Wonderful weather this week has allowed us to make some progress in the garden. An area in the woodland garden has a number of Betula jacquemontii underplanted with a variety of shrubs, hellebores, and bulbs. Carpets of self seeded allium have erupted, threatening to take over the gravel paths and it was a case of getting down to ground level to really test the kneepads on our Genus All-Weather trousers. With some gentle persuasion the seedlings were teased out of the gravel and the trousers as usual proved their worth.
Several other areas in the garden have been problematic, so after removing some rather tenaceous hemerocallis, we underplanted two weeping Malus Red Jade and an Amelanchier lamarkii with three different Epimedium varieties: Amber Queen with red flushed new growth, Frohnleiten with lemon yellow flowers, and Warleyese with orange blooms. We’re hoping that by next year the small rhizomatous plants will be sufficiently expanded to split and spread around some more to create a low growing carpet of early colour.