At last we’ve had some proper gardening weather. The soil has dried a little and the rain has largely held off. It’s still pretty mucky, so to keep the washing down I am resplendent in my boiler suit, but the game is definitely now afoot. I have been out weeding and “reshuffling” like a positive loon. I swear every time that I’m just popping out for an hour, then four hours pass and I creep in in the gloaming, absolutely done in, to devour whatever cake is on the go. I’m trying to cut back the dead stalks, get the worst of the weeds out and mulch up all of the the areas where bulbs are imminent that I didn’t get to in the autumn. Alas, the snowdrops, aconites and cyclamen coum lighting up the shade garden and the quadrant bed beat me to it, but the last mulch there is still holding up pretty well there so all is not lost. This is the time of year when I can see the gaps and in the deepest reaches under the plum trees I think there’s definitely room for a few more ferns, hellebores and primroses. Thankfully, mine all seem to quintuple every year so there should be plenty of babies to go round. Chum Anne has also sent me a batch of winter Iris and I think a few of those might do rather well.
The first of the little species Iris are out, creating bright pools of colour. I’m going to split the pale Katherine Hodgkin in the nuttery as they’ve got rather congested. Poor things, the soil there is so heavy they don’t get much chance to spread out. The dark burgundy ones there seem a bit fewer on the ground than they should and the finger of suspicion is pointing firmly at the squirrels. Keith is busy coppicing the nuttery at the moment, taking away the horizontal growth that makes weeding a nightmare and grabs specs from the head of unsuspecting passers by. It should let a lot more light in to the centre and I am mulling over what new things we could try there.
A rough cut back of the woody stalks of the acid green euphorbia down towards the bottom pond turned into a bit of a giant job. Once the stalks were gone I found the epicentre of a vast and deep rooted conspiracy of nettles. I have put a serious crimp in their plan for infiltration and domination. Whilst I was at it I split up one of the euphorbia clumps, whipped out half of the valerian and moved a pussy willow that was giving too much shade to a blue agapanthus. I also hefted out vast quantities of flag iris that had infiltrated several large clumps of pink hellebore. It proved impossible to separate them, so I’m starting again with some offsets and the offending chimeras have been sent to the compost heap. All this digging and splitting left me with an assortment of spare plants which I’ve resettled on our side of the boundary in the little wood, together with some gifted rosa rugosa. The soil there is fabulous with leaf mould and I’m resolved to make a little more of it. I want to keep it still mainly wild flowers and self seeders, but I think I might take a broad view of what that entails (but definitely not thistles).
It was whilst I was busy rehoming things that I remembered a small deutzia I was growing on last year. I have completely forgotten where I put it and I’m now worried that, leafless, it will have been mistaken for a self seeded tree and hoofed out. Everywhere I go I am casting speculative glances over random twigs… During the course of this side quest I found a lost and sadly overgrown peony and made it some space – so there is that…. This led to a peony audit (all those I remembered are present and correct) and the rescue tree peony removed from the top pond continues to thrive in its pot. I shall leave it be for now I think. It’s still a bit vulnerable.
Alas, all my efforts have caused the tragic demise of my supposedly indestructible work wellies and the search for replacements has commenced. Keith says I should abandon wellies and go for boots. My achilles tendons will not thank me, but I fear he is right. And the harbinger of wellington doom has just bought me a glass of wine so I shall leave you with all the pretty things …..and me in my boiler suit.
