Storm Hannah and April Showers

Thankfully our part of the UK came out relatively unscathed as Storm Hannah bore down on Saturday, bringing winds of up to 82mph and leaving homes without power.  It was very wet and very windy but not half as bad as those in the West.  I guess the Pennines protected us somewhat.  

Rather than spending any time in the garden on Saturday, we visited a garden centre and bought yet another tree!  It's being delivered next week, so I'll tell all then.

Sunday is calm and bright with a gentle breeze. A good day to work in the garden.

First up, the Pittosporum tenufolium Variegatum we bought over the bank holiday. This looks like an odd place to plant a shrub as it's beside the steps and the first compost bin.  The method in my madness is simple.  When sitting in our almost finished Mugwort's Retreat, the view ain't pretty of the workspace with its plastic bins, bags of manure, ericaceous and John Innes no 2.  Eventually this will create a screen from the new seats.

The other plant is the hebe Mrs Winder we also bought last week.  There had been a lavender on either side of the patio arch but the one in the right hand side was miserable.  I've never really had much joy with lavender so I was surprised that the one in the left is still flourishing so beautifully.  Therefore the failing lavender has been replaced with the hebe, which also has purple flowers loved by bees.

Other tasks completed today included tying in c. Armandii and the roses either side of the patio arch.

The other rhododendron in the Yen is about to bloom.

And look! A flower is forming on the Wisteria at long last (just the one though).  I didn't do any pruning over winter so maybe I was doing it wrong.

Also in the Yen, the storm cut short the blossom display of the cherry and apple trees but clematis Shikoo is opening 

Another first is this butterfly.  It's a male orange tip as the female doesn't have the distinctive orange tips (excuse the greenfly on this fringed tulip, the predators haven't caught up yet).

At the rear of the Yen pergola, the first aquilegias are beginning to flower.  Monty recently did a piece on Gardener's World about how to sow the seeds indoors but I've found no problems getting these plants to germinate simply by scattering the seeds after flowering where you want them to grow.  They're very very easy to propagate and pot up any excess for friends and family. 

A pink pairing of magnolia George Henry Kern and clematis Montana Rubens creates a nice pop of spring colour in the corner of the Patio Border and the Long Border 

The "flowers" of the acer in the front garden are quite prominent as the leaves change colour.

And this year, again I think due to the timing of the pruning, the Photinia is flowering. I don't think I've seen it flower before.

On the right side of the patio border, only 2 pink tulips have flowered.

And only two white ones on the left.

These are new tulips in Mugwort's Retreat.  

And new near-black ones in the Terrace Border.

Red and near-black tulips in the front garden have lasted a few years.

 At 523 feet above sea level we appear to need to lift and store or annually replace our tulips.  The new ones have been planted deeper, as per our Dutch friends, so the experiment continues.

This vivid pink azalea has survived being moved a few times and is happiest in the Long Border. 

A pot of self seeders currently on the terrace, I don't have the heart to move them into the garden just yet.

Easter weekend.

Never mind the chocolate, for me personally the Easter weekend means spending a decent amount of time in the garden.  In the UK, both Good Friday and Easter Monday are bank holidays, which means a lie-in too!

Since there was decorating to be done inside first, and Sunday was relatively quiet and restful, Monday was my garden day.  Woken by a tenacious bluetit singing his little heart out, we headed out with a list.

1. Paving slabs

2. Sand

3. Bird box 

4. Bird food

5. Fatsia japonica 

6. Hebe

7. Pittosporum tenufolium 

8. Yellow sticky sheets 

On our return, the bird box on the front of the house was replaced as the roof had rotted away on the old one.  Thankfully no birds were disturbed.  

The paving slabs and sand were put down the bottom of the garden for a later date.

Today's task was a big one.  The Man That Can took apart the back of the waterfall and removed the fern and the hardy geranium, along with all the soil as it was riddled with Japanese anemone roots that had run amok.  The clematis (? Wisley Cream) was also removed as it was a very scruffy plant that was difficult to reach.

Each stone from the dry-stone walling at the back of the pond was repositioned, new soil filled the planting pockets and topped up the bed at the rear of the pond where all the roots had been firkled out.  Now one pot of purple spires has been planted, which will soon unfurl a hosta that had previously lived in the Pink Garden.  In the other pocket is a beautiful purple hellebore.

Ebb now resides behind the waterfall and a small fatsia japonica has been planted.  This shouldn't take long to grow into a large evergreen plant, and it should be happy in the shaded part of this area.

It just needs the slate replacing.

Oh, and the other plants were Pittosporum tenufolium Variegatum and Hebe Mrs Winder...for another day.

April already

But spring just can't decide whether to take the plunge as one day we have glorious sunshine and the next it is bitterly cold with some areas reporting snow.  Of course snow in April is not unusual. 

This weekend we have managed to complete the replanting as The Man That Can finished the reshaping of Mugwort's Retreat. 

Firstly he raked away an area of gravel and pulled back the weed membrane.

He then dug a trench for the initial layer of red bricks in the new shape.

After lifting the angled red bricks he relaid them following the new line.

Next he filled in the area with topsoil.

The redundant area needed levelling and weed suppressing membrane was laid, before the gravel was raked over the whole area.  We'll need a couple more bags to complete the corner where his bench will go.

And now the plants can be replanted. It looks like the only casualties were the bleeding hearts, which should be easily replaced.

Over in the Yen Garden, a pieris and two azaleas have been removed from a large trough along the edge of the area and rehomed in the border.  A couple of grasses, pink Kaffir lilies, a clump of ophiopogon, several pots of crocosmias, a Japanese blood grass-Red Baron, a couple of heucheras (a lime and a dark red) have also been planted.  The purple Emperor sedum was moved from the gravel into the bed also, where I hope it will perform better.

It'll take some time to fill out but the colours will soon shine.

Finally

The sun is shining and we're not at work, have nowhere to be, have no-one to visit and no-one is visiting us...the garden is finally at the top of our to-do list!

We recently discovered that our garden is at 523 feet above sea level.  That's higher than Khufu's pyramid (the Great Pyramid of Giza) which stands at 481 ft.  It's higher than the Statue of Liberty which is just 305 ft from the ground to the tip of the torch, and higher than the Victoria Falls between Zambia and Zimbabwe which are 354 ft!

It is a fact that at the bottom of the drag to the village you can wear a t-shirt but by the time you reach the village you're donning a coat...and we're actually not quite at the top here!  It makes winter more interesting, that's for sure.  

Anyhow, I digress.  In the garden it's time to plant up and move and create.

Angel is intrigued but sensibly stays out of the way.

TMTC and Bumblebee are struggling to extricate rhododendron Christmas Cheer from its pot.

The soil needs to be scraped from the sides of the rootball to get it past the lip of the pot.

Teamwork!

It looks a good bit smaller now it's in the ground but it should soon grow into a large shrub.

Look at the beautiful colour of this bark.  It's the Tibetan cherry.

Also in the Yen Garden, the viburnum Dawn has been planted. It didn't flower this winter but that might have been due to the upheaval to make way for the hedge being replaced.

The viburnum Tinus pair on the other hand are flowering their socks off on the patio.

The three r. New Dawn survived winter in their pots and have now been replanted in Mugwort's Retreat.

The new outline has been marked ready for moving the brickwork edging.

At the top of the steps is a gentle honey scent coming from this Spireae japonica. It'll soon be smothered in tiny white flowers.

So many plants are coming into bud now, it's a job to keep up with what is new!  The trees all have varying degrees of leafing up.  This is the cherry blossom in the Yen. 

The clematis Shikoo winding it's way along the espallier apple tree already has flower buds!

And the tulips around the garden are waiting for their turn.

Elsewhere in the garden, I busied myself weeding the Long Border and the Patio Borders, moving crocuses from behind daylilies where they were hiding, planting snakeshead fritillaries, and dividing snowdrops whilst still "in the green" which means still having foliage.  I've also divided some native primroses and dwarf narcissi, and trimmed the Sarcococca confusa (Christmas Box) now it has finished flowering. 

The cheap hyacinths are such a welcome addition to the garden.  They add a wow factor, not just visually but they are extremely highly scented.  Their perfume wafts around the garden, reminding you of their presence like a spoilt child should your attention wander.

Since the blooms were beginning to flop due to the sheer weight of the flowerlets, I snipped off those most affected, added a few double daffs and a sprig or three lemon wallflowers for a posy inside.

The scented bouquet is so heady that it has to remain in the kitchen where it again stamps it's feet impatiently crying out to be noticed! 

Pure flower power!