Birthday weekend in the garden

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Who could ask for more – beautiful sunshine – two trips to the garden centre, and little miss SussexSarah joined me in the garden to help.

Yesterday we made a little detour to a beautiful stone cottage just next to Wivelsfield church. If you live in the area go visit. A tiny cottage garden stuffed full of flowers and at the front a tray of unusual plants for sale, each one beautifully potted up, gravelled, and labelled – all at decent prices.

I bought a pot of Lysimachia Ciliata “Firecracker”, which we carefully separated into about 6 different plants to plant up around the Sambucus Nigra – or black Elder to you and me.

Spot the Lysimachia! You may have a job. The picture I have in the back of my head is loads of black leaves from the Sambucus with black spikes of Lysimachia in front. The Elder will have bright pink flowers and the Lysimachia yellow – so I am hoping it wont all be too garish – we will have to see.

The second purchase was a much less brave one – a shasta daisy which again was big enough to split into three.

Back by the Elder I planted up the new pond with plants taken from elsewhere in the garden.

The Forsythia was rescued from where I found it under the trees at the back of the garden. Its a bit weak and feeble at present from the lack of light, but I will cut it right back when it stops flowering and give it a chance to rejuvenate. I dont think its possible to actually kill a Forsythia!

By the pond is a Caltha Palustris – which is like a posh Celandine,

Look at all those lovely buds !

There is also an Iris , an Astilbe, and a Lythrum. Under the Forsythia is another Lysimachia – this time a Lysimachia Punctata and a Foxglove. I know it all looks a bit messy but this is meant to be a wildlife garden, and these are all real doers that I can confidently expect to spread. I’ll update the photos when things start to flower.

Back to the garden centre on Sunday for my birthday presents – lovely! Two David Austen English roses – Abraham Darby and Crown Princess Margareta – and a fig called Brown Turkey which I am hoping will do well in the large pot I got for Christmas.

I was also a bit naughty and bought some of these lovely primulas – Milky Way – prettiest reasonably cheap primula I’ve seen in ages. I’m keen on cheap – cos it means it will spread :)

I planted them along the walk to the bottom of the garden. It is really shady down here, but not actually under the trees so primulas and Hellebores will grow in the spring as well as spring bulbs and then aquilegias, geraniums, and pennisetums, so in fact it is quite floriferous as well as being a magical spot.

• 13 Mar, 2011
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