After a slow start this weekend has been wonderful for working in the garden. I would say pottering but I think my idea of pottering isn’t the same as others. Saturday was a wash out which is fine as we needed the rain. I went to the HPS garden club meeting and amazingly I didn’t buy anything possibly because I have been feeling a little jaded recently but also probably because most of the plants were summer flowering perennials which I really don’t have much space for at the moment. Because my youngest had come home from University on Friday I was keen to spend some time with him so I forgo the afternoon talk which after all was on Heleniums, not a subject I am particularly interested in.
As my neighbours have gone off on their annual holiday the first job on Sunday was to get the beech hedge between our properties cut; so that was Sunday morning gone. But in the afternoon I got to play. The Hardy Exotic Border has been my project this year and I have been adding plants to it over the last few months. Today I added a Painted Fern (Athyrium niponicum), Blechnum spicant and Arisaema consanguineum. I think the this area is now full in fact, as in many other bits of the garden, I suspect it is overfull and in a year’s time I will be editing it but for now I am happy with the effect.
The Hardy Exotic Border tapers down into a shady and narrower part of the slope. This has snowdrops and narcissus in but also bluebells which have turned out to be a mistake as the long leaves smoother the epimediums and emerging ferns and I love these far more than the bluebells. So I continued along the border digging up the bluebell bulbs which will be planted somewhere else out of the way. I relocated a hosta and some geraniums and now the border is predominantly epimediums, ferns and arisaema; in this case Arisaema speciosum. These poor plants have been moved from the old bog garden since firstly I was worrying it was too damp for them and secondly you can’t see the flower spathes unless you lie on the floor. I am hoping the slope will be more suitable to them and it should make it easier to see the flower spathes next year.
Having relocated the Arisaema I had space finally to plant the new Cardiocrinum giganteum. I bought the bulb at the Malvern Spring Show and it has been in a large pot on the patio getting taller and taller. I don’t know if it will flower and if it does I think it might be monocarpic so that will be that but I have been trying to grow one for years so I am quite excited at the prospect. The old Bog Garden (top photo) is looking quite good now a real mix of ferny textures with the odd big leaf from the Cardicocrinum and another large-leaved plant whose name escapes me.
A most satisfying day spent pottering in what is quickly becoming my favorite part of the garden.
