Spring Flowers

At last some dry weather and the ground has begun to dry a little! I walked to the allotments on Saturday but the ground is still very wet and the weeds are beginning to grow so I have decided to spray them off with some glyphosate, which will kill the roots as well as the top growth. I do not like using sprays of any kind, but this year I think it may be difficult to complete my digging before the Creeping Buttercup really gets a hold. Spraying once should keep it at bay until the ground dries enough to get the hoe out. Of course, if the weather had been better last year, I would have weeded the ground there more regularly and weeds wouldn’t be so much of a problem! It was reassuring not to see Dock leaves and Thistles on the plots though so my deep double digging in previous years has done some good!

This weekend, Mrs McGregor and I visited a beautiful garden in Cornwall near the home of our friend, Tricia Trelawny. The early varieties of Camellia with their deep green glossy leaves were in flower including the variety ‘Cornish Snow’ with its smaller leaves and pure white single flowers. Not so hardy with us, I have a plant in a large container in part shade, which I move to the greenhouse through any cold weather! Some of the Camellias had grown into large trees and they were quite a site festooned with their blowsy blooms in various shades of pink and red. Many were under planted with carpets of Snowdrops which are always so reliable in early spring and totally bewitching in their ideal woodland setting, piercing through leaf litter and mossy banks.

But the real stars of the garden were the early Magnolia campbellii varieties. They were massive multi stemmed trees with huge moss covered trunks that splayed outwards from near the base like yokes holding the weight of the branches above. The trees were so tall that they could be seen from all corners of the garden, towering above many others with only the tallest of conifers for company, adding to the contrast with the goblet shaped flowers that were beginning to open from some of the fattest, furriest buds that I have ever seen! The day was clear with a crisp, blue sky and a strong breeze, so petals were already falling and were a clue to what was above when we found them lying on the path like pieces of rich pink silk. As well as the pink flowered varieties, one tree had very deep purple blooms, which looked even more effective against the blue skies! Magnolia campbellii really are a long term project and only for the largest gardens, but many of the ‘smaller’ varieties will make sizable trees in time, with the added advantage that they will begin to flower freely earlier in their lives and there will not be as much neck craning required to look at the blooms!