Settling in shrubs

April sowing schedules

The season felt like it started this month, signs of life began to emerge everywhere from the tiny green shoot of the germinating seedlings, the leaves slowly unfurling in the newly extended shrub area to the blossom bursting on the trees now growing into thier 4th season in the field. It’s an exciting time with lots going on, but not all of it is perfect, as with every year's growth some things have not faired so well during the last few months.

Spirea on a sunny Spring day, something we haven’t had many of!

As I look around the field coming through the aftermath of a very wet Autumn, winter and early Spring. All the issues of farming on a cold hillside with heavy clay soil are glaringly obvious to me. It looks like the wet has rotted a big proportion of my tulips this year, a sad situation for me as they are an expensive crop to produce and one of my favourite flowers. There are also plies of perennials which were lifted during a little break of dry weather that didn’t last long enough for me to spend the following days replanting, so instead they sit waiting, and obviously, it hasn’t done them any harm as they begin to produce green growth. But time is ticking on and I am eager to get them in the ground.

Blossom trees with a backdrop of Narcissus