The Late Winter Garden (Tour)

A gentle tour around my garden with a few gardening tidbits at the end. The first signs of spring are here and I'm savouring every second of sunshine.

I thought it was probably time for you, dear reader, and my garden to have a little catch-up and get reacquainted. So pour yourself a hot brew, nestle into your chair, and join me for a gentle garden stroll.

For a change of scene, I’m starting inside. In my bedroom. (Settle down.) Why here? Well, the bedroom windows look out onto the Cottage Garden, as good a place to start as any.

Despite the rough old lawn (with a heinous mat of creeping buttercups), I’m enjoying the mini carpets of cyclamen, that have woven their way amongst the bare legs of those rose divas. Whites, baby pinks, and even punchy Barbie pink, nodding and trembling in the breeze, their reflexed petals like tiny butterflies mid-flight.

It all began with a tray of cheap and tiny pots. Cyclamen coum seeds around very freely and I welcome it gladly. A charming and rather underrated little plant. Snowdrops are popping up too, entirely of their own accord, and together with the deep, plummy hellebores they capture the essence of late winter as we step over the threshold into early spring.

The Viburnum tinus (standing either side of the bench) are fresh and vibrant again, cushions of new growth replacing last summer’s sorry display. They looked pitiful then. Brown, defoliated, as though incinerated. The result of a major viburnum beetle infestation. A deep breath, a whirl of steel, a hard prune, and then a long and nervous wait. Thankfully, rewarded.

After pruning, both shrubs and soil were drenched in nematodes and the ‘tode and prune’ combination appears to have worked. I’ll top-up with more nematodes shortly, and again later in spring.

Let’s take this little tour outside to the Courtyard.

The sun is shining (a rare gift) and there is even a touch of warmth. The sky is a pale, milky blue. The birds are in full melodic voice. Robins attempting to out-sing one another from their territorial song posts. Blackbirds fluting from the hedgerow. Wrens out-singing them all. I appear to be the sole audience. A wonderful thing.

It feels enlivening to draw in a deep, lung-expanding breath of fresh air.

While attempting to bring some order to the Kitchen Garden, I discovered a few forgotten planters filled with last year’s bulbs, all flowering very happily indeed, thank you very much. Dwarf narcissus and the palest pink muscari, quietly proving that I need not be quite so fussy about lifting and drying bulbs… only to plant them all over again in the autumn.

I heaved the planters into my arms and carried them round to the Courtyard. A ready-made display, cheerful and entirely free. The Courtyard, as ever, has worn winter well. There is still plenty of interest and greens aplenty from erigeron, scabious, pittosporum, olive, bay, wallflowers and buxus.

The timber raised beds in the Kitchen Garden were built six years ago this March. How time flies! Untreated scaffold boards, simply painted with a water-based Cuprinol. In hindsight, a hardier wood preserver might have been wiser. This monsoon-like winter has sadly hastened their decline. Bracket fungi are sprouting like barnacles on rocks. Never a good sign.

Inside, the boards have great hollows. Opened up by battalions of woodlice, busily carving out impressive caverns, which in turn are the perfect hideaway for those malevolent molluscs, sitting there, waiting… biding their time… ready to pounce on tender my seedlings. Nematodes at the ready.

Around the other side of the cottage, on the Terrace, the crisp papery hydrangea flowerheads are rolling about like charming little tumbleweeds with ladybirds hunkering inside. It cannot be a comfortable ride when the wind catches and sends them bouncing around, but it does make me chuckle.

Everywhere I look, ladybirds are clustered together. Clinging to the tough stems of yew and buxus. Hiding beneath crumpled leaves. Bundled around woody stems. Sandwiched in door sills and between logs of firewood. Mostly good old 7-spots, but also the minute yellow 22-spots and the now rarer 2-spots.

The Japanese maples need their annual once-over. I’ll snip out dead stems and branches, a small but necessary ritual. These acers are one of spring’s highlights, glowing feathery leaves in shades of amber, ruby and garnet. I often find myself simply standing and staring, looking through backlit foliage as sunlight dances. It is quietly mesmerising.

Rose shoots are already flushing pink and red, a tantalising promise of what is to come. From insignificant buds to great arching stems heavy with scented blooms. The transformation from thorny canes to romantic magnificence never fails to impress.

From the Terrace steps you can see down into the Flower Garden. The tall, fluffy miscanthus are still standing strong. In contrast, the molinia collapsed weeks ago and now resembles a blast pattern in straw.

I’ve been steadily thinning the borders and only a few clumps of last year’s growth remain. Some plant jostling awaits, much of it planned for autumn. Ho hum.

For now it remains mostly a jumble of twigs, rotting leaves and dead stems. But here and there, little flashes of green. The first flush of herbaceous growth. Immaculate lupin leaves encrusted with diamonds droplets. Fuzzy little echinops. Soaring pillars of delphiniums. Alliums and daffs nosing through. Flecks of white from snowdrops, and pinks and purples from the crocus.

There is a delicate scent in the air, a mingling of winter honeysuckle, sarcococca and snowdrops. A reminder to me that queen bumblebees are emerging, famished after weeks of hibernation. I do hope they are all right. Many burrow into the soil to create winter chambers. Goodness knows what this relentless rain and waterlogged ground has done. I have seen only one fuzzybutt so far and she was enormous. I enjoyed watching her wriggle her way deep into a yew cone.

I often find myself staring up at our white Himalayan birch. Last year’s prolonged drought caused severe stress, leaves withering and falling crisp and brown. Over winter several twiggy branches have dropped. Last summer’s extremes may have proved fatal. I dearly hope she survives. She was the very first tree I planted here.

Sadly, the dwarf cherries (moved last year) most definitely did not survive the scorching summer. A shame. It was a risk to move them, but I had no choice. Yet every loss creates new space. Gardeners, if we are wise, see opportunity in the wake of loss. A chance to experiment.

I’m planning to move three gigantic, bright yellow Rudbeckia laciniata into one gap and an acer into another. I caused quite a stir on Instagram when I admitted I disliked bold, vivid yellow and considered permanently removing them.

I have learned that some gardeners are very loyal to yellow.

I’m now thinking that if they sit further back in the border, they may feel less overpowering. The flowers are wonderful… just so very yellow. A stay of execution, perhaps.

I’m rambling… but that’s probably the point of a garden tour. Those are the horticultural highs and lows for now. I hope you manage to get out into your own gardens and find those little sparks of joy.

Now for a some seasonal gardening tidbits…

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A Little Gardening

The general post-winter tidy-up continues. Clearing detritus from container-grown roses and acers. Plucking weeds and scraping away old compost mulch. Then a top-up of fresh invigorating compost and a dusting of fertiliser.

Emptying old pots, their former occupants long-since vanished, and recycling the spent compost into the garden compost bays. Gathering stray labels, plastic pots blown everywhere, tools, and old canes. I plan to chop the canes and stack them into bijou bug hotels. I also found a bucket of wood ash and sprinkled it over the kitchen beds.

This week I’ll tackle the hydrangeas, paniculata and arborescens, pruning and mulching them. The potted hydrangeas will receive a modest sprinkling of fertiliser. They are not especially hungry, but those in containers have very limited access to nutrition and they’ll appreciate a little encouragement.

Jobs I am currently avoiding include pruning and tying in the climbing roses and ramblers, which requires both enthusiasm for battle and a willingness to bleed. Weeding the gravel paths, fiddly and unforgiving on the back. And emptying a plastic trug overflowing with putrid water and decomposing vegetable matter. Enough said.

Mulching the vegetable beds is also in question. My compost bays went largely unfilled last summer and autumn (while I was otherwise occupied) so supplies may be thin. I may resort to a light dressing of fish, blood and bone or buy in a few bags. We shall see what can be coaxed from the bays.

On the plus side, the potting shed is miraculously tidy. Eerily so. I may even begin sowing vegetables without the usual procrastination ritual first. Now that we’re past mid-February, daylight is increasing fast (it is, honestly, despite the seemingly eternal cloud cover).

Valentine’s is usually my cue to start sowing seeds, but I’m in no rush this year. The seeds have arrived, which is a good start. I had to begin from scratch after leaving my seed cache in the potting shed all last summer where temperatures inside boiled over 100°C. I think it’s fair to say their viability would be questionable.

So it’s all fresh. SylvaGrow Seed Compost is ready and waiting. The propagation station has been rebuilt. Labels have been cleaned and erased. Now it’s just finding a bright sunny day, so I can actually see what I’m doing.

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That’s the current state of play here. A few triumphs, a few fungal misdemeanours, and at least one trug of horror still waiting patiently for its moment. The garden, poised between winter and spring, is quietly gathering itself. I hope you’ve enjoyed the wander. It’s been lovely to have your company again.

How is your own patch of earth stirring? Have you been industrious all winter, or mostly supervising with a mug in hand? Have you noticed the first tremble of green, the first scent carried on the air, the first brave bloom pushing through? These small awakenings can feel fragile, but they are steady. Soon we’ll feel that energising and inexorable pull of Spring!

From your fellow plant-wrangler,

Elliott 🌿