My Garden in April
So I know, I’m a little late with this one but it’s been a busy old month! Wedding season has kicked off which means I’m really busy with making wedding cakes and I don’t get as much time out in the garden as I would like. The weather has also been awful! Snow one day, weird and warm the next – it’s as though it just can’t make up its mind.
The garden has been slow to get going this year. The lawn has had its first scarification to try and shift some of the moss accumulation that we get EVERY winter. Does anyone have any tips on avoiding this? Because we’re north facing the garden is in shade most of the winter thanks to the houses to the east of us and then our house which blocks all the afternoon sun while it’s so low. In summer though, the lawn bakes as it gets so much sun. I usually scarify to scrape out the moss, give it a feed and reseed to fill in the patches but if there’s a better way I’d love to know!
I’ve started my cutting patch by carving out an extra small flower bed and making the middle lawn a sort of circle. In here I’ve planted Ammi Majus and Visnaga, Cosmos, Scabious, Selenium Wallachianum and there’s a peony Madame Lemoine too. Whether they all grow or not is another matter, but I live in hope! I’ve used some organic wool pellets to keep the slugs and snails away and so far they seem to be working well.
You can just seen the cutting patch, the kind of grey area of soil to the right of the picture. The grey is the wool pellets!
I’ve also been growing some dahlias (Cafe au Lait and Henriette) from tubers. I started them off in 2 litre pots and they were growing away quite happily in my bathroom. I needed the space, plus the roots were visible from the bottom of the pot, so I planted them out on 29 April. Unluckily for me, we had a frost THAT VERY NIGHT despite it not being forecast. Some of the leaves have blackened, but I’m going to leave them in the ground for a week and see if they can be saved. If not, I’ll have to order some more!
First tulip!
Self seeded aquilegia – I’ll let them grow for now and see how they come up. They’re filling in a gap which otherwise I’d have to buy something for!
Dicentra Spectabilis Alba looking gorgeous!
Here’s looking forward to May – the garden always looks good in May as the bluebells are out, the apple trees are in blossom and there’s more of a spring feel. I can’t wait! x
