Good riddance!

Well, this has definitely been the coldest, most damaging, most miserable March I can ever remember here in N. Wales and I am frankly glad to see the back of it. Many plants have been damaged, some recoverable, others maybe, others not. Anyway, its now behind us, the weather has begun to warm up a little, the birds are finally getting their voices and plants are beginning to perk up, so welcome April! I have a final snowdrop picture to wave their season goodbye, and a few other things from the garden, chiefly cushion saxifrages, then I will show you some pictures form our week long visit to Pittenweem in Five at the end of the month when we were able to visit St Andrews Botanic Garden (at least a month behind normal and very little to see outside), Branklyn (just emerging from the icy blast but absolutely stuffed with promise), and Kevock Garden Plants nursery, to which I was fortunate to gain access as it is not open to the public - Thank you David Rankin for showing me round at a very busy time.

 

Galanthus elwesii 'Cedric's Prolific'

This well named late flowering G. elwesii cultivar was found in Cedric Morris' garden and named and put into circulation by Beth Chatto. 

Corydalis solida 'G.P. Baker' seedling and 'Dieter

These are two of the best corydalis in this garden, seeding gently but never becoming a nuisance.

Corydalis solida 'Dieter Schacht'

Rhododendron x cilpinense

Despite the buds being quite well advanced when the second icy blast arrived they were largely undamaged, as these photos show.

Paeonia mlokosewitschii - the promise grows.....

Helleborus x orientalis - dark wine form

Helleborus x ballardiae 'Pink Frost'

Camellia japonica 'April Snow'

Camellia x williamsii 'Ballet Queen'

Saxifraga x poluanglica 'Peter Burrow'

Sax. 'Allendale Elf' and 'Cumulus'. about 12 years

S. 'Ruzyne'

A lovely soft peachy colour, this plant is > 10 years old

Narcissus 'Surfside'

Branklyn Garden, Perth

This famous two acre town garden on the outskirts of Perth,with its large areas of rockwork, was created by Dorothy and John Renton between the 1920s and the 1960s, it is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland and the current Curator is Jim Jermyn, who is well known to most keen alpine gardeners by reputation if not personally. He and Alison have only been at Branklyn for  a year or so but already much work has been done in the garden, including uncovering and restoring a Cumbrian waterworn limestone rock garden that had been covered over with grit for many years, lots of interesting  plants were being put in by eager volunteers while we were there . Of course, the removal of limestone pavement (for that is what it is) for making rock gardens is now severely frowned upon, and rightly so given the scarcity of this rock formation and some of its associated plants, but as the rock garden was constructed long ago when this form of rock gardening was commonplace among the better off, and fine examples were to be seen yearly at Chelsea and other major flower shows, it is of historical interest and might as well be enjoyed by all. 

Rhododendron piercei and R. 'Fine Feathers' group

There are many fine rhododendrons at Branklyn but most were in tight bud at the time of our visit. Two exceptions were the medium sized blood red R. piercei in the Neriiflora Section and the very floriferous pale yellow R. 'Fine Feathers' group, neither of which had been damaged by the -8C temperatures of a week earlier.

A planting that took my eye was a large patch of  Heloniopsis orientalis, not often seen other than as an occasional specimen. It is a plant of swampy ground in its native Japan and other far eastern locations but in my experience is quite happy in fairly dry conditions among shrubs, but requiring moderate light to flower well - the Branklyn plants were in a spot which would receive light shade from trees in summer.

Schefflera fengii

I was surprised to see an undamaged young specimen of this evergreen, only moderately hardy tree from the Chinese/Vietnamese border, although I have seen splendid big bushes in gardens further south, including at Plas Cadnant near Bangor on the Isle of Anglesey.

Petiolarid primulas

There were a few of these plants so coveted by southern gardners for they are much better suited to the cooler, moister situations found in Western and northern gardens. My absolute favourite, which I grew pretty well for many years, but have now lost, is Sherriff's form of P. bhutanica, with its glorious, fully formed sky blue flowers over foliage well dusted with farina.

Erythroniums

Branklyn is one of the best places to see a wide range of erythroniums in huge numbers, for they seed all around the garden, but we were a forthight too early this year to see them. According to Jim, as would be expected many hybrids crop up, some of them equal to or perhaps exceeding any in the trade, and hopefully in time some of them will be multiplied  and distributed. Only two were in flower when we visited, a nice form of Erythronium dens-canis and the highly desirable and difficult (in most gardens) yellow E. grandiflorum. I have seen both these in large numbers in the wild, the latter on the edge of snow patches in the Olpympic Mountains of Washington State, and it was lovely to see a few at Branklyn. The secret for getting erythroniums to flower well is to plant them deeply and allow them to become crowded - if you have long enough to wait for the latter to happen!

Erythronium dens-canis

Erythronium grandiflorum