02 April 2009 - Goodbye snowdrops, hello everything else!

Well good bye snowdrops and hello just about everything else. It has been a wonderful year for snowdrops and we have had some lovely enthusiastic visitors.

I have had some favourite varieties. Three Ships that came before Christmas and stayed for 5 weeks, Comet that is such a healthy, huge addition, Margaret Biddulph that had to stay in a pot so that she could join us for dinner and Spindlestone Surprise that has to be the most satisfactory yellow. Merlin and George Elwes remain those that I could not do without and now that our display of Galatea has spread I can see its charm in a breeze.

I have been delighted to see the return of some I felt sure that I had lost. Deerslot and Virescens did nothing last year but have reappeared looking better and more. We have spent a couple of weeks making more drifts of named and ordinary nivalis and I cannot wait for next year!

Our new woodland walk has been a real improvement to that very scruffy and impenetrable part of the garden and many of the seedling hellebores we planted last year have flowered. In fact, along with snowdrops this has been a great year for hellebores as well. Let us hope that the tulips perform as well.

We are looking forward to our tulip festival but find it difficult to predict the best time. Purissima and Flaming Purissima are already out and looking fabulous against the top wall but most are only just showing flower shape and should make the end of April the best time. The garden is looking so pretty now with primula, pulmonaria and other early spring bulbs.

I realise how much I love the intense colours of Spring. The vibrant yellows of daffodil spreads and the rather vulgar, but warming, yellow of forsythia are set off by the blue of chinodoxa and scillas. We have banks of primroses taking over areas that once hosted snowdrops and they are backed by walls of hellebores.

Everywhere shoots are emerging and I only hope that we do not have too many repeats of the -3° on Monday night. Angus has planted his potatoes and broad beans and we have plugs of parsnips, carrots and onions ready to go in once the temperature starts to go up. My first tray of lettuce has been got at by an evil slug in the greenhouse and the parsley is looking rather erratically sown but the year is off to a good start and we are looking forward to the next seasons.

We spent a few weeks in France earlier in the year and have made great strides in turning the building site into a home. Amy has 4 walls and we now have wallpaper. That combined with working bathrooms makes the possibility of staying there in the summer quite likely. We have plans for the vegetable garden and hope to start the outline walls that will extend the main park this summer.

We are going back in a few weeks to see our orchids for the first time and indeed our rampant wisteria only glimpsed in photographs. The weather is in the 20s and no doubt the grass will be high and the hedges in need of a haircut but we have no problem with the challenge that our 'other' garden gives us just hope the knees and back are up to it!

Whilst we were away an energetic team moved in and reformed our pond. It has long been neglected and also sadly had no water in it. Now we have a beautiful scene under the biggest trees of the estate ready for new plantings. The whole exercise is very exciting and we hope nature will help us to develop this latest garden for visitors to enjoy.

Certainly the first to arrive seemed to appreciate the setting. Mr and Mrs Duck came flying in as the machines moved out!

posted by Barbara @ Thursday, April 02, 2009   1 comments