My Little Garden 5th Dec 2020
The first week of December has seen the end of Lockdown number two and the return of Tier 3 restrictions for Greater Manchester. So far I have managed to contain my excitement about the shops being open but if this awful weather continues there may be no avoiding a little festive shopping.
Talking of the weather, I’m slightly disappointed that we’ve had no snow. There was a little bit of frost on Tuesday morning but mostly it’s just been very very wet. For once I’d managed to book a slot at NT Dunham Massey on the one dry day so at least I had an enjoyable walk around the winter garden. The installation proceedings for the annual Christmas Lights Event was well under way after a delayed start due to lockdown. It looked very well organised but I always worry whether the emerging bulbs will manage to survive both the initial work and then all the visitor feet trampling around in the dark. Fortunately some paths remain closed off including the one where the first of the snowdrops normally appear.
Also on Tuesday, I listened to a highly enjoyable talk by Sarah Pajwani about her garden, St Timothee in Berkshire. It’s the next best thing to seeing a garden for yourself and it’s inspired me to plan a little trip south next summer to explore some new gardens. Hopefully some Garden Media Guild visits will be able to go ahead too. Something to look forward to!
In my own little garden, the mahonia is flowering away and a few little bulbs are starting to emerge, but photo opportunities have been limited, so I’m sticking to the plan of looking back to the early weeks of lockdown. This week is all about April, so of course there will be one or two tulip photos. Here are my six.
1.The first of the tulips to show off was Atilla Graffiti. I have to confess that it was much redder than I expected (and it’s description suggested), but what a beauty. I planted it with T. ‘Spring Green’ and T. ‘Black Hero’ in this bed which looked ok, but it’s not a combination I would probably repeat because of a pink Japanese Azalea at the back. Bad planning!
Here it is in close up.
And this is T. ‘Spring Green’, followed by T. ‘Black Hero’ and T. ‘Doll’s Minuet’ which you can see together in the header shot. The pink works much better with the other two than the red I think, but T. Atilla Graffiti will be making a come back in the front garden next spring.
2. And this is the azalea that caused the colour clash catastrophe!
3. My favourite tulip combination of 2020 was a mix of T. ‘Negrita’, T. ‘Orange Cassini’ and T. ‘Lambada’. I normally have a preference for more pastel shades but I absolutely loved these vibrant colours. I think they work well with the shrubs in the background and Erysimum ‘Pastel Patchwork’ at the front of the border. I had a better photo than this but I can’t find it for now.
Purple and orange are always a fantastic combination of colours.
4. Moving on from tulips (although I could show you lots more) muscari is a pretty little bulb that I always grow in a container. This was a mix of blue varieties but mostly the common blue.
5. Another container grown plant is Phlox divaricata ‘Clouds of Perfume’, which is a really lovely but perhaps better suited to a border. It started flowering at the end of April and carried on through May. Hopefully it will look as good in it’s third year after I treated it to some new compost.
6. And I’ll finish with the humble Forget-me-not, just because a passing orange tip butterfly happened to land when I had my camera handy. The butterfly was a garden first for me as they rarely stay seem to stay still long enough to photograph.
And that’s my second ‘look back to spring 2020’ in my little garden. I’m taking a bit of a liberty I know, but if I showed you December photos they really wouldn’t be very colourful.
To see lots more ‘sixes’ take a look at the blog of The Propagator who is the creator of this weekly collection. There are also many more excellent photos and blogs on twitter under the hashtag #SixonSaturday
https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/
Wishing you a great weekend.
