Spring Plant Sale

Since moving up to South Yorkshire 10 years ago (give or take a week), we've rarely missed a plant sale at the Botanical Gardens and today was the first of the year.

We were in and out with no dilly-dallying as I knew exactly what I wanted, just two bright pink hardy geraniums to finish the borders either side of the patio arch. 

There were just two on the benches, a variety named Patricia which will have magenta flowers with a darker centre. I'm sure they are the same as the unnamed version I already have that has followed me to each of my gardens.  I had split my own last year for the pink garden. 

Hardy geraniums are such great 'bung em in' plants that flower from spring - late autumn. The bees love them and so do I!

Of course there are more than just the two geraniums. Who goes to a plant sale and buys just two plants??  There's a pot of Sanguinaria canadensis 'Flore Pleno' that caught Bumblebee's eye, which has been planted beneath the new Syringa 'Sensation'.  Three Dierama Igneum (Angel's Fishing Rods) have also been acquired and planted in the bed between the work space and the Yen Garden.  These were apparently from stock grown up here so should cope ok with our winters.  We'll see.

It's another Bank Holiday weekend - enjoy!

The Tide is Turning

Having had some decent sunshine and milder temperatures over the Easter holidays, the spring flowers have opened up all over the garden.

The clematis Montana Rubens is about to burst into bloom.

We located a suitable syringa variety 'Sensation' and having enriched the soil,  planted it where it should provide a decent amount of privacy in the coming years along with some great scented lilac with white edged flowers. 

Terrific Tulips

 2017 has been a good year for tulips here.  I think the cooler drier spring has encouraged the flowers to last just that little bit longer.  As I write this entry the first tulips are beginning to drop their petals but there are yet more to open on other varieties.  I'll let the photos tell their own story. 

These final tulips are very dwarf, only 4" tall and still opening at time of this entry.

There are only one or two 'Tilburg' tulips that have flowered from previous plantings. There had been many more that simply didn't survive.  The bold clumps were of last Autumn's planting, and again most were from our friends in The Netherlands. Therefore I will in future replace the bulbs each year for a better display. 

Easter...more than chocolate eggs.

But neither do we fancy spending our time sitting in traffic eager to be anywhere other than home.

Most of our spring to-do list has now been achieved.  The decorating inside was ticked off on Maundy Thursday.  Good Friday we visited a garden centre but much of the day was wet.  Easter Saturday, we spent the morning in the garden.  

Spreading out a tarpaulin, I lifted the grasses while The Man That Can split them.  We moved the lavenders (which thankfully had not yet spread their roots since we only heeled them in last month) in the beds either side of the patio arch and replanted the grasses.

The new Weigela Wings of Fire was lifted to make room for the new magnolia George Henry Kern and then replanted in front of it.

 The plan is to more or less mirror the beds.  The right hand side however will be more shaded with the addition of the magnolia, and the left side has a sedum, but otherwise they have pretty much the same or similar plants in each side with similar colours in any flowers.

In the plan, the green highlighted plants were the ones to be moved and/or split, marking their planting spaces.  In yellow are the plants yet to purchase which includes white tulips and two varieties of hardy geraniums.   

Other tasks completed today were emptying some containers.  One had a very congested clump of of iris that I had never seen in flower.  It's something that should have been done long before today ideally.  I dug them out, pulled the long tubers apart, cut the leaves in half and replanted in the terrace border. They probably won't do very much this year but I haven't lost anything as these were among the containers we were given by TMTC's cousin.

And finally today, we repotted the two Skimmias into the above mentioned and now empty container in ericaceous compost with a tidy layer of bark to finish it off.

Another teaser

A Whiter Shade of Pale

I do like a bit of white in the garden, especially in the spring when the greens are so fresh.  Green and white go with anything in the garden.

Whites in April include:

Osmanthus 

Tulips 

Primulas 

Lamprocapnos Spectabilis (formally Dicentra Spectabilis)

And of course now, wood anemones. 

Interlopers

Sometimes a wee surprise occurs in the garden.  Usually these have been passed through a visiting bird, and more often than not are weeds.

Three small white flowers have popped up among the leaves of the now spent snowdrops.  I can only assume these wood anemones had hitched a ride in the pots.

Other happy accidents moments include...

A vibrant tulip thrusting through a pot of violets picking up the orange and yellow streaked wallflowers behind.

A late blooming double flowered daffodil (perhaps Irene Copeland - one of the pots going cheap we planted last month).

Both peonies have flower buds forming.  The one above was transplanted from the railwaymen's cottage garden last month, and I really thought it would sulk!

And there are flower buds forming on one of the terrace roses (r. Special Anniversary).

The loud pop of colour belongs to a pink azalea, with a saxifrage providing deeper pink punctuations through a mat of green.

Clematis Nelly Moser reaches along its wires to create a fan shape of foliage on the terrace. 

The cornus behind the birdbath finally received its prune, while the unlabelled shrub comes into leaf behind it.  We might discover what it is this year!

After a nervous prune, the staghorn tree has responded very well with heaps of tiny red buds sprouting along the limbs.  These are speedily forming into what we hope will become strong branches to create a more balanced shaped tree.