What a glorious few weeks in the garden, though I don’t think we will be too sad at the predicted end of the dry spell as the watering has begun! Some of the planting done a few weeks ago has had to be watered this week as it’s been so dry and everything new that we have put in this week has had a drink too. It did provide with an entirely new ‘EW!’ moment when I discovered that the reason my watering can wasn’t pouring out was the dead mouse blocking the spout.

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The bluebells are coming out too in our woodland walk and even a few stray ones up on the terrace. The wood anemones are popping up all over too and look beautiful in the dappled sunlight. We are also coming into blossom season with the ornamental and fruiting cherries in full flower, the pear trees including the arch are looking good too. Another few days and the apple orchard will be out and looking amazing.

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Cherries in the background and the pear arch at the front.

We are still busy trying to replant the areas we have cleared and in the main entrance bed by the donation cairn I have added Epimedium, Tellima grandiflora, Pulmonaria and Geraniums to brighten it up. We didn’t want too formal a planting scheme seeing this bed as a transition between the Victorian wilderness and the formality of the walled garden. We will be adding some bark chip to this to help the bed survive the dry shade and to help keep the weeds down to an acceptable level. Weeding a garden this size with the number of volunteers we have is always a challenge, but our team work very hard to keep it looking good.

Thankyou for your donations to the garden over the Easter holidays, they have paid for our seed potatoes, onion sets and some rhododendrons to be planted in the woodland garden and also a few perennials for the borders in the walled garden.

We have delayed planting out in the veg garden due to the dry weather as our clay soil dries out quickly, but this has given us time to add some organic matter to the soil and clear out the weeds better.

Hope you are enjoying the spring sunshine and you will keep visiting to watch the garden change and develop as the seasons progress and the alterations we have made to the planting schemes come to fruition.