Springtime images in the Shade Garden
My daily plod. Up to the potting shed to water the seedlings, back to the potager to pick asparagus, down to the lower potager to check on the newly planted beds.
Here’s our almost daily delight.
It’s all go. And being relentlessly dry and sunny, these borders in the Shade Garden and the barn garden are marvellous to wade through.
Did I show you the little path I made out of stones along this part of the vegetation? You can tell I’m a keen recycler. I had to make use of the leftover rocks on the courtyard terrace.
You can tell I’m not keeping up.
The irises are becoming my favourite trip hazard. I have to resist the urge to reach out and stroke the flowers as I go past.
I’ll have to do a photo gallery to shove all the images at you.
I love Spring.
I will need to cut back those bracts on the Euphorbias which are too close to the path. I feel that we might be moving into sandal season soon. And I don’t need the irritation from the euphorbia sap to add to the itches from ants and random brambles and sunburn.
Ooh and here is my favourite of the mad shrubs in this part of the garden.
Osmanthus. Fabulous scent. Almost as good as the heady mix of the viburnum tinus and the few narcissus Bridal Crown daffodils that are still going in this part of the garden.
Every year I threaten the secateurs on these shrubs. And then get busy and go elsewhere. Fluffy is the order of the day.
12th April 2020 @ 12:21 pm
Thanks for the virtual bouquet!
Technical question: do you know which osmanthus that is? My favourite local nursery (still open in ‘drive’ format) happens to specialise in osmanthii(?). They are sure to have it.
https://www.pepiniere-spahl.fr/nos-plantes/n-o-p/
12th April 2020 @ 12:24 pm
Ooh a Pepiniere that takes orders. Jealous! It’s burkwoodii. I bought it because it takes a temperature down to -20C. But having just drooled over the entire range, I’d love to go for Osmanthus fragrans f. aurantiacus
Comme le type, mais à fleurs oranges aux parfum sucrée de mandarine.
12th April 2020 @ 8:15 pm
It all looks wonderfully exuberant! Here, we are several weeks behind for the cultivated plants, but not the weeds… The Easter break has been an orgy of mowing and weeding so far. The magnolia stellatas are in full flow (wonderful scent too) and the large-flowered types are just beginning. Masses of blossom on the wild plum and the pears, perhaps this year we’ll escape a late frost for the Saints de glace and have fruit. Your daily (daily!) asparagus harvest is incredible. Bon appétit.
14th April 2020 @ 8:37 am
I never knew that magnolias had a scent. Lucky you to have pears. We are way too dry here for them.
14th April 2020 @ 8:41 am
But you have figs… my dream! Too cold here for them to ripen, but with global warming the fig trees survive the winter now. I have to make do with recipes-that-use-fig-leaves and I’ve made a Turkish jam with immature figs which is delicious.
20th April 2020 @ 8:25 pm
Too cold? Where are you? We go down to minus 12 C almost every second winter. Figs cope with cold! It’s the ones in pots that suffer because the roots freeze. but in the ground, once they put on growth, they are fab.
20th April 2020 @ 8:48 pm
I live near a very small village called Sauvain (if you Google, there’s only one in France), at about 960m. The winters are much milder now than they used to be (minus 20 was commonplace) and I have several figs planted out (not in pots). The problem seems to be the length of the season: Spring is late and cool, Summer is hot-ish but short, and Autumn is early and cool. This area is all woods (beech, birch and fir), heather moors and lush pastures (the well-known Fourme de Montbrison is made here). Figs form late, and don’t ripen by the time the first frosts come. But I keep hoping! I’m going to try a pawpaw and a cold-hardy Virginia persimmon next. What’s the fun in gardening if you don’t keep pushing the limits! I’m sure you know that more than anyone.
21st April 2020 @ 8:12 am
Ah Christine, now I get the fig issue. Yep. That’s altitude! It looks beautiful! But I can see that a short season is a bugger for fig ripening. The one thing I remember someone saying about figs was that you had to remove the figs at the end of the year that were not the size of tiny peas. The ones that are marble sized are not going to make it. But the pea sized ones might. But I love your solution using fig leaves as a flavouring. When All This is over I’ll have to post you some figs in egg boxes!