Spring is in the air

Life is getting going in the garden, says John, as the sun warms the soil and wakes nature’s wonders

It only takes a few sunny, warm and dry days to cheer us and the garden plants up after the cold and very wet extended winter came to an end.

We can now wander around the garden (if we can get a few spare moments) and enjoy the first flowers, a wee bit late but very welcome. Crocus seem to be huge this year and large established drifts really catch the eye, not only in my garden but also in numerous roadside verges.

Every autumn I seem to find another spot for a packet of 100 crocus to brighten up the borders and over time they have now become a major feature. They start off the floral displays around the garden, and then the daffodils and other narcissus quickly follow on.

They are another bulb I always plant up a few more of in the autumn as new varieties are hard to resist. Both Dick Wilden and Replete are recent newcomers, but the double large heads are so heavy that they bend over and if the wind arrives they are liable to break off. Chionodoxa, Anemone blanda, Scillas and many other dwarf bulbs spring up into the sunlight to add to the show.

They will be followed by the grape hyacinths which are very successful in getting established into large solid drifts. I have one large area of grape hyacinths underplanted with tulips and these are underplanted with oriental lilies so I get several displays over spring and summer.

The first tulip to flower in mid-March is the dwarf tulip kaufmanniana Scarlet Baby, and this year nearly at the same time as my yellow saxifrage. The blue, ground-hugging Pulmonaria is now in flower but early tulips designed to flower at the same time are a good three weeks behind.

Tubs and hanging baskets with pansies, wallflowers and polyanthus have now all started to flower and I couldn’t resist a batch of polyanthus full of bright colours in a local store, so they are now adding some colour to a bare patch after I removed some shrubs past their best.

Rhododendron praecox has been in flower most of March and this year there has been no late frost to spoil the blooms. The red flowered Camellia Adolphe Audusson and pink Donation are now in flower. They have always been very reliable and will soon be joined by many other rhododendrons and azaleas making up another major garden display.

Indoors my Zygocactus truncatus, the Christmas cactus, has lost all sense of timing. Christmas is well past and it is only now coming into full flower. In most other years it flowers just ahead of Christmas and my pink Phalaenopsis

The camellias will soon be joined by rhododendrons and azaleas making up another major garden display

Pictures: John Stoa. The daffodils are up and putting on a great show with the blue chionodoxas, crocuses and John’s yellow saxifrage. Top right, the Christmas cactus is a little out of synch.