Broad beans, daffodils, rhubarb, patio planting

And just like that, spring!

Today I stepped out to the garden in the first warm sunshine of the year, the kind when heat radiates back at us from walls. In the polytunnel the broad beans I sowed in autumn are suddenly flowering and I’m reminded just how beautiful those flowers are. Soon to be followed by delicious beans for meals.

Earlier in the week, all of our daffodils were flattened by incessant rain but as soon as the warmth comes, so does their mojo. They look really beautiful today in various shades. Last year I moved loads of the existing daffodils around to reorganise them. Brighter yellows are down in the wilder garden by the polytunnel.

In the main garden, I have lots of white and pale yellow daffodils such as ‘Thalia’, which interestingly is flowering at different rates all over the garden. Perhaps a sign of different microclimates or how wet and cold some parts of the soil in the garden are compared to others.

In the garden when we moved here were these lovely two tone daffodils, they look gorgeous on misty spring mornings. I dug up a couple of clumps tucked in beneath the hedge and redistributed them all around the main garden to increase their number and impact in future years.

Germination of seedlings in the polytunnel has been erratic so far because it’s been such a cold damp spring so far. Our three different kales took a long time to grow, though the seed I saved of ‘Russian Red’ from last year has grown the fastest and strongest. The slow pokes are finally catching up this week.

With the weather and ground warming, the larger ornamental grasses are just starting to grow, and it’s this point that you want to divide them. Leave it any later, and their new roots of ornamental grasses will have gone too deep. This is Calamagrostis brachytricha and I’ve also divided a Panicum.

Rhubarb is a good indicator of spring’s true arrival and in our Yorkshire garden it has only just grown enough in the last week to start harvesting. Not so far behind our old London allotment but slightly behind none-the-less, about two weeks. I have three established varieties and really must to a side-by-side taste test which I’ll tell you about, probably next week. Crumble time!

Mangetout I sowed in the polytunnel for an earlier crop, have been slow too. I know it’s the damp cold and not the compost because seedlings in the house in the same compost have grown fine. I’ll plant these out over the next week.

I thought you might like to see a before of our main patio before I start working on properly sorting it out this summer. We’ve ordered a new table set that should arrive shortly and I’ve been working on the height and width of the hedge behind for a couple of years to make it lower and narrower. Importantly and more interestingly however, is that I have been gradually loading up all of the beds around it with an ever increasing number of exciting plants.

I’ve been sharing some pictures on Instagram but I thought I’d treat you to a better look here. As an experiment I am not going to completely weed this area, instead I am going to see if the plants I’ve added will be able to grow alongside or outcompete the dandelions, couch grass and other vigorous wild flowers. Now, you know me, I don’t want to get rid of them completely, and they run amok around the garden, but here I would like to increase the variety of plants for enjoyment and for increased biodiversity. It’s a mix of wildflowers and ornamental plants - I’ll discuss what in more detail when I know they’ve worked. But you’ll spot Brunnera, Hellebore, Pulmonaria and Astrantia.

On the other side of the grass path, just to the right of the patio when facing it, I’m doing the same experiment with different plants. Here are most of my trial Pulmonaria (discussed in this month’s main newsletter for paid supporters). As you can see, they are doing an excellent job of standing their ground. You can also see the alliums in this area, which have been in for three years, have formed sizeable clumps with multiple plants in each. I cannot wait to see how many flowers there are this year!

Industrial farm chic? OK, it’s actually just a barrier I’m getting ready to protect some young crab apples from the visitor roe deer. These simply barriers seem to do the trick until the tree is big enough in a couple of years time. Stay tuned for the crab apple reveal in an upcoming newsletter.

I’ll leave you with something prettier, the Fritillaria meleagris I planted for my fortieth birthday a few years ago have reappeared! They didn’t do anything above ground at all in the first years but I am now seeing their leaves, and some flowers, popping up all over the place. I love Fritillaria so this is great news. It’s the start of the growing population.

Enjoy the spring weather if you have it where you are, and if you don’t, I really hope it does warm up for you too soon.

p.s. in case you missed it, this month’s main newsletter for paid supporters looks at my favourite Pulmonaria at the moment, fantastic suppressing ground covers. Thank you to everyone who is a paid supporter, you help make this little independent newsletter happen. Happy gardening everyone!