March end of month view

This year's phenomenal March temperatures have brought the garden rushing on apace.  Last year April was the sunny month and March was cold and windy.  Last year's side garden looked like this:


This year, partly from sunshine and to a lesser extent from planting, it looks like this:


OK, I know I am cheating with the larger photograph but the combination of hellebores, daffodils, tulips and a lot more foliage than usual is really furnishing the ground in the most satisfactory way.


The hellebore flowers are gently changing from pink and white to the palest green as they go over, so slowly, so elegantly.


But look the other way and you can see the day lilies thrusting up, the new alliums beginning to mass, hardy geraniums putting on foliage, the new pheasant grass fountaining up pleasingly in pink and green (thank you Karen) and the peonies with so much growth I have even started to stake them.  At this point I feel like a proper gardener.  I know you should stake.  Every year I vow that this will be the year I crack it and every year I find I have left it too late and things are flopping all over the place.  This year I have done some!  Not all of it, that would be a step too far, but I have had a go with the metal rings I bought years ago and rarely use and with some hazel twigs from our own hazels.  The hazel twigs are surrounding the oriental poppies which I love but which invariably move from stately gorgeousness to louche sprawling the moment I turn my back.  This year it may be better.  Let's see.


The bed across the back of the side garden is glowing with daffodils, primroses and the goldgreen foliage of aquilegias with pulmonaria Diana Clare providing a deep blue contrast at the front.


Out in the little orchard the Tenby daffodils are going over but the Thalia are flowering.  Tenby are sturdy, ealry little daffodils with their glaucous leaves and upright yellow trumpets standing bravely against the wind.  Thalia are later, slighter and more delicate.


There are cowslips too and the little Shropshire damson tree is flowering against a background of blowing white washing.


That was last week when the sun shone as warm as June.  This week is cold and grey and rain is at last filling the water butts.  The sunshine was glorious but it wasn't quite natural for this time of year so although I miss the warmth on my back I don't mind too much the sound of rain dripping into the newly installed water tanks taking rainwater off the roof of the workshop.

The native tree walk is beginning to take off a bit


with the hellebores and pulmonaria from Dobby (thank you Jane!) starting to settle in.  They will be glorious in a year or two when they really fill the space.


The sunny bank was sunny.  It misses the little quince tree which finally gave up this winter but the new crab apple should be a good replacement when it has grown to fill out the space.  Gardening in the country is easy at this time of year when you can borrow unthinkingly from the land around you.  On the right of this picture the blackthorn is flowering in a delicate froth of white.  Nothing at all to do with me but probably the most beautiful thing of all.


Here is the kitchen garden.  Nothing is really happening in it yet which has much to do with the kitchen beyond the new growth of chives at the end of the mint bed.  There are things in the greenhouse growing away but the newly arrived cold would give them a considerable shock so they will stay where they are for the time being.

Thanks as always to Helen for hosting the end of month views.  Still a great idea!

Comments

  1. Oh my goodness, but you are far ahead of us. I can only imagine the heat of spring sun that could cause such growth. I'm amazed here, in the cold and gloom, that the weeds have done very well - they're huge.
    Lovely photos - they make me yearn for real spring.

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    1. Well we had real spring, it was even warm enough for early summer, and then today we have had snow! There are daffodils bowed down all over the garden. I hope everything recovers!

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  2. Your garden is beautiful, glowing in the spring sunshine. I really like that Pulmonaria and I have some Narcissus 'Thalia' which are stunning, must make a note to get some more in September.

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    1. This is an inspiring blog post. I love the comparative photographs with last year.

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    2. Thanks Tim. I am thinking of bringing a number of photos together so you can see the garden developing since I started to do this end of month view but I am not sure they would show enough change!

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  3. Your garden is so inspiring. Some wonderful planting ideas! Beautiful.
    Hoping that the coming cold days do not take their toll on the blossoms. I noticed that our Victoria plums are in flower today.

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    1. Our Shropshire damson blossom might have been lost to the snow today. It was so beautiful but there has been strong wind as well as cold temperatures! Hope not, they were fabulous last year. Our Victoria plum isn't in flower yet!

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  4. I always enjoy your garden photos and those wonderful Welsh hills!!!!!!!!

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    1. Thanks Susan. Hope life with you there is ok as it turns to autumn!

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    2. Thanks for your comment on my blog. I visited M. today and, although he asked who I was when I first went in, by the time I left he seemed quite happy and didn't mind my leaving which was a great relief.

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  5. That is an awesome garden. For a bit I thought you had a jungle on your hands.

    In Canada far west, the snow is going, but things are still very brown and gritty-looking. Spring has barely begun here.

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    1. Well spring had begun and was doing an impersonation of early summer. Then today we woke up to snow so winter has doubled back for a second go!

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  6. Interesting that both in Britain and Wales the spring is forward, as it is here.
    Hellebores are another plant I would like to grow. Friends a few miles from me have 'Lenten Roses' in bloom in their garden--which encourages me.
    I have often enjoyed your monthly garden tours--not sure if I've left comments before.
    Thanks for your visit to my blog and for leaving the suggestion for another clematis to add to my plant wish list.

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    1. Hi and thanks for commenting. I love hellebores and think that if your neighbours grow them them so can you! They fill a gap in the year when you are desperate for flowers and it is too early for most bulbs and, whenever they flowered, they would be beautiful.

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  7. Your garden is looking fab - I bet you are pleased. I wonder if its just due to the warm weather bringing things on quickly or whether it is a case that your plants are filling out more. Either way it looks great and the native tree walk is also beginning to get its own character.

    Thanks for joining in again this month

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    1. I think it is probably a bit of both: early spring warmth and things settling in a bit. Plants always needs a season or two up here to get their roots down!

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  8. Yes, you seem more advanced than us. But it is a lovely time of year with everything sprouting. Your plants always behave so well in your photographs.

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    1. Well it was lovely. All my daffodils are flat now!

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  9. Your garden looks wonderful and I like the way your tree wak is beginning to look. I hope you take other photos of it later in the year to show us how it is coming along. Thanks for the fun post.

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    1. The thing about the tree walk is that the trees are huge in my head and not on the ground. I will take more photos. They are good for reminding me of where we started. Thank you for the encouragement!

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  10. I loved this little tour of your garden. JUST LOVELY! It appears spring has arrived!

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    1. HI Lucy. Spring had arrived and was springing all over the place. Then we had snow. Now we have much colder temperatures than we have had for the last month or so. I can feel my tulips being confused.

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  11. The orchard with the daffodils looks, I hope, as you once impatiently imagined it would. Glorious!

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    1. The orchard is definitely getting there. The daffodil spread is much better and some of the trees are beginning to look like trees. The mulberries aren't playing yet but I think they will take their time.

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  12. Your garden is totally beautiful Elizabeth. You are good staking your plants. I'm wishing that I had finished staking my delphiniums, the weather has been awful today - snow and high winds :(

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    1. I wouldn't want you to get the idea that I am any good at all at staking. It is the major thing I berate myself for from year to year and this is the first when I have made any real effort at all!

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  13. Just gorgeous. The hedgerows here are frothy as a can-can dancers petticoats just now, they're packed full of blackthorn, damson and wild plum!

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    1. Oh yes, ours too. There is little going on in the garden which is half as beautiful!

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  14. Thank you for visiting my blog and for your kind comments. Your garden is stunning. I laughed at your mud comment on my blog - it is the end of summer here and so dry and horrible that i am jealous of mud!!

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    1. Wow! The idea of being jealous of mud seems a bit amazing! Maybe we need to change places.

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  15. Elizabeth, please allow me to add my praise to you and your garden. Isn't it odd how different two years' March and April days can be?

    Hard to know what "natural" means!

    Best wishes.

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    1. Thank you Frances! One of the great things about gardening is how different each year is. It really makes you engage with life very closely and noticingly!

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  16. Oh... it's all so exciting! Your kitchen garden gives me a pang of joyful jealousy, raised beds AND a greenhouse? You are so rich in the right stuff!

    Question about primroses I just bought three yesterday, one butter yellow, one white and yellow, and one purple with yellow middles. They are the first I've had in my garden. I know they're perennial, but do they spread and multiply, or do they just come back singly?

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    1. Hi Marcheline. Never fear, I know I am lucky! If your primroses are the wild variety or close to it they will self seed and spread. I think it is a bit more likely from the colour description that they are what we would call here polyanthus. If so I think these are hybrids and so sterile and probably won't spread. They are lovely nevertheless!

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  17. Wow! What a wonderful garden you have! And what a view! I just discovered your blog, I'll come back soon! Great pictures! You make me dream! 8)

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    1. Hi and thanks for commenting. It makes me dream too, quite often more than working in it!

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  18. It's all so lovely Elizabeth! I do so love springtime!

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  19. Hi Susan and thanks for commenting! I am a total spring time nut but am teaching myself to love other seasons on the basis that I can't spend three quarters of the year waiting for my time!

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