Garden continues to surprise us
The gardens around her new house in Urmston, Manchester, are a haven of discovery and are gradually revealing their glories as the months pass.
We moved into our new house when the garden was asleep. The front consisted of a rocky island, a bare-branched tree and an area covered with pebbles. The back was a lawn surrounded by a border and raised beds. Fine, we thought, we’ll enjoy trips to the garden centre and filling it with colour. This month, the garden has certainly woken up and we’ll not be taking that garden centre trip any time soon!
We’ve a basic knowledge of trees and shrubs but as the borders erupt into leaves, buds and shoots we’re having to turn into plant detectives.
The front garden was transformed with a variety of spring flowers appearing. We enjoyed identifying the usual daffodils, hyacinth, tulips, bluebells and muscari. The tiny, blue, star-shaped flowers stumped us for a while, until we tracked them down as scilla.
In one of the raised beds, one plant seemed to appear and flower dramatically almost overnight. Pink and white, strangely-shaped flowers strung from delicate stems like bead curtains. I’d never seen one before, but a bit of internet searching pinned it down to bleeding heart ( Dicentra
spectabilis), and it’s now definitely in my top 10.
The plant that caused
us some initial concern was a vigorous creeper covering a trellis. It became covered in tiny purple flower clusters with attractive yellow centres. At the back of my mind I associated the flowers with nightshade. Was it deadly nightshade? Further investigation revealed it was Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’ and, although its berries could cause stomach problems, it’s not ‘deadly’!
The garden is slowly revealing its secrets. Rhododendrons, azaleas, heather and poppies are all blooming, but other emerging
plants are still mysteries.