When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces…...

[echt]

I realise it's later in the UK, but couldn't wait to start a new thread. If another title had been agreed, just tell me and I'll have this removed.

Other than that, seek out those deckchairs from the shed, check them for spiders and get nattering about the spring's promise.

Ok here goes again,this is the view from our kitchen door with my few hellebores and valerian with my badly trimmed buddies in the background!

Oh dear. You,ve got our cat with the catnip!! And the large cave with the ferns, as well as the hellebores , and silly spelling !! This is a slightly annoying thing !!

Oh and the bread oven (made in the caves by the farm workers in the winter who used to mine the stone for buildings).

Also you can see our gate down the box hedge drive, and the yucca plant which has self seeded about.

It looks idealic ppeat we very nearly booked a holiday in France for August but have been persuaded to return to Cornwall by our friends instead.

Thanks for the link sugarplum did you buy anything? I am being stalked by Waitrose garden, I must have looked at it somewhen, I keep being shown pictures of things on offer!

Brilliant brilliant cave.

As I recall you are good with clematis maud so having pruned them are you now feeding them?

I'm a bit nervous as I appear to have gone a bit wild on the clematis front and have

Planted:
viticella abundance
viticella polish spirit
avalanche
marjorie
montana elisabeth
montana broughton star
jingle bells
wisley cream
integrifolia
countess of wessex

In pots waiting to be planted and being nurtured as they are young:
princess diana
princess kate
queen mother
emerald dream

maud avalanche does have oak -like leaves

Anyway the reason I am nervous is I have got good enough that they have survived the winter but I'm not good enough that they flower and thrive.

So how should I be looking after them and nourishing them?

Hmm. I am not very good with clematis; I plant loads and the toughest survive! We probably bought the same magazine offer, funnyperson, as I have the same royal collection waiting to be planted, plus some others acquired along the way. I also received today the latest free for postage clematis offer from GW magazine. It's infuriating as some of them were supposed to go on the fence that still isn't there. I may be erecting some Monty-style wigwams in the beds instead.

I have pruned several of the clematis and will mulch them as soon as I buy some more manure. I always used to fret about pruning them, until I heard the ditty about 'if it flowers before June, don't prune'. The one I've pruned hardest is Jackmanii, because all it's flowers were in the top of the tree where I couldn't see them.

I've had the same experience with clematis Maud they don't seem to last long at all, apart from the montana varieties. Oh and a variety that the last occupants had planted which I waited a year for (to see if it was a pretty flowery one ) Big mistake!!! It's like a weed all over the garden now and it has a sort of 'tuft' !! No colour at all I console myself with the thought that the birds love it for their nests in the winter and that if I had planted it deliberately I would be pleased at it's health!

Hello all wise gardeners, I am sorry to interrupt your chat but I know how knowledgable you all are. My Mum has moved into a new bungalow and the garden is lovely, but recently the leaves pictured have started appearing everywhere. She doesn't know whether it's something nice and needs leaving or of it will take over and needs pulling up? Please help

I saw lots of dainty snowdrops nodding their heads in the wind today ;
thousand and thousands at Benington- thanks for the heads up!
It is a very lovely garden indeed.
One interesting thing is that they prune their cornus very hard. You could see the old stems below the lovely red, orange and yellow coloured growth providing winter cheer and a backdrop for the snowdrops in the winter garden.
I'm not a great yellow aconite fan I've decided but I could easily transform to a galanthophile.
Their hellebores aren't up to much but the snowdrops were just so pretty and pleasant and numerous. They have a little valley of them below deciduous old trees still bare barked and leafless, letting the sun through, and that is also a lovely setting.
They have an Edwardian verandah.
They have a wide basket swing
They have a moat
They have 250 varieties of snowdrop planted up by the house!

I pent £15 which included entrance, parking, refreshments, a rareish snowdrop in the green and a slightly more common but still unusual group of 10 snowdrops in the green and a postcard.

Not bad!

Sounds like a brilliant day funnyperson! I dug up some pulmonaria this morning for a local lady doing a project making bee hotels (she wanted some bee friendly plants to give to people attending the workshop, and the hairy footed flower bees love love love our pulmonaria). They are all in fat bud, so hopefully not long to wait now for flowers and bees! In the meantime the hellebores are making me very happy

Hi funnyperson I was at Benington on Wednesday

Glad you enjoyed it. We hadn't been before but my mum had heard it was good for snowdrops - we weren't disappointed I didn't realise there were so many different varieties.

I loved the house, lakes and folly. I thought the hellebores might've been a bit more eye-catching (they were a bit 'bare-earth' ).

Like you I don't really rate yellow aconites (they remind me of buttercups ). Someone up thread mentioned white ones which sound nice.

This was where I saw the arum (down the side of the house/ folly).

We went on an hour long tour in the afternoon led by the head gardener. 'Twas really interesting and well worth the extra pound

He advised that their bluebell display is arguably more impressive than the snowdrops. They attract fewer visitors though. He reckoned they should be in bloom by mid-April this year but we would be welcome to phone and check. Maybe he was just touting for repeat business

I, too bought a postcard (for my gran!)

LightTripper I love bees!

Furry footed ones sound fab

Karate that pic looks like the arum pictum mentioned on the last page.

Hope this post works as it's the sixth time I've tried. Struggling in 93 degrees.

No horticultural triumphs to post, but thrashed the credit card at Uniqlo and Muji today. :o

Blimey funny I just read your list of clematis I wish you luck . Benington sounds gorgeous, where is it?

I love bees too. I have thought seriously about keeping them here but haven't googled because I'm worried there'll be too much work involved. Ooh I just remembered that bees love lemon balm ,it calms them.

Yes karate the pic looks like that arum pictum. Lovely

Benington is in Hertfordshire near Stevenage off the A1.

But this is a good link to snowdrop openings elsewhere in the UK
www.greatbritishgardens.co.uk/seasonal/snowdrops.html

and this is the ngs lnk for snowdrop openings
www.ngs.org.uk/gardens/snowdrop-openings.aspx?gclid=CNvI1tyN9sMCFaIewwodojIAyg

The weather here is cold and stormy and wet today. So mum and I have put in the rhubarb crown in her veg patch and also sowed some of Sarah Raven gourmet beans. Though though it was a bit wild out, and we both got a little bit wet, this stopped the poor lady from running away as she had wanted at lunchtime, dad's carers having been particularly offhand today. Health care workers can be very patronising and dismissive to the elderly.

Being out in the garden, and planting something up with the hope of a future harvest does help de-stress actually, and gives a feeling of accomplishment when on all sides only failure appears apparent.

Anyway my terrible week at work took a turn for the better on Thursday and ended well. How important our own mental health and physical well being as mothers is, though, otherwise how can we support our families?

I have also sorted my seeds.

I don't think my hellebores are peaking yet, maybe they'll be better in a couple of weeks?

The bee hotel workshop went well apparently! They made about 25 bee hotels. Though I think they were hoping for a few more kids. anyway, the pulmonarias all found new homes so I hope they'll be happy

The hairy footed bees are fab. The boys are ginger with hairy feet and the girls are a very chic black. They are very chilled out compared with normal bees and almost hover as they bumble about. I always feel it is really the start of gardening weather when they appear (not quite yet!!)

No idea what karatekimmi's leaves are though? They look pretty!

Oh sorry, just saw it was answered. Glad it is something nice!

Funny Thanks for the snowdrop links. I know Benington! as a village we had a friend who lived there there's a grand house too? Glad your week has turned out better; these things are sent to try us I'm sooo glad I'm retired now!!

Lighttripper The bees look after themselves most of the time don't they?

Did anyone go to the London RHS potato ad plant fair at the weekend? If so, how was it?

Also can any one advise me on pruning cornus? When is best to prune? Now?

You are so right about the mental wellbeing of mothers, funny. I find I really, really need breaks from my kids to restore my sanity and patience levels. By the end of last week, with half term meaning full-on childcare and endless tantrums, I was starting to lose it. I get shoutier and shoutier, which leads to worse behaviour from the dcs, and it's a vicious circle.

This morning they are happily back at school and preschool; I have planted up a long raised brick trough thing outside the drive gates and I feel like a new woman. I will be nice to them this afternoon.

Which sort of Cornus, funny? Coloured stem varieties or kousa types?

Glad you regained your gardening time!
Coloured stem.

I have one with red coloured stems but realised when I went to benington that I probably am not pruning it hard enough. I trim it back lightly every so often so it is a rather boring ball shape but the stem colour is a dullish maroon as most of the stems are quite old now, rather than a younger vibrant red.

What did you plant in the brick trough?

I'm thinking through a section of one of the beds, it randomly has penstemon (crimson) fuschia lady boothby, ceratostigma and a geranium pheum and I need to fill in some gaps but also tie the planting together colourwise.

There is a eupatropium and some knautia which might do and some chocolate cosmos, lilium regale, nicotiniana lime green which I could all plant up in that section, but I feel it is lacking something. Agastache perhaps? Salvia perhaps? I have some helenium waltraut to go in that section somewhere for late colour so need to think about how it is going to go from reds and blues to yellows in late summer!