A week or so...

 The Laburnum walk at Bodnant gardens in North Wales was loooking spectacular last week when we visited on our way across Wales to Crug Farm Nursery.

I noticed this unusual adiantum fern growing at the garden at Crug plants with its red flushed foliage when young. The owner Sue couldn't identify it but a bit has gone off to Holland to be worked on, I have since found it I think in a fern book, but the name escapes me at the moment.

In Betwys-y-coed this beautiful hankerchief tree Davidia Involucrata was growing over a stone wall on the side of the road just a few hundred yards from this unusual fern below. I think there must have been an impressive victorian garden on there as there were several interesting plants around including a dryopteris wallichiana with its fantastic dark spine visible amongst a clump of lady ferns. The fern below I have never seen before and had a fantastic fleshy colour to the young fronds.

May

I thought I would start with a couple of shots of trees in the garden. The horse chestnuts shown above are looking fantastic in the garden at the moment, the nicely pruned bottom of the one of the right is kept perfectly flat by the sheep.

Below is a picture of a tree I have been meaning to photograph for years now. I think it is one of the most beautiful trees there is, it's a Norway maple. Of course the time I eventually get round to taking its portrait it is looking just green and treeish, but it changes colour so many times in the year a diary of this may as well start when it is looking its least interesting. Shame also that there is a bonfire waiting to be lit beneath it.

Now to my favourite Aqualegia 'longisima' which has just opened its first flower the others still look like comets shooting around it. Of all the hundreds of aqualegia species and hybrids it is one of the most understated and elegant. Understated that is in colour and elegant with its overly long spurs flying back behind it.

The primulas are still looking fantastic around the secret pond, such a beautiful shaded spot in the garden and a suprise to all that walk through the shrubs to emerge with the crimson carpet that they create hovering above the ground, they must have been flowering for the best part of a month already.

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Adiatum aleuticum, one of the most beautiful of all the ferns, small, delicate and a good grower to boot. The smaller varieties such as Adiatum aleuticum 'Subpumilum' with fronds that stand on 10cm long stems is even better in windy locations which all maidenhairs struggle with.

I will finish with a shot of the wonderful pattern made by the leaves of the flag iris's, as fresh and healthy looking as is possible, I meant to take an arty, abstract, close up of the patterns the stems create but instead settled for an average shot with a duck at the bottom.

A day off for a nurseryman - So visit a garden and nursery

Nursery closed today after a small tour round the garden in the morning so checked the plants, dogs, ducks and chickens and collected the eggs including an odd looking one, we think the first from Hetty this year (a odd looking Polish Bantam hybrid chicken). The egg is shown below as is a blurred Hetty and Lulu the sheep, the only one of my ten sheep to have a name.

So we set off for an hour or two in one of the most beautiful gardens in England Great Dixter. Harriet has always been fascinated by chimneys. This ones a cracker.

Geranium palmatum, allways remember the way Great Dixter has a great pot of this wonderful tender geranium by the front door, beautiful glossy leaves.

Loved the colour combination of the strip of fresh yellowy green ivy along the roof and the forget-me-nots planted with these deep red tulips. Looked fantastic.

And finally another great colour combination the sharp lime green of the Smyrnium perfoliatum flowers and bracts sit strikingly with the yellow and orange welsh poppies. The sun on the Smyrnium doesn't show the contrast quite as well as it could.

A fine day for the NGS

 After the shock of discovering that instead of opening the gardens at two in the afternoon we were in fact open from ten and a brief rush around gathering kettles, cups and cakes, a steady stream of garden lovers strolled along the lush spring  paths throughout the day.

Early purple orchids in the wild garden, these are the first of all the meadow flowers really, now the spring bulbs have come and gone. The Japonica primulas (probaly hybrids of millers crimson among others) around 'the secret pond' are in full glory, though the stand off withe the lily-of-the-valley which has been advancing on their territory is looking striking. Bloodshed is only spared by the old York stone path that seperates them.

 Worth having a few pictures of the wild garden up before it gets to its peak in late May and early June when it is all waist high and the roses hang from every arch and branch.

Finally a couple of shots from the nursery, very pleased with my plant selection this year though next year more home grown is the plan. One of my favorite and first ever trees to grow from seed Albizia Julibrissin Rosea, very easy and a beautiful little plant. NGS day two is open us and the hoards are set to arrive at any moment, end of first ever blog.