It’s now meteorological spring but when do you think spring begins? Last week almost felt spring-like. Some days were very pleasant. The sun made an appearance but it remained cold on most days.
The sun, however, made us feel like getting into the garden and onto the allotment.
Mostly, we were tidying up. I cut back the roses – pruned implies something more professional – both in the garden and on the allotment.
We tidied the flower bed at the front of the house, trimming the lavender edging and clearing away last year’s perennial growth. Now, the spring bulbs have more space, and we can appreciate them more.
Martyn sowed our first seeds of the season – onions and shallots. These are now in the house under some growing lights.
On the allotment, whilst I was busy cutting back the roses, Martyn dug up what was left of the leeks and parsnips.
These will be frozen.
I also froze some of our stored onions to provide a stop-gap between our stored onions starting to shoot and the overwintered onions being ready to use.
At a local park, the crocuses are now taking centre stage.
Alongside the park’s boundary is a whole row of yellow crocuses. They never seem to attract birds’ attention, whereas in the garden, birds often decimate yellow crocuses.
Snowdrops are now fading, however, a clump in a shady spot is at its best.
For a few weeks, we have intended to visit Dunham Massey. For various reasons, mostly down to the weather, we have kept postponing our visit. When the weather has been fine here in the east, forecasts for the west, where Dunham Massey is situated, have been for rain. Last Thursday was dry and sunny so we headed west.
On arrival, we decided to firstly have lunch as dogs are only allowed in the garden after midday. Dogs are allowed in one area of the cafe. It’s a small area so it was a bit annoying that most tables were taken by dogless people when there was plenty of room in the main area. We were lucky as someone noticed us looking around and called over that they were just leaving.
The garden at Dunham Massey is interesting all year round but boasts one of the largest winter gardens in the UK. Last week, the garden seemed to be transitioning from winter into spring.
Lots of the snowdrops were past their best, although some clumps of the larger flowered varieties were beautiful.
Clumps of snowflakes, leucoojum vernum, were beginning to flower.
There were also drifts of diminutive daffodils. This echoes what is happening in our garden.
There were also lots of different coloured cyclamen coum flowers. These are the late winter and early spring flowering variety of hardy cyclamen rather than the later flowering cyclamen hederifolium that spreads prolifically around our garden and plot. Unlike our cyclamen that have ivy shaped leaves, coum has heart-shaped leaves with a Christmas tree design in the centre.
One or two hellebores were also flowering.
Another feature were the dwarf irises some of which were intermingled with puschkina
Witch hazels were in full flower. Early camallias were beginning to flower, skimmia flowers were in bud and hydrangeas hung on to last year’s blooms.
Surprisingly, there were no signs of any crocuses.
A row of holly bushes had been severely pruned. Apparently, this is done every four or five years.
Ruby waited patiently whilst we took our many photos and video. I think she has learned to read as where a sign invited visitors to sniff she duly obliged.
After a stroll around the garden, Ruby was ready for a proper walk so we headed for the deer park. The deer were lazing in the grass taking advantage of the sunshine.
A video of our afternoon at Dunhan Massey is posted here
Finally I used some parsnip and onions in a chicken stew which was served with a selection of our frozen vegetables.
Some of our leeks, shallot and frozen peas went into a turkey pilaf.
That’s all for now so until next time , as always, stay safe and stay well.
Glad you made it to Dunham Massey before the snowdrops completely disappeared. We visited Templenewsam at the weekend, the crocuses are putting on a show there.
We go to Temple Newsam during the week, Jo when we sometimes hardly see anyone. I wodner whether parking charges will reduce footfall.
Yes absolutely, I always feel like spring starts for me in mid-February, thats when I get the first flowers on the early peas, the apricot and nectarine trees bursts into flower and growth noticeably restarts under cover. I also get busy, finishing my winter harvests and getting all of my beds replanted with my spring crops, I’m planting the last few today, a few days late. Then I get to enjoy March and April with very little gardening to do until mid-May when all those spring harvests are starting to finish and I rush to replant everything with the summer crops.
March and April are our busy time, Steve. When do you plant your potatoes?
I start in January, so that I have new potatoes in late April when our stored tubers are depleted or loosing quality. Then I sow every few weeks until it’s time for main crops towards the end of April. May is my busy month planting all of the summer fruits. Right now I’m only gardening a few hours a week plus two hours of harvesting.
If we planted so early the tops would be frosted, Steve besides which our clay soil is cold and wet. March/April is our busy time
The crocus and snowdrops look glorious! None of the spring flowers have appeared here yet, but we are on the lookout for them, especially the hellebores.
I love soring flowers, Dave.