It’s the end of another month and it has crept up on me so this post is a little late in the day. I though I would open with the photo above as the tulips look quite good though truth be told the photograph was taken on the 28th April since I knew we were forecast to have very heavy rain and wind yesterday and I work long hours so the likelihood of any decent photos today was non-existence. Sadly the forecast turned out to be correct and only the paler pink tulips are hanging in having opened later than the others.
I’m really pleased with the Cottage Garden Border so far this year. The tulips have been wonderful and I’m hoping they will come up again next year. To try to improve their chances I have giving them a good feed with blood, fish & bone and I will be adding some more bulbs come the Autumn just to make sure. My delphiniums are coming through well and I think I need to stake them next weekend before they start getting too tall. It will interesting to see what shades they come out. Some of them I have grown from seed and I seem to remember are dwarfs, goodness knows why I choose dwarfs as I hate dwarf versions of things and some are divisions of a very successful plant I have. There are also lots of geranium seedlings in the border and again these will be interesting as they were from a mixed selection. All in all I am feeling quite positive about the border.
The patio border is throwing off its spring overcoat of snowdrops and spring bulbs and the hardy perennials are coming through. For those of you who follow this blog I can now prove to you that there are plants in the sparse middle area.
The dark plants are an Actea simplex and a Japanese painted fern, there is also a Kirengesholma palmata just breaking through the soil. As I have said in earlier EOMV posts I am watching this border as I moved an obelisk from it last year and we also chopped the end of the border off to make way for a much need bike store. For some reason these changes have really drawn attention to fact that there is a large gap in the middle of the border. I have already decided to add some small narcissus for next spring and I will see how the perennials fill out before I decide whether I need to move them around a bit.
My favorite plant in this border at the moment is the Mathiasella bupleuroides ‘Green Dreams’ which is flowering its heart out at the moment. I have had this plant for a few years now and planted it in this border as I thought it needed a lot of protection. However, it turns out to be more robust that I anticipated and soon swamped the border so last year I dug it up and moved it up the garden. This is when I discovered that you can propagate this plant from root cuttings as a new plant (the one in the photos) appeared from the roots that I had left behind. I shall be having a go at taking some proper root cuttings this autumn.
Anyway, that’s April’s End of Month View and if you would like to join then you are very welcome to do so, the more the merrier, just leave a link to your post in the comment box
