Weather: The warm sunny days have disappeared. A cool and cloudy week with northerly winds
Pat Inman is our first contributor
Anemone blanda
Euphorbia rigida. Common name is upright myrtle spurge. In native S. France, the flowers age from chartreuse to tomato red. Here in N. Yorks there’s not enough heat to reach red!
Chionochloa rubra – an evergreen New Zealand native, my favourite grass looks great all year round
Euphorbia ceratocarpa again a Mediterranean native extremely long flowering. In a mild winter such as we have just had it keeps producing flower buds which will open soon. Euphorbia ceratocarpa, for the first time I am not cutting last years stems down as so many flower buds produced over winter. I may regret it as I usually keep it to a 1m high and it’s that size already!
Judy Barton’s garden is looking good
Viola rupestris, the pink Teesdale violet, with new foliage of Erythronium ‘Jeannine’ to the left
Self sown plum has been looking frothy for almost 3 weeks now
A host of golden daffodils
Fritillaria meliagris – the Snake’s Head Fritillary. We pruned a big old fast growing cedar and found these forgotten Frits underneath,
Arum italicum with self-sown bronze Carex – another happy accident
Tulipa ‘Purissima’ growing through Geranium palmatum
Pulmonaria ‘Opal’
Primula denticulata (I think this came to me from Carl Denton via Friday Forum)
Narcissus ‘Snow Baby’ and Arabis ferdinandi-coburgi ‘Old Gold’
Preston Harrison’s garden is rich in daffodils at the moment
Preston’s garden
Narcissus obvallaris (Tenby Daffodil) – one of the two native daffodils
Narcissus lobularis (Lent Lily) – the other native daffodil
Narcissus cyclamen ‘Peeping Tom’
Looks like this back-to-back pair of bullfinches might have had a domestic…
Carine Carson has a new garden, which was due to be landscaped. Sadly C-19 means that the work is off for the time being, but she is making the most of what she has!
The tulips and hyacinths in the pot are Flaming flag tulips and Peter Stuyvesant hasn’t named the hyacinths in his bag of bulbs – just says they are fragrant – just like Mary Archer – as in Jeffrey Archer’s wife if you remember that story.
The large Melianthus and the smaller Melianthus Major Purple were both purchased at Hardy’s on our day trip last year and I almost feel best friends with Rob after chatting to him and borrowing plants for our stall at Harrogate in Spring and Autumn. The Hellebore at the back i won at a recent Hardy Plants raffle – I just said, ‘I adore Hellebores, I have to win that!’ and I did – it is Helleborus Pirouette. The large pot just has a mix of skimmia, violas, hebes and I have underplanted (my lasagne) with tulips I got from Jill at Hardy plants. The pot was a gift from Diane.
Yellow Primula of unknown name – an auricula?
Barbara Local gave me the primula when she invited me over to dig up some plants from her garden before she moved house – it is Primula vulgaris subsp. sibthorpii
Narcissus ‘From Aldi’ -the lady who bought it for me got it in Aldi and was amazed when I said it was a stunning plant when it came into flower. She gave it to me to welcome me to that gorgeous flat we had on The Duchy. She said it was ‘cheap as chips’ – not certain you will be familiar with that name!!!
This is Heuchera ‘Tapestry’ (the green one)and a common red one – the rest are violas and a herb either origano or thyme?
I think the close up of the hellebore is of Helleborus ‘Walberton’s Rosemary’. I am not certain, that is the only label I have that looks like it. Five house moves in less than five years and a few labels have gone west.
The dark leaved geranium was given to me about 15 years ago by a very dear friend Anne, who has since died but she was the person who first got me into gardening – it is very special to me and is Geranium pratense ‘Meadow Pastels’. I just adore the leaves and then the beautiful pinky/lilac flowers which contrast so well with the foliage.
Chairs restored in readiness for the landscaping….
Cath Rochelle, new to the group, has plenty to be proud of:
Troughs at front of the house
a shady spot for Slacktop Nursery alpines, including Primula marginata, Sedum pachyclados & Chiastophyllum oppositifolium (what a mouthful)!
Scilla sibariica and happy tortoiseshell butterflies
Front border coming along
Shy and hiding Fritillaria meliagris under a Camellia rosthorniana ‘Elina’ syn. Camelia Cupido
One from the editor, Brian Hackett (or should that be Hacquet?)
Hacquetiaepipactis
Also locked down in Massachusetts, Nette Bricker-Barrett is envious of our Yorkshire colour. She says “Oh my gosh, the HPS lockdown photos are amazing, beautiful flowers already! Your members’ gardens must be weeks ahead of ours. We have lots of dead-looking stuff with occasional evergreens in ours.”
Nette’s garden in North Andover, Massachusetts
Diane Rawnsley submitted the next batch. She says “We are enjoying the daffodils which we don’t normally see as we are usually away at this time of year….every cloud..“
Pulmonaria ‘Blue Ensign’ ?
Hepatica – not sure which one
Hacquetia epipactis
Diane’s Daffodils
Diane’s daffodils
Judith Ladley sends us “My over-crowded front and back gardens, plus a plant which some people may not be familiar with: corydalis cheilanthefolia“
Judith’s front garden
Judith’s back garden
Corydalis cheilanthifolia – a pretty little plant named after a fern
John and Joyce Kenny have lots in bloom at Woodroyd, Denby Dale
Cardamine pentaphyllos
Lysichiton americanus – skunk cabbage
Viburnum tinus ‘Eve Price’
Rhododendrum – in the garden when we arrived
Omphalodes cappadocica ‘Cherry Ingram’
Euphorbia robbiae
Peter Williams offers these delights from his garden
Scilla luciliae
Magnolia ‘Scented Gem’
Magnolia ‘Atlas’
Dryopteris wallichiana
Aubretia and self-sown cowslip hybrid
Terry Benton is an HPS member from Wiltshire. Not only does he offer some fine flowers, but also a very impressive insect
Bee fly feeding on Brunnera macrophylla ‘Sea Heart’
Trillium chloropetalum album with Dryopteris erythrosa and unknown anemone
Joyce Kenny offers Pulmonaria ‘Erway Farm’. This is a conservation scheme plant that was originally distributed as P. ‘Netta Statham’, till Margaret Stone identified it. It’s now spreading across the garden.
Cath Rochelle is new to the West Yorkshire HPS, This is her garden on a lovely spring evening
The illusive Iris ‘Katharine Hodgson’ (Reticulata). Image courtesy of HPS Image Library
Like most gardeners spring is my favourite time of year, although I love all the seasons. Iris reticulata is one of the sweetest spring flowers and if grown in pots outside can flower very early. I dry the bulbs over the summer just in a pot in the greenhouse and in the autumn plant them out in pots. I keep trying new ones and sometimes have failures in fact I don’t seem to be able to grow Katharine Hodgkin at all.
Helleborus x hybridus white spotted. Image Courtesy of HPS Image Library
Hellebore orientalis is propagated in great numbers nowadays and we are able to buy a wide variety of different colours. They are beautiful planted on a bank so you can see the centre of the flower but there are a lot being developed now with the flower facing upwards. I love them and have quite a few even though I have a small garden. While they are in flower I have a bowl full of their heads on display inside and it never fails to cheer me up through the bad weather. Happy gardening