My gardening view this month is one of tidy vegetable beds – it won’t last! – and a display of spring flowers that seems to be increasing daily.
The last of the raised beds in the vegetable garden have had their old, rotten wooden edges replaced with metal edging from StraightCurve (you can read my review of it here). We’ve weeded and top dressed and it all looks unbelievably neat.
As anyone who’s read past posts will know, I’m not a particularly tidy gardener and the vegetable garden is usually a mass of produce and self-sown flowers – calendula and borage in particular. So, this sense of order is likely to be only temporary. Still, it’s a good way to start the growing season.
The display under the old apple tree has moved on from the early snowdrops and crocus to Narcissi ‘February Silver’ – it actually hit the deadline this year. Tulips from previous years’ containers have been added and the first of these is starting to flower.
In the main garden, the hellebores are still going strong – they’re such good value plants – and the anemones have reappeared.
I’ve planted one of the beds with lots of Scilla siberica, it gets forget-me-nots later and I wanted to extend that underplanting of blue. Unfortunately, I hadn’t reckoned on the bluebells whose foliage is all but obscuring the dainty blue flowers. They are the thuggish Spanish bluebells that infest most of the garden. Digging them up, as I’ve found, is nigh on impossible.
The same border has lots of Narcissi ‘Thalia’, a really good late daffodil with an elegant shape. I’m just hoping they don’t suffer the fate of just about every other daffodil in the garden this year, being eaten by slugs and snails. Talking to other gardeners, it seems I’m not the only one to have spring flowers destroyed this year. I’ve been told of snowdrops, crocus, daffodils and even leucojum being decimated. It’s likely the warm winter and unbelievably wet spring are to blame.
Another major pest in my garden are the resident pigeons. I’ve covered the brassicas over winter so now they’ve turned their attention to the flower beds and Ficaria verna ‘Brazen Hussy‘ (formerly ranunculous) no long has any foliage intact.
I’ve fared somewhat better with my tulips, which have been under a wire guard all winter to deter the squirrel. They’ve been kept near the house as further up the garden they are liable to be targeted by mice. Sometimes, gardening seems like a constant battle against foes.
The tulips are beginning to open so have now been moved into position and will have to take their chances.
Finally, a welcome sight with flowers on the ribes. This was a ‘gift’ – it came under the fence from next door – and last year it started to die off. I’ve no idea what caused it but luckily about half has survived and is now covered in these rather pretty blooms. Let’s hope the garden pests don’t take a fancy to them!
Enjoyed this? You can read about more of my gardening views here.
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