March into the Garden

March into the garden. Sounds like a military order!

Crocus For many Easter heralds the start of the gardening year but for me I find it difficult to say when one year ends and another begins. Beginning the great leaf clear up in Autumn perhaps is the closest to an end of year feeling but that clear up continues throughout the Winter months as long as it is dry and not frozen everywhere.

It is great to see people out gardening Easter weekend but I wonder how many really enjoy what seems to be a necessary slog rather than a pleasant pastime. I have spent perhaps an hour or two at the weekend, but not every weekend, and I have to admit there are times when I go inside thinking I cannot see what I have achieved. However suddenly in the middle of March that work looks like it has paid off. Yes there are bare patches of soil but the perennial plants are starting to poke through to test the temperature. The lawn looks awful but that will improve as the temperature rises and I do a little work on it.

The colour in the garden is amazing and that is not only colour from flowers. The snowdrops are still flowering although most have gone now. The crocus provide a beautiful swathe of colour. My preference with crocus is for blocks of the same colour, I think they have more impact. The daffodils are at their best. When I started gardening I went for the large flowered King Alfred but now my favourites are the smaller species that do not fall fowl of the weather. This last week we have had gale force winds and the little beauties look as good as ever.

Hellebores in a range of colours, pulmonaria in red and blue, crab apple blossom, the first camellia in flower, winter jasmine, the first flowering cherry with its light pink flowers, forsythia, the bursting buds of flowering currant, the first Magnolia Stellata flowers open, drumstick primulas opening, the red buds of viburnum and hyacinths. Add to this flower colour the stems of red and green dogwood, the bronze grasses, the black grass or ophiogogon, yellow leaved phormium, Hebe Red Edge and the new red leaves of Photinia Red Robin.

All this gladdens the heart and makes me think winter is on its way out. Especially when I go into the greenhouse and see that my tomato seeds have germinated. It will be sometime before I taste those delicious home grown tomatoes but what a treat to look forward to.

There might still be a chill in the air but everything is warming up nicely out in the garden.

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