This week our expert celebrates her Easter garden in all its springtime glory
It’s almost April, and it feels so good to see my garden waking up. And, with the clocks going forward this Easter Sunday, I’ll soon have much more daylight time in the evenings for spending outside.
It’s a time when I particularly appreciate the bulbs I’ve planted and added to over the years.
There are blue chinodoxas, which are known by the lovely name of glory of the snow; butter-yellow dwarf daffodils and ‘Scarlet baby’ tulips.
Tiny azure-blue irises grow just a few inches tall and sugary-pink hardy cyclamen shine out against their prettily marbled leaves.
I’ve concentrated a lot of these little bulbs in the woodland border, where they can multiply and live undisturbed.
There they mix with the hellebores that I’ve grown on from seedlings, my favourites being the dark purples or deep pinks.
Hellebores hang their heads to shelter their pollen from the rain. I’ve discovered that the best way to photograph them is from beneath, ideally shooting against an unclouded blue sky.
You can fully appreciate hellebores by cutting the flowers with a short stem and floating them on a bowl of water. They last a long time this way.
That’s because the colourful bits are not in fact petals which might quickly fade, but bracts, which are modified leaves. The actual hellebore flower is the pale bit in the centre.
There’s a stunning range of differently patterned hellebores available, from white through pink to near black, and some amazing double blooms too.
Looking around the wide meadow strip that runs around the edge of my lawn, I see that the pheasant’s eye daffodils are also in flower.
Also known as the poet’s narcissus, their pure white petals surround a yellow cup fringed in red. They easily naturalise in grass, and last for years.
Best of all, they have an amazing fragrance and make lovely cut flowers.
Just allow the leaves to yellow and die back naturally so that all the goodness can go back into the bulb.
There are shrubs flowering, too. The Japanese quince which bore round, golden scented “apples” l
