The Body Suffers…

Conditions finally arrived which allowed me to spend an entire day in the garden. I felt it was a little like Dolly Parton’s “Working Nine to Five” but it was “Ten to Six” in my case.

A few hydrangeas still remained for pruning, a light but time-consuming job as it is quite fiddly taking all the old flowerheads from a large plant and there was a stuffed wheelbarrow of twigs and branches which will have to be shredded on another day.

This bed,on the right is mainly planted with hydrangeas with a very few other shrubs – the Magnolia stellata ‘Centennial’ in flower at the moment and a large Fuchsia ‘Lady Bacon’ which flowers later in the year. All the hydrangeas have been pruned, a slow job and I’m glad it’s finished. The bed I was working on is parallel and to the right of the hydrangea bed.

I did a general tidy-up of a largish bed, removing the debris of winter, fallen leaves which may have been attractive in autumn now simply looked dead and gave the bed an overall untidy look. It seems odd, I suppose to remove this material – three wheelbarro loads – to bring it to the compost heap and replace it with a layer of new compost from the heap when I might have just left it in place to rot down naturally, all to give an appearance of tidiness.

Two views of my work area yesterday, one from the front gate and the other looking back in that direction.

This bed has three large clumps of Watsonia ‘Mount Congreve Coral’, one I had some years back from a local nurseryman and which originated in Mount Congreve Gardens which are local to us. It has always done well here, indeed too well, as it bulks up very quickly to form dense clumps and even seeds about generously/annoyingly though the Head Gardener contests that the seedlings I identify and remove as this watsonia may be a gladiolus, Gladiolus byzantinus, which also seeds about a little too much. Whichever one it is, it is best removed as soon as spotted. Unfortunately, these clumps of watsonias grow among the roots of an old birch tree and removing them is hugely challenging. I removed one clump yesterday and must face the other two, perhaps today if weather permits.

One of the clumps of Watsonia ‘Mount Congreve Coral’ which have overstayed their welcome in the garden. They are simply too vigorous and the foliage is almost always a mess and a bother to cut down and remove. I have removed two similar cluimps further down the bed but feel this one will be more difficult as the bulbs are among the roots of the large birch tree you can see at the right of this photograph.

At the end of the day I was happy with progress, the first bout of serious effort in the garden this year and my poor body which had become used to a life of idleness now tells me that I had indeed put in a good day’s work.

Below, a few photographs from the garden this afternoon – after another long day in the garden. Tomorrow is forecast to be very wet with a yellow weather warning for heavy rain with flooding possible so it was well to spend the time available to us working in the garden:

Another bed tackled and finished today:

Hellebores, Cardamine quincefolia and Trillium chloropetalum giving plenty of colour

Trillium chloropetalum stealing the show

Primulas puitting on a show

Magnolia x loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’ giving a good display

Just open today, one of a large potful: Narcissus ‘Hawera’

A great favourite and dating from the early 17th century – Narcissus eystettensis

Narcissus eystettensis

Narcissus ‘M. W. Brown’, a fabulous find from Normandy, a variant of Narcissus pseuodnarcissus

A daffodil without a name – it came from a supplier but was not what I had ordered. Nonetheless, it’s a good grower, and pretty

Narcissus ‘Causeway Gem’

Narcissus ‘Gypsy Vale’

Narcissus ‘Colleen Bawn’, a very old Irish daffodil cultivar

Looking down the lane with Magnolia soulangeana and Corylopsis pauciflora in full flower