The Serendipity Garden

The time has flown away for me again – I am sitting here with 3 hours to go before the end of March, trying to put together a post about what’s happening in my garden right now. I have been so busy my feet is hardly touching the ground so this post is going to be brief and I will let the photos speak for themselves. There is an end to all this – well, I keep reminding myself that, although the amount of red tape the council has managed to create regarding my bathroom renovation is astonishing. I still haven’t got a start date for the work, but I am slowly getting there – I hope!

The garden is bursting with flowers and in a way it would have been nice to slow down everything a bit – I have to water quite often now as we haven’t had any substantial rain at all and the ground is dry and the pots and containers are getting dry in just a day or two.

But on second thought – I wouldn’t want to slow down anything – at this rate I will have roses in flower in 4-5 weeks :-)

The last hyacinths.

The woodland area is slowly developing according to plan.

Give it another 2-3 years and it will look really good.

This arum lily have finally started flowering again after having been moved from my previous garden.

Arum creticum 'Karpathos' is absolutely gorgeous, I hope it will bulk up and have more flowers next year.

There are a few hellebores left, most of them are finished flowering and look a bit sad.

Out in the front garden the tulips are in full flower – complete strangers keep coming up to me and asking questions like where I bought them, what they are called, how do I grow them etc. These are just bog standard tulips, but I think the colours I have put together are quite nice :-)

Here is another colour combination that turned out quite all right – in these pink containers I have planted Heuchera 'Southern Comfort', Omphalodes cappadocica ‘Cherry Ingram’and Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’. My goodness, that was a bit of a mouthful!

I used to have a different type of Omphalodes in my previous garden many years ago but after some years it vanished. This one is prettier and when it gets a bit bigger I will divide and plant some in the woodland bed.

I bought a new Loropetalum last year, the one I had in my previous garden died the cold winter we had 2009/10 so it was about time to get a new one. This is a different one, Loropetalum chinensis 'Ever Red' and supposed to be the darkest red of them all.

And I have bought yet another magnolia. Sigh....yes I know, small trees grow big eventually, but I will grow it as a standard and it grows very slowly (that’s my excuse anyway). Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star' has double flowers – and it is soooo pretty, and already has one flower!

The first clematis flowers are soon here, this is Clematis ‘Pink Fantasy’.

I love muscari, and especially the pink ones – had to search high and low to find them!

My Forsythia ‘Minigold’ is supposed to be a dwarf and should grow to less than 3 ft. This one has not read the instructions, I have to prune it about 50% every July. The pot is terribly root bound so this summer I might give it a bigger pot.

If I planted this in the ground I am sure it would become a 3m tall tree before I could turn around. I haven’t really got space for that – too many other trees that need the space! But I love the colour of these flowers so it is a keeper.

One of my new camellias – it is called Camellia japonica 'Volunteer' – not sure where that name comes from but maybe there is a story behind it.

This is another one of my camellias, still just a tiny baby, but with absolutely huge flowers. Camellia japonica 'Amabel Lansdell' will be an impressive sight once it becomes a big bush covered in flowers like this!

There are still some daffodils left in the shady corners, this is Narcissus 'White Lion'.

And this is Narcissus 'Ice Follies'.

And this is Narcissus 'Bridal Crown' – sorry not a very good picture, they are absolutely lovely!

My lovely magnolia soulangeana has been flowering for a good few weeks, 2-3 weeks more and it will all be over for this year.

I am so happy it has taken the move from my previous garden so well.

I have bought frames for my raised beds, now I just need something to cover the beds to protect my strawberries from the squirrels eating all the berries I hope to get.

Not a day too soon it seems, the first strawberry flowers are here!

I am not sure what to use that will keep the squirrels at bay. Will chicken wire be suitable? Would be great with some advice here as I am growing several different types of strawberries so the pollinators will need to get through the wire. Will they fly through chicken wire this size? I am thinking of making a door on each side to get the strawberries out, but if this wire also keeps the pollinators out it will obviously not work. I read that you could use butterfly netting and put it on after the strawberries had started growing – but that won’t work in my garden, the squirrels happily eat unripe berries and the fruiting takes place all summer. Any suggestions?

More flowers – my dwarf rhododendrons.

And the robin is back, I do wonder where he is when not here :-)

Final photo – some more tulips :-)

And as usual I have made a movie from my garden this week, turn your speakers up and enjoy.

The music was ‘Bells across the meadows’ by Albert William Ketèlbey.

That was it for this time, thank you so much for all the comments on my previous posts – I will try to answer and visit when I have more time, but I read all comments and I so appreciate every single one. I wish you all a happy spring!

Until next time, take care.