Around The Garden – March

The garden is looking very bland at the moment.  I need to think about planting that will add colour and textures at this time of year.  I know there are plants there, just not ones we can see at the moment.

The pond contains just two plant blue irises and a water buttercup. When we moved into the house the pond was completely full of irises. The irises were pot bound with the whole pond being the pot.  We had to lift the irises and then saw through the ball of roots in order to make any progress.

When we moved in the pond was home to many frogs and several newts.  To this we have added a few goldfish.

This bed is bordered on one end by the pond and at the other by a rhododendron bush.  There are foxgloves at the back which self seeded further down the garden and were transplanted here.  I therefore have no idea what colours they might be and am looking forward to the surprise. There are few snakeskin fritillary bulbs  beginning to show through at the front. There are ferns at the side of the pond which which should put in an appearance in about a month.  This bed is in shade for the most part of the day.

The light bed ( really must come up with better names) is currently a quadrant with the outside light at its apex.  This was the first bed I dug out of the lawn last year.  Currently there is a Lupin at the center and several foxgloves in this bed. Long term the plan is for this bed to be extended to meet the pond side bed by removing part of the path.  The path will be replaced by a series of stepping stones through the lawn.

The center piece of this bed is a standard rhododendron which we found in a broken down pot on the patio when we moved in.  It seems to have recovered but we will see what this years growth brings. The only other item in this bed at the moment is an echinacea which is still flowering from last year.

There are a few bulbs starting to poke through. and a couple of Allium bulbs, planted at the end of last year. You can also see the obligatory foxgloves which sprouted up all over my garden last year.

Before the winter I extended the left hand bed by removing a section of the path.  The center is currently occupied by a rather dead looking bush. This was else where in the garden when we moved in.  It doesn’t appear to have liked being moved but on scraping the stem is still green so a I will give it another month or so before condemning it .

The garden is overshadowed by a lot of mature trees so trying to grow vegetables is going to be difficult. The kale was however a great success and as can be seen here continues to provide us with greens. This year I will try other shade tolerant vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower. The grow bags which can be seen had been dragged from the green house earlier in the day and were awaiting breaking open spreading on the garden.