WHAT glorious growing weather - fine sunny days and warm nights, with the soil still moist from last week's rain. Ideal for plant growth and not bad for the gardener either. I do hope it's not cold and wet again by the time you get to read this.
This spring has brought a few surprises, as it does every year. Some plants, like Polygonum verticillata, have over-wintered very well and are pushing up clumps twice the size of those that died down last autumn (do they carry on growing underground over winter I wonder?).
The giant cowslip Primula florindae has emerged from dormancy accompanied by a flock (or should that be herd?) of little P. florindae seedlings; I'm looking forward to a proper drift by next spring.
Other new plants are coming up that I'd forgotten we'd planted, including a Dodecatheon or American cowslip that we were given as a seedling last summer and which has now produced a tall flower spike of white, shooting star flowers. I'm not sure of the species, perhaps someone can advise me?
A clump of the yellow-flowered woodlander, Hylomecon japonica, which I planted last year, has come up fat and healthy; perhaps it will turn out to be a garden thug, though I hope not.
One plant has even moved itself half way across the garden - Geranium pyrenaicum Bill Wallis' obviously didn't approve of where I'd planted it, it has died in its original space but fortunately seeded itself somewhere more acceptable and is now flowering happily.
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Some surprises are not so nice. Our large Japanese maple has come reluctantly into leaf this week, and there are an alarming number of dead twigs and small branches in the canopy. Too cold this winter? Too windy last autumn? Too wet last summer? Impossible to tell and nothing to be done about it except to wait and see if it recovers or not. Other plants have taken a battering, like Euphorbia mellifera, and some have failed to show up at all; a few in pots, like the dahlias and Tropaeolum left in an unheated greenhouse, have obviously had their roots frozen and have turned to mush.
Out in the garden there is no sign of Disporum smithii or Imperata cylindrica (both of which I paid good money for) - the final insult.
But there are frogs in the ponds, coal tits nesting in the terracotta bird box, and bumble bees in the hellebores. When I visited a friend this week we found two slow worms warming up beneath the black plastic covering of her compost heap.
I love this time of year and I'm looking forward to many more surprises before spring turns into summer.
Jobs for the gardener this week...
Plant tomatoes in unheated greenhouses. It's still too early to plant outdoor tomatoes; they will be checked if we have any cold nights.
Collect seed from spring flowering perennials like primulas, erythroniums and hellebores. Although they will keep, many will germinate best if they are sown while still fresh.
Thin out seedlings of annuals and vegetables sown last month.
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