Tend&Grow

Popular native forage, but easy to establish in the garden setting if given semi shade and left alone. Seeds germinate late winter so no mulching or hoeing. Don’t eat the flowers (or else no seed) until the colony is big enough at which point all of the plant is edible and nutritious.

Below a one year old allotment colony established from 8 bulbs planted in the green. Seedlings germinating in the wood chip pathway. Happy days.

A good example of spring blossom, coming just before the crab apples and in time with some of the cherries and crossing over with the end of the magnolias. Can be a scrappy looking twiggy tree because of it’s pendulous habit and angular growth, some attempt to counter this through clipping, but best left to it’s own devices I think, if you have space that is. Grey green willowesque foliage follows.

From Japan, a cultivar with striking variegation and very nice white petioles, brings light to a dark corner and helps others look there best. Superb exotic looking hardy evergreen.

The scented leaves of Ribes sanguineum are for me it’s strongest attribute and I look forward to the new leaves at the start of spring, but the pink flowers that follow give a good show and up the value. After this early spring effort it becomes just another shrub in the garden, but at this time of year it’s much admired, by me at least. Forget me not, Myosotis sylvatica, always reliably present. Good looking en masse and up close with diminutive delicate flowers. Lastly Bergenia, most often given the job of ground cover, of which it makes a good effort. Foliage over flowers is my preference although it can become scruffy, but it remains popular and useful.

Two robust evergreens existing together, the climbing clematis in flower now at the beginning of April, with the Holly providing support.

Daytime scented and long flowering, from late winter into spring and again in summer, Coronilla valentina has a laid back personality and rarely gets involved in any drama. A confident shrubby plant happy to do its thing under a variety of conditions. Pea family, which seems obvious when you consider the leaves and flowers.

Flowering now in orange is Berberis darwinii, in purple Muscari bucharicum, in yellow Forsythia x intermedia. All three seen in the majority of gardens, so it seems.

Finding success in breaking the rules and shallow planting daffodil bulbs shoulder to shoulder.

Perhaps an unremarkable plant, though robust and evergreen and rightly valued for that. But for a period at the end of March the new growth as it develops is an almost luminescent yellow against the mature green foliage. Easier to appreciate on a large specimen such as this one against the blue of the sky. Photo does no justice as is often the case.

Often appreciated from a distance, whether from the car window or in passing someone else’s display, less often appreciated up close, where the sheer variety becomes apparent and the often delicate scent enjoyed. It’s worth taking a closer look. Only a very small selection here from a single garden.