It’s been quite a while since I shared a garden post here, and I’m really not sure why. I’ve been taking photos most months - as you’d expect December and January were a bit sparse - but somehow they’ve not made it onto here. So I’m restarting these online memory scrapbook of my garden with snaps taken during April, and over the next few weeks I’ll catch myself up, so don’t be surprised to see a spot of snow in the not too distant future.
But first blossom.
Both of our cherry trees are full of blossom, which can when blown have a snow effect. We don’t have the pink cherry blossom that everyone craves, and goes wild for, like Greenwich Park but white blossom is good by me. Our laurel tree has also flowered this month, and between this and the cherries the pigeons are having a blast.
The laurel needs a cut though, as I’ve noticed that when it rains only part of the stone circle which is close-but-not-that-close-by gets wet. In fact a few of our trees need a cut so we’ll need to call our tree cutters, it’s been a while.
Throughout the garden there’s pops of lime green euphorbias, it’s a colour that really lifts the space especially on the grey-er days. It seems hard to believe that last April we were already making use of the barbecue, not so much - or at all - this year.
Our reddy-pink camellia has finally flowered, it’s much later than our neighbours, as usual but even so, it’s been slow. Now that it’s here, it’s very welcome and very beautiful but I wish it wasn’t quite so reticent. In more exciting news at the far end of the garden, our newest camellia has flowered. I say new, it arrived in 2015 and has flowered before, but this year it seems to have really got the hang of it.
And like many camellias even when it’s fading, it’s still as beautiful. Our ornamental quince, with its orange flowers, is doing well with more flowers than I remember from previous years. Last year we really cut back the euonymus and I suspect that has really helped.
Some bulbs have other plants have self seeded in the grass, and we have our usual carpet of wild violets, which also seem to have found themselves a new home between the paving and slate outside the greenhouse. Both the leaves and the flowers are exquisite, though MOH is less welcoming to the ones in the grass.
We’re still waiting for the march of the forget-me-nots, they are rampant in our garden and while the blue ‘fluff’ is welcome to start with, it doesn’t last. Our challenge is always to pull them up before they set seed, so it becomes a bit of a race. We know that’s to come, but in the meantime let’s just admire the blossom while it lasts.
