The spotted leaves and blue flowers of Pulmonaria with Hellebores starting to produce their seed pods
You’re reading Home Truths, a newsletter from me, Susy Smith. I am many things: a parent of grown-up kids, a dog owner, a gardener and a compulsive mover of vases (I worked for years as a stylist). I am also a writer/editor and former Editor-in-Chief of British Country Living Magazine, for whom I still write a monthly column.
I write here on an eclectic mix of subjects about life, and a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Subscribe now for free and join the community! You can also support me and my work by upgrading to a paid subscription at any time – for either option, just tap the button below
Spring is without doubt my most favourite time in the garden. Mind you, I always think that until May comes and with it the roses, sweet rocket, foxgloves and apple blossom. And then of course, there’s the fullness of summer followed by autumn with its final blast of colour for the year. I love them all, but I am decided, for now, that Spring is the absolute best.
This is not just because, finally, I have some colour: the early zing of lime green euphorbias, the sunny yellows of daffodils and the sumptuous jewel-like colours of velvety tulips, but also because the whole show is changing every single day. My bedroom window overlooks the garden and each morning, when I open the curtains, it all looks slightly different as new leaves unfurl, more flowers open and the structure of the garden becomes less defined and more softened.
My spring garden with blossom, pots of bulbs around the water feature and, in the distance, my primrose lawn
Today, on Good Friday, there is fittingly, sunshine and blue sky with cotton-wool clouds. The forecast was for a grey and overcast day, so this glorious weather is all the more welcome. The huge, white, bird cherry is coming into blossom (bringing the parakeets to tear off the blooms and leave the lawn looking like there’s just been a summer wedding), the winter-flowering cherry is just going over and, half-way down the garden, the Amelanchier lamarckii with its delicate flowers looks, from a distance, as if dozens of butterflies have settled on its branches.
The delicate blooms of Amelanchier lamarckii
The pots of narcissi and tulips that surround my bubbling water feature, are also changing every day: the earliest, ‘Tête-à-tête’, are long finished, the large yellow trumpets of a mixed selection of daffodils I put in, are just starting to fade, while more tulips in purples and oranges are opening every day and the white trumpeted Narcissus ‘Thalia’ will change from buds to blooms in the next few days.
I have been cutting back the old fronds of ferns from last year to reveal the nubby brown croziers underneath that will soon begin to magically unfurl with this year’s new leaves. It’s a process that never fails to fascinate me. If you stand still and look at them for long enough, you can almost see them moving.
I have many ferns in my woodland area that is shaded by the old apple tree at the heart of the garden and another large flowering cherry. Amongst the ferns, the heads of Turks-cap lilies are just appearing from the soil where Lamium, (the Yellow Archangel,) and Sweet Woodruff ramble around and provide ground cover to keep down the weeds.
At this time of year, one of the most lovely features is my primrose lawn. This is towards the back of the garden on an area of grass that gets too much shade to really thrive, in fact, increasingly there is more moss than grass. The pale lemon flowers are a delight and seed themselves around so there are more each year.
One of the best gardening books I ever read was “The Education of a Gardener”, the memoir by Russell Page, one of the 20th Century's most famous landscape gardeners, where he stated that, rather than filling our gardens with a wide mix of plants – one of each thing here and there, which creates a “spotty” effect, disturbing the eye and creating a feeling of restlessness, we should plant in waves, repeating many plants of the same type and colour. For this is how we see them in nature and planted in this way, they lead the eye around the garden, calm us and look more convincing and natural.
My primrose lawn in the wilder part of the garden
Every now and then a primrose with pink flowers appears in my lawn (having crossed from some cultivated polyanthus I had in the garden at one point) and I must move it to the other end of the garden before the bees do their work as they collect nectar from each bloom and in the process cause cross fertilisation so the wild primroses start to change colour.
Of course, the weeds, too, are thriving and I have been working my way systematically through beds and borders to rid myself of as many as possible. It’s a long and seemingly endless task. The summer before last, I discovered a mystery plant in one of the beds with mint-like leaves and tiny purple and white flowers. I posted a picture on my Instagram account and asked if anyone knew what it was. The answer came back from one of my followers: it was Skullcap.
I really rather liked it and left it to seed around the original plant. My mistake. There are now seedlings popping up everywhere and lovely though it might be, I do not want this much of it in the garden. Plus, on beginning to dig them out, I discover that this innocuous little plant has strong clumps of roots that put up a strong fight against removal.
The many coloured blades of Pheasant grass with Euphorbia ‘Robbiae’
The hoggin path, with its tamped-down soil and gravel mix, that winds through my garden offers perfect germinating conditions for any plant that wants to seed, and today I will spend most of the afternoon on my hands and knees weeding the middle third of it. I did the length closest to the house on Wednesday and will do the final third, towards the end of the garden, tomorrow. I am removing dozens of seedlings: Forget-me-nots, Pheasant grass, Sweet rocket, Lychnis and the tough roots of Bistorta amplexicaulis that have forced their way under the barrier of the metal bed edging to spring up all over the path.
I will replant some of them in gaps in the borders but that in itself requires more time, and I don’t have space for many of them, so most go into the green garden bin for compost collection. There is one plant I shall leave: Love-in-a-mist, for I love their feathery foliage and azure-blue flowers. There are more along the path now than there are in the borders – they clearly like it here! I shall aim to remove them before they drop their seed.
It is a delight to be outside in the freshness of the day, still cool but warmed when the sun appears, methodically working my way through my tasks while listening to the cheering bursts of song from robins, wrens, great-tits and the first chiff-chaffs of the year. Sadly, no melodic tunes from the blackbirds I heard a week or two ago. I’m hoping this means they have found a mate and are busy nest-building and not that they have been dispatched by one of the neighbourhood cats.
We have had much rain here in the South east over the last three months, and every time the ground began to dry out and I planned to mow the lawn, along came more wet weather. I am, by nature a fair-weather garden and it is only the absolute urgency of something needing done that will make me venture out in inclement weather. So, I am late with many of my regular jobs. All of this week has provided sunshine with a few showers – perfect for gardening.
I have managed to feed the lawn and mow it, tie in the last of the roses, feed and mulch them and begin the routine tasks such as wedding, staking and a bit of new planting. The four days of gardening mean most of my plot is looking good. My left hip, however is not so good: all this kneeling, bending and stretching mean it aches badly and keeps me awake at night, but I just have to try and ignore it. I am pleased with all I have managed to achieve so far and, come the autumn, I shall, all being well, be given a new hip. Then there’ll be no stopping me! Wishing you all a Happy Easter!
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Tell me about your spring garden. What do you grow that you can recommend? Just click the button below to leave a comment
Beautiful descriptions, Susy. That's what I always find hard - setting the scene without clichés, but you've managed it. You really are happiest in your garden, aren't you? Kitty x
Beautiful essay. A joy to read. Thank you.