Spring Garden Flourish

A Seasonal Celebration of the Land, Garden & Nature

Warmth Arrives, Rain Showers, New Shoots, Emerging Butterflies, Abundant Blossom, Shortened Nights, Seed-Sowing. 

Issue 10 April 2020

Spring Garden Flourish 
- April

FLOURISH

My garden is really starting to green up now and although there are still odd patches where the poor, chalky soil is on show, fresh new growth is starting to cloth the majority of the beds. Here are four tried and tested beauties that excel in my garden in April.

Many years ago I bought a small Sweet Cicely plant at our village plant sale. Every year in April this cow parsley lookalike comes back strong. For me it's a winner - pretty foliage, attractive white flowers, pollinator friendly, low maintenance and edible! It has one of the best latin names too - Myrrhis odorata. It's more common name, Sweet Cicely refers as much to the sweet taste as to the aniseed scent of its fern-like leaves. I use the young leaves to sweeten tart fruits like gooseberries and rhubarb when I cook them - that way I don't need to include as much sugar. 

Sweet Cicely was apparently introduced into the UK by the Romans, leading to its other common name Roman Plant.

The long green oval seeds appear in June, turn black as they mature and are also edible. The 16th century herbalist John Gerard favoured the seeds:

 "...eaten as a sallad whilest they are yet greene, with oyle, vinegar and pepper, they exceed all other sallads by many degrees, both in pleasantness of taste, sweetnesse of smell and wholesomeness for both the cold and feeble stomack." 

That's playing havoc with the autocorrect on my laptop!

In the garden Sweet Cicely looks lovely planted alongside forget-me-nots and tulips. It happily self seeds around the garden so pull up the new seedlings if you don't want to be over run - they make great gifts potted up for friends.

Cheerful Forget-Me-Nots (Myosotis sylvatica) are currently clothing the beds with a froth of sky blue flowers, which look fantastic weaving around the spring bulbs. 

These little flowers are loved by bees and will happily self seed around your garden. I seem to have to pull out handfuls of plants every June to stop them taking over - although that's a happy problem to have!
German legend tells of a knight picking a posy of forget-me-nots for his beloved as they strolled together on the river bank. He slipped, fell in and as he was taken away by the current he called to her 'Vergiss mein nicht', forget me not.  

In the Victorian language of flowers, forget-me-nots stand for true love and memories and were given as a token of undying love. 
Try planting them with zingy green euphorbias and pink tulips like 'China Pink'.

With their heavenly scent and gorgeous panicles of blooms, lilacs are another country garden favourite looking great in late April. 
I love lilacs - they are low maintenance, come in gorgeous shades of purple, lilac, pink and white and they make great cut flowers in the house - not least of all because of their glorious scent. 
Lilacs make large shrubs (or small trees) but you can keep them pruned hard or if you're really short of space try the smaller  Korean Lilac Syringa meyeri 'Palibin'.
Just give them a sunny position in well drained soil and once established they're pretty drought tolerant. 

Finally I cant let April go without mentioning one of my favourite garden shrubs Skimmia x confusa 'Kew Green'. A real winner for fuss-free year round structure, with shiny evergreen leaves and a neat shape that doesn't need pruning. But it's the scented flowers that are the real hit. Clusters of tight buds open to greenish-cream flowers in April and give off the kind of scent that stops you in your tracks, searching for the source. Pollinators love the flowers too, so this shrub seems to be continually buzzing in my garden! It likes a bit of shade (too much sun will make the leaves go yellow) so it's great for brightening up a part shady border or woodland garden. 

At the moment we have a responsibility to stay home and avoid social contact outside of our families. However you decide to spend your days do try and get outside safely if you can - in your garden or on a balcony or taking your daily exercise outside away from others under big skies. Let me know what April highlights you spot and/or photograph.

Keep well, breathe and remember to look outside and notice the details. 

If you have any questions you can reach me via my website   www.plotgardendesign.co.uk and please follow/like PLOT Garden Design on social media to receive my seasonal updates and photos.