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Gardener's Diary - April
The first Open day had been and gone – it always worries
me a little bit that people will come along and not find enough
to see. The spring meadow looked fantastic this March but by
the open Day all the Narcissus had already finished and although
a few fritillaries had started to flower, it was nothing like
the earlier display. The same is happening right now in the
formal garden. The pink Bellis (daisies) have looked good throughout
the winter due to it being mostly mild, but the pink tulips
due to open at the end of March were slowed by the cold weather
at the end of the month so were not in flower for Sunday 13th.
They are out now due to a few mild and sunny days and looking
fantastic; the second variety of tulips, due to flower at the
end of April/early May for the next Open Day – British
Heart Foundation on 11th May – have also decided to start
flowering already, so I’m just hoping they can keep going
for a few weeks or they will all have finished before the big
day!
The cherries have also waited for the gap between Open Days
and are looking very good at the moment with the later Narcissus
flowering underneath them. Before the next Open Day we will
have sown all the hardy annual seed and hopefully planted all
the remaining groups of Digitalis seedlings at present in the
Glasshouses and cold frames. This is going to depend a lot on
the weather of course – I have been soaked twice this
morning by heavy showers and the ground is now very wet again.
Also when the rain is very heavy it tends to compact the soil
making seed sowing in particular quite difficult.
If any of you are visiting the garden in the next few weeks
you may notice white paint marks along the road where bumps
and dips have been highlighted to be removed/filled in when
the garden entrance is resurfaced this year. We have had one
contractor give a quote already, so I hope it won’t be
too long before its done. The other thing you may notice is
the large number of bird boxes put up by zoology students to
study nesting behaviour and to increase the population of small
birds in the Garden – which has greatly interested the
resident sparrow hawk!
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