Spring is here!

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Yes, spring definitely is here and the garden really is starting to come to life. Having had a big clearance in January, the leaves and dead foliage have been removed and I’ve scattered farm yard manure as a mulch on the borders and done some detailed clearing and tweaking. The aconites are now in flower, providing some welcome dabs of yellow. Our ambition is to have the south face border fully covered in aconites. Alas, it will be some years before this happens, but in the meantime, the scattered clusters we have are very welcome.

Also welcome and continuing to flower in larger numbers than I’d believed possible are the spring flowering cyclamen. I planted them about two years ago under the prunus tree, and this is the first year that they’ve bloomed. From a distance, they give the effect of a pinkish/purplish haze under the leafless prunus.

Then there are the snow drops. These really are coming on. Over the years I’ve tried to scatter them along the north facing border and in the lawn and they now are coming into bloom. They don’t yet form a continuous carpet, but they do look nice.

Finally, the hellebores are coming into flower, but as always with their heads held down (removing the leaves helps reveal the flowers, fortunately). I see that a new variety which holds it head up has now become available, the problem with hellebores being that they are very shy and hold their heads down. I dare say that the new heads-up variety is costly, so I’ll put it on my birthday list in the hope that a family member will track one down for me!

I’ve also done some ‘housekeeping’: laying a good cover of spent coffee grounds on all the hosta pots. Slugs and snails don’t go for coffee grounds, so a generous layer (about as deep as the first joint on the little finger) deters them from dining on luscious hosta leaves, as well as providing a good mulch. I keep the spent grounds from each breakfast and over a year accumulate at least two full chicken manure buckets of grounds. As it happens, a good example of recycling — and my spring gardening tip!

• 10 Feb, 2011
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