End Of Month View ~ March 2015

Word of the month must be 'ROAR' which is just how the month arrived and departed perhaps with the loudest roar coming yesterday. It blew an absolute ferocious hooley as well as spouting out a fair bit of the wet stuff. In one of the few dry interludes there was a chance to take a couple of photos of 'The Gabion Wall' border. This is filling out nicely now. The hellebores are making good clumps as well as the pulmonarias and the little 'Elka' daffodils are a treat. I've also planted a few of my special snowdrops in this area. The one disappointment has been the refusal of cardamine pratensis to be sociable and produce more than a few flowers. There are astrantias 'Gill Richardson' and aster diveraticus dotted about for later flowering interest but I need to introduce more plants to the mix. Before that a weeding of epic proportions is required. The main culprits are herb robert and couch grass. I need to find some unobtrusive small paving stones so that I can get around without compacting the soil.

The above pumonaria is 'Majeste' - apologies for leaving the accent off the e but I'm using a borrowed computer for this post which is proving to be rather challenging. The leaves are in need of a tidy up and general spring clean. Finding time to fit in these jobs in is proving to be a challenge along with the allotment as we are trying to spend time in our caravan in Cumbria. The weather this March has not been particularly kind but it should start to warm up/rain less soon. Now that we have extra daylight I'm looking forwards to gardening outdoors in the evening whilst the allotment can be fitted in during the day. Well that's the plan anyway. We have a pocket handkerchief sized garden outside the caravan but that's more than enough. I will be planting up a couple of pots but in the meantime have been enjoying the patches of snowdrops, primroses and daffodils that can be found throughout the site. We also have some wonderful scenery on the doorstep. We returned in the middle of the month to the church we visited last year in search if its plantings of daffodils. Again we were too early so were greeted with snowdrops and swathes of crocuses. If anything the season seemed further behind this year.

However at the more sheltered and mild Grange-Over-Sands just a few miles away spring seemed more advanced with blossoms in full flow. There is a fine ornamental lake graced by some most interesting feathered visitors, a community orchard (more in a future post) and a prom with a richness of perennial planting (again more to come in a future post). It's the only prom where I've encountered hellebores in bloom.

I've not much to report in the way of seed sowing having made a conscious decision to sow less, sow later and try more direct sowing. I might also be buying a few plants this year rather than sowing them myself. I think that April therefore is going to be a busy month.

March plant purchases have included more snowdrops, pulmonarias 'Diana Clare' (a second to join the one already in the garden) and rubra 'Rachel Vernie), the sultry viola 'Molly Sanderson, as well as clematis 'Princess Kate' which was rescued from a bargain bin in an Ambleside garden centre.

With thanks as always to Helen over at 'The Patient Gardener's Weblog' for kindly hosting the End of Month View.