End of March round up

Posted Tue 31 March 2020 in garden

Compare with last year.

Weather

The average temperature was 5.8C with a minimum of -3.2C and maximum of 17.0C, and there were 8 frost days when the temperature dropped below zero. So the coldest temperatures were below that reached in February, so both the autumn and spring lowest temperatures were lower than the whole of the winter months.

It rained on 18 days, with a total of 24mm of rain, so a very dry month like Dec and Jan.

Overview

The main part of the garden is quite bare in the winter and it still is. In some ways this is intentional as the earliest flowering plants are at the edges so that the later flowers grow up in front as they die back.

I noticed that I lost my Geum 'Mrs J. Bradshaw' which should have been one of the spots of green. Also missing is a Ligularia which should have leaves by now. They both survived the previous winter.

Pictures

Some pictures from throughout the month.

Brunnera macrophylla 'Silver heart'

Anemone blanda

I planted many of these in the main area of the garden but only a few in two patches have grown. The ones in the front garden grew fine, its just this part of the garden that I have trouble with early flowering plants. Well at least this is better than last year when exactly zero came up.

Ligularia przewalskii

I had two of these, but only this one has returned this year for some reason. Its a shame as the other one was of a decent size and I was expecting a good show from it this year.

Pulmonaria 'Trevi fountain'

The first flowers opening.

Winter aconite

This actually survived from last year. Unfortunately not long after this was taken, the birds pecked it to pieces when searching for food. So I'd be surprised to see it next year.

Unexpected crocus

Well I suppose that these are spring bulbs that have successfully grown in the main part of the garden. The only problem is that I didn't plant any here. At least not intentionally, sometime there are bulbs dug up by the birds and I plant them near to where they are found and that may be what happened here, but I don't remember that happening just here.

Pieris japonica

This is the only bunch of flowers this year. One more than last year, so there is that.

Monarda 'Cambridge scarlet'

I thought that there were lots of seedlings all over this area since they are not clustered around the plant which is towards the bottom right of this picture. A little digging has shown that that group of shoots on the left is connected by underground stems to the main plant. This is unexpected to me, since my other Monarda (pn/M. 'Prairie night') does not do this and hasn't expanded much at all, even though it is a year older.

Posted by Steve