Spring Once Again

We've got the waterfall in the ponds working now, and moved in some of the fish from the waterwheel pond. Millions of tadpoles now inhabit the wildlife pond which give the children endless hours of interest. Further around the garden the hellebores and daffodils planted last year are in full bloom and very colourful. My bargain £5 camellias have flowered their socks off above the ponds.

The new raised circle is almost completed (notice M'spouse busy working), when it is I'll be able to transfer the turf from the waiting bed (to the right of the new steps) up into the circle and then get on with planting out grasses and late flowering herbaceous plants to finish off the autumn colouring.
I've also nearly completed digging over the bed above the pond, where the summerhouse is going to be sited, this was the first area we planted in the garden, but it got neglected and grass soon infested it, so its really pleasing to get it dug over.
I'm just waiting for some more of the bog garden plants to start shooting in the herbaceous gardens so I can transplant them into the boggy area around the pond, hopefully I won't have to buy anything it is already here.




The woodland walk is progressing well, this area is the newly cleared area, in last months photo it was still covered in dense trees. This next area has many uprooted trees, the conifers don't seem to send a tap root down and so are very shallow rooted and I think a combination of winds and high water has brought these down, so there is still loads of clearing to do. The newly exposed bank with some bluebells already established, I'm going to transplant some native foxgloves from another part of the woods into the banks, I also found a large colony of wood anemones which I'm very pleased about.




The herbaceous borders are still being tackled. They've been rather neglected for the last year or two, so need dividing, pruning and weeding well, so progress is slow. The hellebore beds are looking stunning and have increased in size enormously, there are lots of seedlings I need to collect and grow on in the woodland gardens at the back....

Under Water

Yesterday after heavy rains the herbaceous garden has flooded in parts, the worst since moving here nearly 5 years ago . Our usual fast flowing brook rose by about 1m during the day. We also have rivers flowing through the woodland gardens down the slope. During the night the river has risen even further resulting with it bursting its banks into the garden, most of the debris is sand and bark chippings from the seating area on the right, easily cleaned up. It came to within an inch of the gate by the bridge where I store all my seedlings and nursery plants, so I fell very luckly that they were untouched.



The woodland walk which we started last year, we are now attempting to get some more of it finished so the bluebells can be enjoyed in May. The picture on the left is of the clearance we have already completed about 200m into the woods. The leat has been unused for over 50 years, and now has numerous self seeded trees rooted in it, we hope to remove most of these and continue clearing to the sluice gate in the brook. We hope to place a bench in the area of the middle photo to stop and watch the brook, we will have several along the way. The picture on the right is the clearance we still have to do, the bluebells are erupting from the ground already so we're hoping to work on this before we cause too much damage to them. Allowing more light into the banks will hopefully allow more native plants to seed there too. We already have foxgloves, primroses and bluebells.



The early flowering daffodils are in full swing, with primroses, pulmonaria and hellebores creating more colour. Its hard to believe the circle area is less than a year old, its matured wonderfully. The pond area is finished apart from the electrics for the pump and the planting....we've got frogspawn already in the large wildlife area. The higher circle is still under construction, the grass covering it has come from the area to the right where the last bed will be located, this will hopefully be grasses and late flowering perennials. Then the garden will be complete - for now.