The March garden
For most of us, this spring is unlike any other. While a pandemic currently disrupts the normalcy of life for humans, the spring season, with warming weather and the emergence of new life, carries on.
I can’t really add much to what’s already been said about these troubling times other than ‘thank you’ to everyone who’s working so hard, in so many different capacities, to get us through to the other side of this new disease. Also, to everyone, please stay hopeful, and ask for help if you need help.
It seems unlikely that I’ll be selling fresh flowers in the near future, but I’m going to carry on growing them as planned. I will dry flowers as usual, some flowers are intended for wildlife, and until it’s safe to leave home and the local Saturday markets re-start, I’ll gift my fresh flowers to nearby friends and neighbours who might be in need of a floral pick-me-up.
In the meantime, I can still share my flowers here, and I hope they bring you a bit of hope if you need it.
These orange and creamy-white daffodils are amongst the first spring bulbs to bloom in the garden, starting in mid-March. They have amazingly long stems and a lovely gentle scent.
I started my hardy annuals and some veggies in early March, using heat to speed germination because some were started later than usual. One difference I’ve made this year is to use capillary matting for irrigation. So far it’s working brilliantly, keeping the seed compost at a low moisture level and pretty much eliminating loss of seedlings to damping off. Some seedlings have already been potted up, including borage, honeywort and some wildflowers. I’m trying to keep as many plants as possible in their deep-cell trays until planting out. I’m growing tomatoes and chillies again this year, and will soon need to get those potted on as well.
The primroses are the highlight of my spring. A few plants will have flowers opening as early as January or February, but the real showstopper display comes in late March and early April, when hundreds (or is it thousands) of plants are in bloom, alongside the bright yellow celandine. If I ever need cheering up, a walk through the primroses usually helps.
Last year I was so pleased with how the pink anemones flowered, so I planted two additional colours - white and blue. I saved the pinks from last year (lifted and stored) and moved them to different flowerbeds in the fall. My plan is to leave them in place all year, in the hope that I’ll have good, strong plants next year.
We’re building a new greenhouse / potting shed / workshop for me in the place where the old garage once stood. Matt is doing most of the work - I mix concrete and clean old bricks - and he’s doing the most fantastic job with the construction. We’re trying to keep building costs to a minimum, so the brickwork is built completely from the old bricks that made up the walls of the old garage, and the glass is from a greenhouse that we found through a local Freecycle group.
Narcissus ‘Replete’ was the next daffodil to open ‘en masse’. These bulbs were planted last year and are currently putting on a lovely show with their frilly apricot-coloured petals. Up close they have a wonderful, light daffodil scent. I love the yellow glow that seems to be coming from the centre of the flower!
In our first year here, I searched the garden for wild violets, and only found a couple of plants - both with white flowers. Last week I spotted this blue one growing in the steps at the front door. And as I’ve been walking through the primrose lawn in the ‘meadow’, I’ve noticed a number of small violas showing their purple-pink faces in the grass. It’s so satisfying to see floral diversity returning to that area of the garden.
Hyacinths and honesty are providing welcome splashes of purple in our otherwise yellow and green garden at this time of year. The honesty plants will actually be two years old this summer. I sowed them in 2018 and planted them in what turned out to be a poor location, especially in the very dry weather of 2019, so most of them didn’t flower last year. However, they did survive, and I moved the non-flower plants to better locations last fall. They seem much happier (particularly after the wet winter) and are now merrily flowering away.
The Magnolia x soulangiana (already in the garden when we moved in) flowered beautifully this March. We had a few light frosts, but thankfully none were heavy enough to damage the flower buds or flowers.
I adore cowslips. While I was doing my PhD, another member of our research group was studying pollination in these little plants, and she offered me some seedlings that had been grown as part of her work. All I needed to do in return was nurture them in my garden and report the number of flowers that each plant produced the following spring. Of course I agreed, and so I welcomed a trayful of little cowslips into the garden. It was such a joy watching them grow and flower in what was then a small garden in the middle of a different village. I’ve missed them in our new garden and so have grown some new plants from seed. Their first flowering is happening now, and they’ve produced some spectacular blooms. The other day I spotted a small all-black bumblebee visiting the flowers, but I didn’t get a good enough look to even attempt a guess at its identification.
I thought I’d end with photos of our resident pheasant. We normally get a few males and the rare female visiting briefly during the mating season, but this one seems to like it here. He has plenty of space to be a pheasant in the wild areas and the neighbouring woodland, and so he doesn’t spend much time at all in the flowerbeds. His birdy presence is much appreciated and he’s welcome to stay for as long as he likes!
I hope you enjoyed this little tour of our gardens in March and that you stay safe and well.
