Open Afternoon, Easter Monday

Gardening finished at 1pm, visitors arrived from 2pm greeted by a dizzly afternoon. The tea and cakes were therefore welcome - many thanks to Lucy and all the bakers.
The alpine bed

 The spring garden

 The front lawn with magnolia stellata

 The flowering crab apple with the container garden

Primulas and fritillaries - alpine bed.

Rosi the cat needing affection

Amelanchier just in blossom

Magnolia stellata, still in flower after four weeks.

The bog garden with bullrushes, behind a yellow flowering-current (ribes odoratum)

Closer up.

The ericacious bed - for lime hating plants such as pieris and camellias

another view

Summer house view. This will later be transformed when the peonies flower.

Daffodils in front of the house, especially Narcissus 'Bravoure' - tulips too.

The fish-less pond

The front lawn

Golden mock orange, philadelphus aureus, brightening a fence

Pictures of the new garden, created last summer by removing a huge leylandii hedge. The neighbours built the impressive wall. First, the view from the road.

View from the house, through a vibernum

Looking towards the road, this bed is planted with reds, yellows, oranges as well as the whites of daffodils (most of which have an orange centre). Clematis and honeysuckle are climbing the trunks, and mature shrubs like ceanothus and photinia already reach the top of the wall. The yellow flowers are ribes odoratus.

This bed moves from red to purples. The stump next to the wall was too big to remove so it is disguised and in time will be covered by senecio, vinca and golden and silver variegated hedging lonicera nitida. The terracing uses the trunks of the felled leylandii.

Now a variegated photinia, in a bed that needs attention

Finally, the double hellebores by the kitchen window, still flowering their heads off.

Our first snowdrops

Photographed yesterday, Galanthus elwesii and galanthus 'John Gray'

One more

Missed this one nodding high up a crab apple - Clematis cirrhosa 'Freckles'. See it also on http://romancourt365.blogspot.com, a picture a day (until I get bored...).

Christmas Day Winter Wonderland

Here are some of the flowers out in the garden this morning.

Schizostylis coccinea (Kaffir Lily), has flowered for 6 months now

 'County' 'groundcover' rose 'Hampshire'. At 4 foot high, hardly groundcover. Has flowered its head off in deep shade for 20 years. I hope it now survives full sun...

Fuchsia 'Hawkshead'

Corydalis, from a (legal) cutting from Darwin's  Down House. It now seeds at will.

The first daffodil

Hellebore (asiatic)

Confused Banksian Rose (normally flowers June)

Violas

Cyclomen, with pot cat behind by Omnipuss Art, Lincoln

 'Christmas Camellia', camellia sasanqua.

Heuchera Flame Brulee (with a few weeds)

Hellebore, Double, pink

What to do with green figs?? Have tried chutney.

Fuchsia Hawkshead again...

Penstemon Purple Bedder

And another Penstemon Strawberry Fancy

Primrose: Primula capitata 'Silvana' from Tibet.

and winter flowering honeysuckle, lonicera purpusii  

Enjoy your Christmas,  Best wishes, Stephen and Jean

PS Spring garden opening planned for the Garden Club, on Easter Monday, 2-4pm.

Pretty rampant

 Weigela in front, wisteria behind

 The little clematis 'Joe'

 A pretty rampant lilac!

 And a pretty busy growing bench in the greenhouse

 Rose moyesii 'Geranium' shouldn't like it here, with wet feet, but does

 Another pretty rampant thug: a white wisteria growing through a flowering crab apple

 And a white climbing rose supported by a dead flowering cherry

 The drive lit up with these electric blue irises - Iris siberica 'Stephen'

 The white and purple wisterias, side by side. The purple is anything but rampant, even though it is 25 years old.

 Another view of the white wisteria, with pots under

 and house behind

And finally a very vigorous lilac hiding the house next door.

End of April 2011, photographs taken today

 Saxifrages

 Lily of the valley, waiting for the village plant sale

 The Dunwich Rose, pale cream yellow, single and simple

 Unusual tulips, second year of flowering

 The Banksian Rose, rose banksii, yellow double flowers

 Banksian Rose, close up

 Rose 'Canary Bird'. Single, simple and yellower than the Dunwich Rose

 clematis, new this year

 Blue geraniums, with Choisa Aztek Gem behind

 Purple leaved weigela, with its variagated pale green sport shining out. 

After 3 years, four cuttings have at last survived.

 Cornflowers, with Deutzia behand.

 True lupin, with gorse behind

 Through the geraniums towards the summer house, with sweet pea wigwams visible

 Three trees - pocket handkerchief, front; pink midland thorn; then white hawthorm.

You may need to click to enlarge

Finally today, the first of the Iris 'Stephen', with hellebores behind and Choisa 'Aztek Pearl' in the distance.

Hostas and their enemies

Hostas are coming into leaf and are looking incredibly delicious to the army of slugs and snails that live in the garden. My main solution is to grow them in pots, and to spray the pots with WD40 about now, as the beasts are waking after the winter.

It has worked for 5 years. For hostas in the ground, or other vulnerable plants, spray a barrier to go around them - a piece of old hose for big plants, a plastic bottle section for baby delphiniums and lupins. Make sure there are no overhanging leaves, because the varmints will try every other way to get to their lunch.