This week has seen the first proper wave of tulips flower in the garden. I have planted over fifty in the last couple of years and this year we are seeing blooms from both of the previous years planting. Tulips are my favourite of the spring bulbs and although they are not as early as Crocus or Daffodils, the range of variety of this plant is amazing driven by hundreds of years of selective breeding the likes of which most other plants, except perhaps the Rose has seen.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
The lawn needs a mow and the borders need a tidy but the tulips are looking great
Alliums are popping up all over the place too, these have also been planted over two seasons. Last year only a couple flowered but we have high hopes for this year and they will hopefully flower just as the Tulips finish their blooms. After the Tulips finished flowering last year there was a quiet period in the garden where there was not a lot in flower until the annual cut flowers I planted grew and flowered later on in the summer.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
My favourite blooms in the garden at the moment are these tall orange Tulips
Having a new garden is quite challenging, gaps in display, structure and flowering can easily occur, but as this garden matures it should improve. There were gaps in flowering in late spring last year after the Tulips had finished flowering, this year we have not just the Alliums but also plenty of Foxglove to take their place until the annuals and other summer plants such as Dahlias and Lilies produce their flowers.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
I planted some tulips in containers which we have brightening up the decking
Perennials such as Phlox and Rhododendron continues to increase their size in the garden too and will eventually reduce the need for lots of annual bedding in the garden (though I do enjoy my annual cut flowers). Where there have been successes there are failures too. The extremely wet winter followed by a pretty wet spring has not treated the lavender at all well and at least one of our varieties is dead and others look troubled to say the least but we shall wait and see what happens.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
The rose arch and bench, covered in roses and doubling as cold frame expansion space
My solution to my cramped cold frame has been to buy an expansion. A clear plastic storage container has provided me with extra space to store my fast growing seedlings. Many of them are doing really well but there have been some that have not germinated and my plan in the next week is to top up any plants that have had a weak germination yield. It is also momentous that the two roses have met at the top of our rose arch bench. It will be great to see them flower.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
There are also more subtle blooms in the garden at the moment too. The first blossom to appear in the garden is on the pear tree. We also have an apple and cherry tree in the garden too but they seem well behind in the race to blossom. We bought the pear tree last year so it will be interesting to see if it fruits this year, it has beautiful blossom even if it does not manage to produce a crop.
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