Well spring didn’t arrive when expected but we seem to be on our way now with lots of blossoms and blooms over the last few weeks with more to come. A cautionary note and a sad tale to start. The garden centres are becoming full of summer bedding now but be careful as most bedding is not hardy and night-time frost can still be an issue until the end of May.<\/p>\n
The sad tale involves The Pontfadog Oak (an British native Oak tree) in the village of Pontfadog in mid Wales. This tree was believed to be a 1000 years old and was the oldest in Wales, the third largest by girth in Britain and one of the oldest in Europe. Sadly it blew down in a storm a few weeks ago and is no more. However, according to newspaper reports saplings grown from the trees’ acorns are in existence. There is an old saying about Oaks…’they take 300 years to grow, 300 years to mature and 300 years to pass away gracefully.’<\/p>\n
If you feel like planting something with longevity in your garden but don\u2019t have the room or time(!) to grow an Oak tree I would recommend planting an Amelanchier. A very underused, yet delightful, tree or shrub for the small to medium size garden. They have beautiful white flowers in spring followed by clusters of red fruits which as they ripen turn bluish black and are beloved by the birds. It is an ideal compact plant that can be kept under control and is suitable for most soils and largely pest and disease free; probably why it is a popular tree for landscaping in public open spaces. The picture above is of Grandad’s young Amelanchier lamarkii planted a season or two ago<\/p>\n
Other recent flowerings for Grandad are the below Camellia and this delightful Tulip.<\/p>\n
At the moment Grandad is getting ready the Chelsea chop. What, you may ask is that? Is it some special cut of meat or some ancient form of execution? No, nothing like that but it can be a bit brutal. It\u2019s the name for a pruning method by which you can limit the size and control the flowering season of your perennial plants. By cutting them down by as much as half you delay their flowering time but it produces stronger plants needing less staking and with more numerous but smaller flowers. The name comes about because the time to carry out the chop is the week of Chelsea Flower Shower in May. As the plants are behind schedule this year you will probably need to delay the chop for a few weeks.<\/p>\n
And finally for a couple of weird and wonderful things Grandad has spotted on his travels around gardens near and far… The unusual flowers shown below are from a Jade Vine and this picture was taken in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in south west London. The Jade Vine is one of the rarest and most elegant of all tropical vines and it comes from the Philippines. In the wild it is pollinated by bats which hang upside down to drink the nectar and pollen brushes onto the bat’s head.<\/p>\n
Nearer to home than the Philippines is the Isle of Wight which Grandad visited recently. At the Ventnor Botanic Gardens the microclimate is such that as you can see, they are able to grow Cacti outside all year round.<\/p>\n
Happy planting and here\u2019s to more warm, sunny days ahead and plenty of time spent in the garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well spring didn’t arrive when expected but we seem to be on our way now with lots of blossoms and blooms over the last few weeks with more to come. A cautionary note and a sad tale to start. The garden centres are becoming full of summer bedding now but be careful as most bedding is not hardy and night-time frost can still be an issue until the end of May. The sad tale involves The Pontfadog Oak (an British native Oak tree) in the village of Pontfadog in mid Wales. This tree was believed to be a 1000 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"acf":{"dynamic":false},"dynamic":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6668,"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions\/6668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trulawn.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}