Gosh it’s been warm here on the south coast for the last week and really brought everything on. I checked back a couple of years and my End of Month View March 2015 blog post shows the garden is more advanced this year.
Compared to most gardens, my garden would be described as ‘tiny’. I have more by accident than design managed to move away from a square garden that can be seen in total from just one view. It means that wherever you stand you get a different view, which gives the impression of a larger garden when photographs are taken.
I removed the raised bed a few months ago and enlarged the bed to sweep around the left side of the garden. The new bed is full of spring bulbs with the intention to turn it into a cutting garden during summers months. I try to garden on a budget and can regularly be seen in Wilko browsing the garden section. Their bulbs might be cheap and often disappointing but I bought 8 dahlia tubers at a £1 each and so far 6 of them have sprouted. I did buy a packet of 2 Echinacia ‘white swan’ and sadly there was only one very limp plant in the dry dust they pack them in and I’m not sure if anything will come of it, however at £2 I can afford some no shows.
I have a plastic greenhouse, which really is nothing more than a cold frame, but it is full at the moment with sweet peas, Cosmos, rudbeckia and sweet william. I ordered cleome, aster, calendula and scabiosa seeds from the lovely Benjamin (and Flash of course!) at Higgledy Garden and when I can move some things out of the greenhouse, I will sow ready for a summer showing. I ran out of copper tape and read that copper coins work just as well, it will be interesting to see if they work, and certainly will be one way to empty the coppers jug. By the way, the slug pellets you can see on the bottom shelf are organic and only used as a last resort.
The north side of the garden has a bed which in the winter is boggy, and in the summer under the shadow of the stone wall gets very little sunshine, so I have to be careful what I grow here. The pink Astilbe loves it as you can see, along with Alchemilla Mollis. Recently I put a lot of Levington Organic Manure on this bed to improve and feed it, however, it has been an attraction to the local cats, who have managed to knock off a lot of the Euphorbia ‘Fireglow’ tips and in order to protect the rest of it I have placed a bit of plastic, but I don’t think the Euphorbia going to be as good this year.
A few months ago I bought a small Tree Peony and after deliberation and advice from gardening followers on Instagram and Twitter as to whether to plant it in a container or in a flower bed, decided on the latter and it seems to have settled into its new home.
There is a very small corner at the end of the garden which I have left alone – I call it my ‘wild section’, the primroses love it. A job to go on the ‘to-do-list’ is to clear the ever invasive ivy before it gets a real foothold.
It is quite exciting to see the number of buds on the peony this year, the first time since I planted it many years ago. Previous years it’s only produced one or two flowers.
A couple of years ago I planted a Clematis ‘Josephine’ to wrap its self around the Sambus Nigra (Elder). I love this because the flowers are a good combination of color with the new shoots of the Elder.
In 2015 I over pruned the Montana ‘Elizabeth’ and it hardly flowered in 2016 so I left it alone last year and look at it now! In a week or two it will be a picture of pink, fragrant flowers.
The photos above are a part of the garden I often ignore and don’t write about because it is not interesting and tends to be a dump area. This year it is going to receive most of my attention. The bed by the house wall, has had ever spreading raspberry bushes. At the end of autumn 2016, I cut the raspberries right down to the ground and planted lots of spring bulbs which has given it lovely color. There is a small gravel patio in front of the shed, and a rather too large patio set donated to me by my youngest daughter. There is a small path leading around from the side of the house across the front of the gravel area. At the moment it is full of containers because it is the sunniest part of the garden. My first job to improve this part of the garden is to dispose of the patio set, opening up the area which feels cluttered.
The Day Lillies and Agapanthus are going to look really good this year and are filling up the left hand sunny corner. The garden is still full of bits of chicken wire to protect young plants from animals who have complete disregard for the hard working gardener.
My final photo is of the lime green Euphorbia adding contrast to the yellow tulips and Alliums which, although you can’t see, has some flower shoots.
Thank you Helen at Patient Gardener for hosting this invaluable monthly meme. Please pay her blog a visit and take a look at her lovely interesting garden as well as those of other contributors.