The garden in April
Kari-Astri Davies’ spirits are lifted by delicate new flowers tumbling over a bank and filling the fields with sunshine
ONE SUNNY APRIL morning as I was walking with the dog along our local mill leat, there was a fleeting, catch-your-breath-andadmire-the-spectacle moment. Lavish mounds of intensely purple-blue aubretia flowers overspilled a garden bank abutting the leat; reflected vividly back in the calm, dark water.
Further on, a pair of ravens called softly to one another in the pines by the church while a cuckoo could be heard from the nearby woods. Spring is here at last.
Cottage garden favourite
The chubby plaited stems of Solomon’s seal, Polygonatum x hybridum, are extending and bending; the leaves soon to loosen from their braiding. Later, in May, groups of thin, tubed bells will hang from the bowed stems. This Solomon’s seal is a hybrid between the native P. multiflorum and the rarer P. odoratum. It is easy and willing to grow; even in shade. Often associated with cottage gardens, its household medicinal uses in days gone by included poultices to heal broken bones and bruises. The dramatic, dark-leaved ‘Betberg’, originally found in the wild in Germany, is slower to clump up.
In the copse at the end of the garden, I have planted the less vigorous, lower-growing P. odoratum. I have yet to ascertain how much fragrance the green-tipped, white bells have. ‘Red Stem’ is a choice form.
Last spring, I bought P. sibiricum as a filler rather than a specimen plant.
This polygonatum has a muddled appearance, with whorls of finer leaves running up the stems, growing to just under 40in (1m), with greenish bells. The whorl-leaved P. verticillatum ‘Roseum’, with its pink bells, is a selected form of another rare British native species.
The polygonatum sawfly can be a scourge. I had hundreds on one particular P. x hybridum clump last year. The small, pale grey caterpillars are present in June along the leaf edges, and they should be removed, or they can strip the plants bare.
Cowslips and crosses
Out in the countryside, even when travelling by car or train, the verdant displays of familiar wild flowers along road verges and railway embankments mark the procession of the seasons.
As luminescent primroses on shadier banks fade, sunnier embankments throng with cheerful cowslips, Primula veris, tossing their scented, many-flowered, golden heads. In my tiny meadow patch, plants I grew from seed are slowly spreading along the margin between wilder and mown grass.
Other country names for this plant include freckled face, fairy bells, and paigles, but it is most commonly referred to as the cowslip; so named in Old English for
“The merry Cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trompet shrill hath thrise already sounded”
Edmund Spenser, ‘Amoretti, Sonnet XIX’
“The primroses blow in the dews of the morning, And wild scatter’d cowslips bedeck the green dale”
Robert Burns, ‘The Chevalier’s Lament’
the belief that they sprang up from cowpats.
In the cottage-style, semi-shaded bed, a seed-grown laced polyanthus takes centre stage. Gold lines the petal edges and subdivides the dark, almost-black petals, giving the effect of many more. The gold-laced primula is a selected cross between primroses and cowslips, tracing its roots back to the late 17th century. Nearly lost in cultivation after its peak popularity in the 1860s, it has been revived and improved by a number of nurseries and collectors from the 1950s onwards.
Spring jobs
During April, I will be sowing ‘Potimarron’ squash and courgette ‘Romanesco’ seeds inside. ‘Potimarron’ seems to be the best performer so far for my growing conditions.
I will also be planting out sweet peas on my new potager frame. The frame consists of metal uprights, with lines of small hoops, through which are threaded bamboo canes. Sweet peas include the cream ‘Jilly’, classic purple bicoloured ‘Cupani’ and the palest pink ‘Heaven Scent’.
In late April, I will be pruning more vulnerable shrubs, such as Hydrangea serrata ‘Grayswood’ and salvias, including shocking pink ‘Cerro Potosi’, and hoping there will not be more severe frosts to come. n