The last 24 hours in pictures. 'Its the difficult ones that are worth the raising.'

What a difference a day makes! This was the gloomy picture last night.
 


And today I am gardening in bright sunshine…



Accompanied by creatures big (Tim and Spot the dog)…

and small..



I have been weeding these… their determined tap roots come out more easily than usual thanks to the saturated ground

and I am replacing them with homegrown scabious, vetch, ox eye daisies and autumn hawkbit.

so that in high summer, they will add to the meadows on the terraces.

This teenage weather is exacting and challenging, producing no visitors while the garden looks perfect. But, as a wise person once told my despairing mother ‘It’s the difficult ones that are worth the raising.’


Just remind me I said that the next time water floods the shop, the office, the gardens….

Top performing tulips flowering now.

Tulips are essential in the Spring. We plant loads of their beautiful chestnutty bulbs every autumn. They can be used for naturalising, for cutting, for pots and in the borders.In late April, the red Apeldoorn tulips look gorgeous in the Cedar meadow and their yellow counterparts are showing in the rose meadow and in the Poppy Borders.

We rely on certain tulips every year. They include Tulipa ‘Carneval de Nice’ (below) and, in the bucket,  ‘Uncle Tom’ in foreground, ‘Carneval de Nice’ behind, ‘Queen of the Night’ and fringed tulip ‘Swan Wings.’ The orange tulip ‘Prinses Irene’ looks lovely with terracotta or ironwork in pots but, as you can see here, works just as well amongst these border auriculas.
   
Tulipa ‘Blueberry Ripple’
This is a cracker. It is the first year we have grown it and we will definitely add it to our favourites. I chatted with Perry Rodriguez at Great Dixter  (via twitter). They grow it  and he sent me a beautiful image of Blueberry Ripple amongst mixed tulips on the table in the house. He suggested it would bed out well with variegated honesty. I agree. You could also try it with variegated perennial wallflowers.

I have included this picture particularly because I think it shows the true colour of this tulip. There is one image that seems to be used across the web and it is suspiciously over ‘blued’.


There is such a huge range of tulips and there are plenty more I would like to try out, all suggestions gratefully received.

Jubilee Planting in Grantham

Last week, The Diamond Grove in Queen Elizabeth Park, Grantham was the setting for a mass snowdrop planting by school children.  We donated snowdrops along with Little Ponton Hall and Belton House. Snowdrops were lifted from here, some of the bulbs returned to the holes and the rest went off to their new home. We look forward to seeing some pictures next year.

March at Easton comes in like a lion….

Last week the winds picked up and typical March weather had arrived. Small bulbs were unaffected by it and made brave showings in the cedar meadow. Coming out now to join the crocuses are Chionodoxa in blues, pinks and white.

New daffodils are showing through every day including the Tenby daffodil (Narcissus obvallaris) (below) and, on the snowdrop bank, an old survivor from pre-restoration, sometimes known as ‘Queen Anne’s Double’. The flowers are stuffed with petals that threaten to bring the whole stem down.

On sunny days (like yesterday) we spot frogs  in the ditch below the snowdrop bank. The weather was so fine that they ignored us to enjoy the heat and were splashing and croaking in the puddles. The grey wagtail has returned to the river where we can watch his bobbing flight with ease.
The hellebores are at their best now. Most of our hellebores are in the woodland walk where they blend with hyacinths, dogs mercury and golden feverfew. An unusual combination of plants that is well worth seeing.

Heaven Scent

Flowering out in the garden today is our wild violet. They are on a gentle slope of rough limestony ground which the rabbits graze a bit. This image below shows them flowering with cowslips. It gives you an idea of the tiny scale of these ground hugging plants. The scent is completely out of proportion to their size. They outsmell all other plants in early spring. A siren call to any insects on the wing on sunny days.

In my kitchen this tiny bunch will scent the whole room for 24 hours.

I have noticed the pollen coming off the Yew trees in great clouds for the first time today. Hay Fever sufferers are often confused by their first attack at this time of year. The Yew tree may be the culprit. When the trees in the Yew Tunne really get going it looks like great clouds of smoke coming out of the centre.

Guerilla Gardening

A new flower has appeared on the snowdrop bank without any of us planting it…the suspicion has fallen on an unknown visitor secretly adding to the gardens.

Technorati Tags: crocus,gardening,snowdrops,wordless wednesday,easton walled gardens

Snowdrop week in pictures: what you can expect to see 18th-26th February.

Lots of these views:

Plenty of these:
 
Some of these:
 
and these:
   
and, of course these:
 
You can do this:
  
and enjoy this:

You can buy these:
   
  
and eat warming soups and light lunches and scones here (or get a takeaway soup and pasty if its very busy):

We will be wrapped up warm for nine days of whatever the weather throws at us to welcome you and look forward to seeing you.