The garden in March
Kari-Astri Davies is finding spring daffodils a joy, but berating the behaviour of her chickens
Left to right: Starry wild wood anemone, Anemone nemorosa, in a copse; the purity of narcissus ‘Thalia’; chickens rule the roost; double-petalled daffodil ‘Rip Van Winkle’.
Great bumbling bees are making the most of the early spring flowers in my garden, fields and hedgerows. Down in the copse, primroses have been seeding around, as has the wild wood anemone. A small patch, some with slightly pink petal backs, were here when we moved in. They are increasing slowly, year-on-year. As the sun filters through the still bare branches, the white flowers open wide and proclaim: “Here we are”. When it comes to daffodils in the garden, I prefer the smaller ones. Taller, scented cultivars are reserved for pots. In the stream bank border there is ‘Elka’, an elegant daffodil with cream petals and pale yellow trumpets, and ‘W P Milner’, an old pre-1869 Backhouse cultivar, which has a cream trumpet and petals. ‘Elka’ was bred by Alec Gray, as was the now almost ubiquitous small narcissus ‘Tête-à-tête’, launched in 1947. Early in flower, ‘Tête-à-tête’, with its perky, small yolk-yellow flowers, is planted in a couple of inhospitable places in the garden. It seems to be able to take heavy clay. I tried double sport ‘Tête Bouclé’ last year, but found the flowerheads became heavy and bent over when wet. I have a soft spot for ‘Rip Van Winkle’, once a rarity, but now easy to come by. Its distinctive doubled, green-tinged, yellow, spiky assorted petalled heads were first recorded in 1884 in Ireland. But he is probably older than that. I planted some by mistake in the meadow area alongside N. pseudonarcissus, another smaller pale daffodil, which grows wild in parts of the UK. I must remember to relocate him after flowering. Elsewhere is ‘Jack Snipe’; cream with shorter lemon-yellow trumpets. The upswept petals give it a mildly startled appearance. Slightly later, the delicate two-headed, cream fading to white flowers of ‘Thalia’ add poise to the more cottage garden portion of the wood bed. The grass is not growing yet, and the three chickens are getting fractious. Two of them can jump over the fence. They are particularly drawn to part of the wood bed which has slightly mounded friable earth. They do their best to reduce the mounding and, in the process, destroy newly emerging shoots. This can be very disheartening; the first precious signs of new growth torn apart and trampled on. If we put the chickens in a smaller, but taller enclosure made from metal Heras fencing, they run along the edges, paddling the grass into mud. This makes the lawn, such as
“And the Spring arose on the garden fair, Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest” Percy bysshe shelley, ‘The Sensitive Plant’ Unruly birds
it is, even worse to look at. I breathe a sigh of relief when it is time to move the chickens into an adjoining field.
In the conservatory
A few years ago, I grew Acacia dealbata and A. retinodes from seed, as I wanted the luxury of acacia in bloom in spring in the conservatory. I love the sweet, powdery almond scent of their little bobble flowers, which resemble fluffy chicks, but I have to admit defeat. The A. dealbata is now too tall for the conservatory. It has never been happy; the foliage always has a yellowish tinge. Last spring, it messily dropped tiny leaves all over the floor. In summer, it produced a few desultory flowers. A. retinodes, the so-called four seasons acacia due to the length of time it flowers, also looks sulky, and it has not flowered to date. Last autumn, I headed for the bargain bin at a garden nursery in Cornwall, where I found a scraggly A. retinodes that needed repotting. It does not look like my seed-grown one: the flattened leaves, technically phyllodes, or modified leaf stalks that function as leaves, are green rather than glaucous, and it is flowering. As the weather begins to warm up, spider mites, aphids, whitefly and mealy bugs become active again, so I am checking for pests in the conservatory. I have them all, despite the array of ‘friendly’ pest predators deployed last
“I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind” Dorothy Wordsworth, Grasmere Journal, Thursday, 15 April 1802