a narrow wooden bridge.
After this visit to the cottage garden at Cartref we decided that “pop up” open gardens were definitely a good idea because we felt we had seen Cartref at its best.
The Picton Garden situated close to the Malvern Hils in Worcestershire, is well known as a garden to visit in late summer through to early autumn, mainly because it holds a national collection of Asters. The vast number of asters grown there are featured among herbaceous plantings with some pretty special shrubs and trees too. We love it at that time of the year but knew after listening to Helen Picton talking that it should be a garden worth visiting throughout its open period.
We decided to make a visit at the beginning of April to see what the garden had to offer at that time of year. We found so much of interest and enjoyed our visit immensely. To the one side of the carpark a small rock garden was in the middle of being developed and already showing plants of interest especially these unusual irises and species tulips.
We loved the bright blue gate welcoming us into the garden – very inviting indeed, made even more so by this succulent planter on top of a brick pillar close by.
A large pot of very bright tulips set the scene for what was waiting to be discovered on our wanders around the meandering pathways. Here in the gallery below are some of the colourful tulips we found as we walked around. As usual click on first photo and navigate using the arrows.
The beauty of looking around a garden in the spring months is being constantly on the look out for special specimens which can sometimes make us stop, bend over and get a close up look. Here at The Picton Garden there were special tiny plants to get close to as well as many perennials, shrubs and trees, making it a very special spring garden. The younger members of the Picton family are making their mark on these already special gardens and extending the seasons of interest. Take a wander with us along the winding gravel paths as we discover the Picton Garden in April.
Sometimes two plants flower side by side and enhance each other so much. The whole is far greater than the sum of the parts.
Complementary colours blue and yellow present great partnerships. A blue Anemone blanda teamed up with a native Primrose stops me in my tracks every day as I wander along the grass path by the Spring Garden, they are simply perfect together.
They mingle happily with old garden tool bits we dug out of the ground when we first developed our garden.
In this, the second part of April’s report of our wanderings around Attingham Park, I want to feature the flowers of the park , the wildflowers living in the woodland and the cultivated flowers in the borders and walled garden. I will also share pics of the fresh growth of the bursting buds on the trees and shrubs.
Most new leaves that had burst from buds on trees were the brightest of green imaginable.
Some buds had opened to reveal more colours than simply green, they glowed with hints of bronze, browns and purples.
Fresh growth on evergreen trees and shrubs were also bright green, on both conifers and broadleaves.
We found so many plants flowering on our April wanders that the best way to share them with you and illustrate the huge variety so early in the year is by presenting my photographs as a gallery. Please enjoy by clicking on the first photo then navigate by clicking the right arrow.
We will return in May when summer will be in full swing!
We managed to find a day close to the end of April to make our monthly visit to Attingham Park. It was a bright warm day so we knew we would have much to look forward to. As we made our way beneath tall mature trees full of noisy nesting Jackdaws and Rooks we were joined by grandparents carrying out their grandchildren caring duties so the sounds at our level were of laughing youngsters enjoying being outdoors.
There was so much to enjoy, wildflowers in full vibrant colour, fresh green leaf burst in the trees and busy productive growing in the walled garden.
The old Head Gardener’s cottage garden provided a colourful welcome to the park’s visitors.
Enjoy a wander through the walled garden by exploring the gallery below. (Click on the first pic and navigate through clicking on the right arrow.)
We left the walled garden to follow the One Mile Walk, which would take us close to the river and afford us views of the woodland and pastureland beyond. It is a quiet but popular walk. Most visitors here enjoy the peace and the chance to be part of nature.
Bluebells gave clouds of deep blue, a haze of calm and beauty.
The pale colours of fresh willow foliage gave a ghostly feeling to this section of the walk.
Rhododendrons provided surprise splashes of colour in the shadows of the tallest of trees.
Towards the end of our wanderings for our April visit to Attingham Park, the deciduous trees with their bright fresh new foliage and bursting buds gave way to dark needled coniferous evergreens. Their large cones looked like a family of young Little Owls.
In part two of our report on our April visit to Attingham Park I will share with the the pleasure of finding flowers, wild and cultivated, on our wanderings and some pics of fresh foliage growth.
We are well into Spring now as I share my April journal with you and there has been lots going on. This April has been the most colourful ever in our Avocet Patch.
The last week in March or the first in April is the best time to cut down willows (Salix) and dogwoods (Cornus). It is a careful balance between enjoying these shrubs’ beautifully coloured stems for as long as possible and cutting them down in time for fresh coloured stems to grow in time to enjoy next winter. I wrote, “Before taking the Dogwood and Willow stems to be made into community compost, I decided to attempt to draw them in fibre tip pens.” Collecting them together and then selecting a bunch to draw emphasises the wide variety in colours these shrubs produce.
In complete contrast we look at brightly coloured flowering bulbs over the next two pages.
I wrote, “Bulbs continue to give brightness and colour at ground level in the garden this month but above them trees and shrubs perform equally well.”
Below I shared photographs of small flowering bulbs all coloured blue, what I labelled “The “lbj’s” of the bulb world – the little blue jobs.”
“One of the most beautiful and brightest of all Spring bulbs is a native in the UK after becoming naturalised. It grows in the South, Central and Eastern parts of England and scattered thinly around Scotland. It must give flowers that are as bright as yellow can become and it is scented too. Tulipa sylvestris.”
Returning to the shrubs and trees I wrote on the next double page spread, So, what sort of performances are our trees and shrubs putting on above the bright flowering bulb?”
“Amelanchier lamarckii”
“Spiraea arguta”
“Viburnum in variety”
“Ribes odoratum”
“Mahonia aquifolium”
“Ribes sanguineum King Edward VII”
“Fruit blossom”
On the next turn of the page we notice two pages about my favourite tree, Betulas (Birches)
I began by writing, “As our Birch trees grow we have to occasionally prune off some lower branches to create a specimen clean-trunked tree. When I recently took off two branches of our Betula albosinensis septentronalis, I kept a few lengths for me to paint or draw.” I created a picture using fibre pens and watercolours.
I continued, “By mid-April our Betula are all at different stages of realisation that spring has arrived. Some are almost in full leaf while others still have tight buds, some have long catkins, others none at all.”
I then moved on to reveal my plant of the month for April and on the opposite page looked at some of our April flowering Clematis.
“Plant of the month, April, is Corylopsis spicata, a flowering shrub with a beautiful habit of growth and beautiful pale yellow flowers, almost lemon shades, which hang in racemes as light as a feather so shimmer and dance in the gentlest of Spring breezes. The flowers are gently, sweetly scented. Our shrub at 2 metres tall is probably fully grown. It grows with an open “airy” habit.”
“April sees our early flowering Clematis putting on their show, with delicate hanging bells of calmness.”
