Spring 2016

Apologies for a long gap.
We have been doing a great deal of development work over the past two years in preparation for the village open gardens on the weekend of 9th-10th July with the help of local professional gardener Conor Hurst. I will give you a tour as projects finish, but in the meantime here is a look around some of the plants.
Pictures will get captions as and when I get around to it.

Ornamental malus (crab apple)

Allium Siculum (Nectaroscordum family)

Pieris

A few named daffodils

Caltha (kingcup) plus yellow skunk cabbage, a native of USA.

Pieris

Camellia

Spring bulbs

Hellebores, geranium etc

Hot tulips

Front bed - just removed ground elder.

blocks of wallflowers

Euphorbia

Kerria japonica (sometimes called Bachelor's Buttons)

First of the camassias.

Pieris

Hard to make this one out, but it is pale lilac-coloured flowers of  Lonicera xylosteum var. syringifolia, sometimes called Dwarf or Fly Honeysuckle.

Easily missed pittosporum in flower.

Yellow archangel

Ribes gordonianum (Gordon's flowering current)

A new idea for the front verge.

Frilly edged tulips

Greenish tulips

Geranium

Blocks of wallflowers

Parrot tulips

Old Yorkshire chimney has followed us around for 50 years, now topped with violas

Another use for a whisky barrel

Peony style tulips.

Gordon's flowering current, followed by its two parents, ribes sanguineum and ribes odorata

This little bottlebrush is Fothergilla. Likes an acidic soil so it grows in a large pot sunk into our alkaline soil

Kerria jaconica

Frilly edged tulips

Kashmir geranium

Peony tulips

Parrot tulips

My exotic tulip barrel

Tree peony (lutea, yellow)

When the peiris flowers finish, new red leaves appear in May

Hostas are grown in pots. Because we have lots of snails and slugs, I spray the pots with WD40 which keeps the leaves undamaged.

Banksian rose

This euphorbia just appeared

Variegated libertia.

I am trying some little apple trees in the flower beds

The front lawn. The pale bit is where the snowdrops and daffodils were.

Choisa, Axtec Pearl

Two of the residents

his bunch of chives pops up every year