Friday 1 April 2011

some April flowers

It being the first of the month, I took a turn around the garden to see what was flowering.  By now there are too many to talk about them all in one blog post without it ending up a mere list of names.  In the back garden (an entirely arbitrary choice, it could just as easily been the front) there are quite a few shrubs out, and bulbs and herbaceous woodlanders.  Plants originating from the floors of deciduous woodland tend to flower early in the year, then go dormant in the summer as the leaf canopy closes over them.

Down at ground level there are various primulas and assorted violets.  I was pleased to see a double primrose in a pleasant faded shade of pink still with me.  I think it is 'Dawn Ansell' but it might be an un-named hybrid bought because I liked the colour.  Double primroses tend not to be long lived, and the books talk about dividing and replanting, but I seldom seem to organise myself to find the time.  Three plants of P. vulgaris subsp. sibthorpii, a pink form originating from the Balkans and South East Asia are also looking well.  There are some cowslips blooming in the lawn, mostly raised from seed, though not a great display.  Maybe this is yet to come in a few days, or maybe the past month has been too dry for their liking.  A hybrid cowslip with red centres to its petals, growing in one of the borders, has made an enormous clump.  I don't know if that is the effect of hybrid vigour or of not having to compete with the grass.  The Primula denticulata in the same border look sadly puny, and I'm sure it has been too dry for them, though I wonder if the white one has seeded itself.  These were evicted from a pot where they weren't happy, and I can't remember how many I planted.

The violets are a real hotch-potch.  I have planted a lot of Viola odorata over the years, some of which were named forms, and they have since seeded themselves, so I don't know what most of them are, but they are very pretty.  The little purple leaved V. labradorica purpurea is seeding madly as well, but I don't mind that.  In a large country garden it is useful ground cover.  The violets and primroses are self-sowing into a mossy corner of the lawn shaded by birch trees, which I like in a Primavera, Allegory of Spring way.  I am not a lawn enthusiast.

Also down at ground level, Omphalodes verna is running about happily, forming a dense mat of foliage at this time of year with little blue flowers above it.  The blue form is much more vigorous with me than the white. O. cappadocica 'Starry Eyes' has two-tone flowers that are attractive, but doesn't cover the ground so enthusiastically as O. verna.  Some little treasures have reappeared, such as my Anemonella thalictoides, bought from Beth Chatto, which has anemone-like pink flowers and foliage resembling a very low growing Thalictrum, but it has to be admitted that the best overall garden effect comes from the plants which have spread so that there are lots, or else I could afford to plant lots in the first place.  I think there is more Corydalis solida around now than I remember originally planting, and its soft pink flowers and divided grey leaves look very nice creeping up through other things.

There are not so many Anemone blanda as there were.  Maybe they are not long lived, or the site is not quite to their liking, or maybe they were eaten by whatever ate most of the crocus corms out of the border.  I stick to blue, when I have any, which I prefer to the pink.  However, A. sylvestris are starting to run around to form a goodly patch.  Their flowers are a pure and brilliant shade of white.  A. blanda grow from little nobbly black corms, which one is advised to soak before planting, while A. sylvestris grows from black bootlace-like roots, which run when happy.  Some Erythronium dens-canis are flowering, pink above mottled leaves, and the more vigorous yellow flowered E. 'Pagoda' are getting to the end of their season.  'Pagoda' splits well, once it has made a large clump.  I discovered this when I accidentally dug up a dormant lump of it.  There are some Fritillaria meleagris blooming in the middle of the lower lawn, along with the cowslips, but not many.  Again, it is early for them, but it may have been too dry.

Wandering up the hill, the two flowering currants, one red and one white, are looking good.  I don't know the name of the red one, which was a present.  The white one is 'White Icicle' and has not made as large a plant so far, but has not been in the ground for as long.  They tolerate a fair amount of shade from the hedge behind them once it comes fully into leaf a little later in the season, plus root competition, and the flowers provide good forage for the bees early in the season.  And I think they are pretty, quite apart from the fact that they are long-suffering and useful.

Anyway, that's enough flowers for one evening.

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