My April Garden – Some Hits but A lot of Misses!

The other day a friend of mine called Christine, who is an avid gardener and fundraiser, suggested we should open a few of our spring gardens in our village to raise money for our cricket club. This prompted me to take an honest look at my April garden. If someone visited it now what exactly would they see?

Well at the moment they’d see a lot of disasters interspersed with some lovely bits of colour. Certainly nothing worth spending good money to visit.

I don’t know if you’ve experienced the same problem, but our dry winter combined with the extra doses of cold snaps, have wreaked havoc with some of my plants. The weather has killed outright some and inhibited others.

Camellias in My April Garden

I have three camellias in pots and I love them. They provide a wonderful burst of early colour and interest on my patio. If I was opening my April garden to the public they would be among the first plants you’d see. But this year they seem quite a bit slower to get going and one of them is dead!

Let’s start with the positives. The variety Dr King is looking very fit and well. He’s become a really nicely shaped plant and a superb specimen. He’s ready to leap into flowering action – allbeit a bit late.

Black Lace, a much younger plant, is also doing fine. She’s produced the first of her red multi-petalled blooms, and although she’s still a bit spindly, she’s looking nice and healthy.

But another called Fairy Blush, a much more delicate variety, looks completely dead. Actually let’s not mince words. This camellia is completely dead.

I feel such a failure. I’ve given it oodles of TLC as part of my regime for caring for camellias. But it has all come to nothing. I wonder whether the excessive cold just damaged its roots that bit too much in its pot.

So while I’ll be popping out in a moment to feed the two survivors, to encourage and support their profusion of gorgeous blooms, I’ll be disposing of poor old Fairy Blush.

My Sunny Border

My sunny border, which wraps around two sides of the patio really comes into its own in the summer. Packed with roses, astrantia, gypsophila, echinacea, phlox, hardy geraniums, campanula, helianthemum and the like.

But as you can see from the photo above, it’s no looker in my April garden! With everything just cut back and mulched it’s typically something of an eyesore!

However, last year I began to remedy this. Once they’d finished blooming, I planted out the white bulbs from some last year’s spring containers into the sunny bed.

This year they have come up in the border and given it some much needed spring interest. In particular the Narcissus Thalia and Hyacinth Carnegie have worked beautifully. There are still big empty patches but I reckon that if I planted more of the above two spring flowers directly into the border in the autumn, the sunny bed could become an April garden feature.

The Tulips in my April Garden

Last week I blogged about the amazing tulip displays to be found at Arundel castle. But I’m not sure anyone would call my tulips amazing. I think the dry winter has impacted on the strength of the blooms. My containers are begining to show a bit of promise but they’re some way off having a ‘wow’ factor. The blooms just look lack-lustre.

Normally at this time of year my tulip bed at the bottom of the garden would be something of a feature too. But everything is running very late and again looking a bit stunted. Some of the tulips in the bed are out and look lovely. But if I look at the border in previous years, it doesn’t compare.

Tulips don’t last well over time in a border. That’s why the border was planted up with brand new bulbs in the autumn. But I fear I should have watered it during the dry spells over winter.

Now, to be fair, we are still quite early on in April. So I will be able to judge the border much more fairly at the end of the month. But at the moment, my April garden, from a tulip point of view, is a bit underwhelming.

Hellebores an April Garden Staple

One plant which has been glorious this year is my hellebores. But then again they are always lovely.

I’ve blogged about caring for hellebores and shared some of my favourites in the past. But I don’t think there’s such a thing as a bad hellebore. When I get to this time of year I’m so grateful for anything offering colour and interest in the garden and hellebores deliver both in spades!

If I was forced to choose, I think Credale Strain – pink spotted, would be very hight on my list of favourites. Like many, it’s predominantly white, so as a plant it really ‘pops’ in shady places. But this variety has the added bonus of a gorgeous splash of deep red in the middle. They say it’s pink spotted but it’s quite a dark shade.

It’s not just this variety that’s looking very happy at the moment.

Everywhere I look the hellebores are looking stunning. So I think if you were a fan of this trusty plant, my April garden would have a bit of interest for you.

Arc of Pots

Like my sunny border, the arc of four pots which runs through my garden is designed to provide summer interest. The containers are planted up with clematis and erigeron or nemesia Wisley Vanilla. Come June or July the containers normally look ok – if not as lovely as I’d like. (Some of the clematis in them haven’t really established well – I think they may be too exposed.)

But looking at the containers now, even that modest level of summer interest is unlikely to materialise as two of the pots look completely devoid of life. So much so that I’ve emptied one and will do the same with the other later today.

Perversely, just as these two pots have died off, so one of the clematis in the arc of pots has really taken off. It’s positively thriving. This is making me wonder whether I just was unlucky with the other two. Dare I risk planting clematis again in the two soon to be empty pots (as I do love them). Or should I go for a different concept? Mmmm one to ponder.

I have a feeling I’ll give clematis another go. But to provide spring interest to the pots, I probably under-plant the clematis with something you can rely on in an April garden. Maybe some spring flowering bulbs, but not tulips as their blooms don’t last in the long-term and I won’t want to disturb the clematis roots by digging up bulbs each year.

What Else is Dead?

In addition to the two dead clematis, this winter has seen me lose a Rosemary ( Salvia rosmarinus). This is so annoying as it had just got to a sufficient size to sustain us on the culinary front. (We cook with a lot of rosemary).

The stunning penstemon garnet (below) which I’ve mentioned on many occasions has sadly perished too.

As have all the plants in this lovely trough below.

I’ve also lost a gorgeous Cistus from my sunny border and the frost has also got to and rotted some of my dahlia tubers which I’d lifted. Next year I’ll make a better job of protecting any tubers I have to lift.

Some of my agapanthus in pots look dead too. If I have them in containers in the future, I’ll add them to the list of plant pots I protect over winter by wrapping with fleece or bubble wrap.

Saddest of all, a gorgeous yellow rose (Golden Celebration) which I have in a container at the front of our house, sitting on a wonderful carpet of erigeron, has died. There’s nothing I could have done about it, I think it’s just one of those things.

Conclusion

As we gardeners do, I’m going to try to turn these poor perished plants into an opportunity to try new things, create new container combinations and revisit plans.

And I should add, it’s not all doom and gloom. There are some more modest successes – for instance the euphorbia (above) I planted near the compost heap last year is a very very happy plant and looks absolutely gorgeous. It’s adding sculptural interest to an otherwise scruffy bit of garden.

The magnolia at the front of my garden also looks fleetingly stunning as only magnolias can.

But even with these hits, there’s no escaping the fact that, unless you are a daffodil or hellebore enthusiast, my April garden probably only looks lovely to me!