Today I am going to take you on a tour of the back garden. We will start with the view from an upstairs window. The pots all round the pond are to keep the fish safe from the heron.
But let’s go outside and start the tour. If we start on the left hand side of the garden we will find a sunny bed that is mainly planted for summer interest.
The colour schemes here is mainly blue and yellow. There are a few interesting plants in flower now. I already showed you the lovely Arum creticum in my last post, but there are other treasures here. I love the charteuse yellow of the neat, compact Euphorbia polychroma.
Paeonia mlokosewitschii will soon be in flower.
I love this little late flowering, spotted violet: Viola sororia ‘Freckles’.
I can’t resist fringed tulips and this yellow one is a lovely fresh spring colour.
I also have the lovely little species Tulipa tarda at the front of this border.
As I said the colour scheme is my favourite blue and yellow and I have some lovely blue Muscari here. I love the two -tone Muscari latifolium.
But I am doing it again, showing you every flower instead of conducting a tour. So I shan’t show you the other Muscari now: on with the tour.
The bed you see here was very narrow when we came here just under 4 years ago so the first thing I did was to make it wider. You can never create much of an impact with a narrow border. Each year it gets a bit wider as I nibble off more and more lawn. It had lots of random curves in it and I have tried to make it into a more elegant ‘Hogarth’s Line of Beauty’ which is basically an elongated ‘S’ shape. The trouble is I am hopeless at edging.
In the photograph above you can see Magnolia ‘Star Wars’ underplanted with the dark pink Tulip ‘Negrita’.
There are some big mature trees at the back of this bed which have been there a long time. They were planted a bit too close together. The first is a crab apple: Malus ‘Golden Hornet.’ It is pretty in flower and has bright yellow fruit. I would never choose ‘Golden Hornet’ though because it hangs on to its fruit when they go brown. For a yellow fruited crab apple I would go for the lovely ‘Butter Ball’ or ‘Comtessa de Paris’ Anyway it is there now and one has to be grateful for mature trees. Next to it is Acer pseudoplatanus ‘Brilliantissimum’ which has shrimp coloured leaves right now.
It looks lovely growing right next to a large Amelanchier .
Squashed behind these trees is a Whitebeam which has lovely silvery white foliage in spring. The birch tree in the photo is in next door’s garden.
I love the variegated honesty; Lunari annua alba ‘Variegata’. It seeds around and comes true from seed. I like to grow it with this lovely tulip. I think it is ‘Purissima’ but I am not sure.
When the sun shines the tulip opens its petals and looks stunning.
Carrying on the pure white theme I have Exochorda x macrantha ‘The Bride’ here too. I think it is a stunning shrub and it is very easy to grow from seed if you have patience.
The deep blue forgetmenot type flower at its feet is Omphalodes cappadodica which I am very fond of at this time of the year.
Oh dear, I am doing it again, showing you all the flowers. I am afraid we are only going to get as far as the summer house today. Let’s go on a bit.
I am very fond of the tulip ‘Prinses Irene’. I love the orange contrasted with the purple flash and purple stem.
Carrying on the bronzey orange theme I love this gold laced Primula with Euphorbia dulcis ‘Chameleon’.
Finally a tulip which I think is particularly pretty but I am not sure which one it is. Can anybody tell me?
It has taken such a long time to get as far as the terrace that I shall have to continue the tour in another post.
In my next post I shall show you some long shots that my son took of the garden and you won’t have to stop to look at every flower.
Chloris
The Blooming Garden 
You had me at heron but honestly this has been great eye candy. Thanks so much.
The pots really do work to keep the heron out of the pond; he likes to be able to wade in.
I am sure they do but really …. I hope you know that people like me envy people who have such problems hahahha
oh my what a beautiful garden you have created:-) I don’t mind the “plant pause” okay by me-lol. You have such variety + oh such pretty spring flowers! Your edging looks better than mine, but I am a terrible edger, I cheat and edge with my plants:-) You have many places to sit and observe all your garden beds. Where will your raised beds go? Thank you for a spring tour, we just have a few blooms + the squirrels always eat my tulip bulbs, I sure hope they left me some!
Thank you Robbie. The raised beds are in the orchard. The Pianist has built them much to my astonishment. I am now in the process with filling them with compost,and whatever else comes to hand. I shall write a separate post about them so they won’t be on the itinerary on my tour of the garden.
All good to me, if I had more space I would spread out and plant more flower gardens. I mix and mingle to make the best use of my space. I forgot to mention, I love curved beds,too:-)
Oh, I enjoyed this first part of the tour very much, even with the stops to check out the flowers. I love that Primula too, it looks very much like one I just bought. I’ve seen ‘Prinses Irene’ in a few other posts this spring, I really should get some to plant in the fall. I prefer species tulips, but for those colors I might make an exception.
I suppose species tulips are my favourites but actually I love all tulips and each spring I wish that I had planted more of them. If I were rich I would plant them everywhere in great drifts.
What a wonderful tour – your garden is looking lovely. I am so glad you stopped at the plants too – it is good to find out what things are and to look more closely. I think I will be looking out for ‘Princes Irene’ too and will be looking forward to seeing your paeony when it opens. By the way have you tried laying out a hosepipe to get your edges nicely curved. It can help, especially if you can view it from an upstairs window, but then you do need someone at ground level to make minor adjustments as you direct!
Thank you Annette. I do the hosepipe trick. It’s not the laying out, it’s the cutting. They end up looking as if I chewed them.
Perhaps a new edging spade is required?
Oh it IS good to see more of your garden – even if you (and us) did get sidetracked by your lovely plants. I remember the incidental background in one of your posts some months ago, showing a hint of pink thatched house, but that is the only picture I recall that wasn’t purely plant orientated. I remember it particularly as we have a pink house too, although yours will be more in keeping with the locality than ours is – I just like to be a bit different! I (the garden, that is) used to have curves but most of those have gone now, although I somehow managed to still have my little brick walls round the curves. Look forward to seeing the rest of the garden!
The house is painted Suffolk pink and we are not allowed to change the colour as it is listed. The roof is made of very old tiles not thatch. More long shots coming up soon.
I really enjoyed your tour, and I don’t mind stopping to look at the plants close up now and then! Those edges look great Chloris – I would never dare show any photos of mine… 😉 The whites are all lovely together, and those maple leaves are very pretty. Looking forward to part two!
I love white in the garden.. Exochorda the Bride is such a dazzling white and I love the variegated white honesty. The Acer has gorgeous shrimp coloured leaves in spring. But they are rather dull in summer.
Your garden looks the very epitome of spring Chloris. I would like to pause and ponder on that bench for a while. Love the lunaria and tulip combination.
I love the variegated white honesty, Anna. If you like it and haven’t got it I will send you some seeds when they are ripe. They come true from seed.
It’s a great idea to do a tour and it does look lovely. I do like that tulip ‘Purissima’. Looking back at the original pictures it works so much better now.
Yes, Cathy suggested I did some views of the garden and it made me realise I never show plants in their context in the garden. I am always more intent in catching the actual flower. I enjoy looking at other peoples’ gardens. I feel I could come down your drive and recognise your garden which is nice.
Your tour was fun and it’s always helpful to stop and learn more about the plants. Exochorda x macrantha ‘The Bride’ is very attractive. I’m not familiar with it.
Exochorda is a lovely shrub, I could send you some seeds but I don’t know if you are allowed to receive any sort of plant material there.
Thanks Chloris, but I think there are regulations. I’ll research it here, but I do appreciate your offer. susie
I would have also been sidetracked at every step, wow you have a lot going on! The lunaria is so nice…. I’m afraid most of mine died over the winter, I didn’t even suspect the winter might be too much for it. I love the leaves with the tulips, even more so when the tulips still have a little cream color to them.
I can’t wait for the rest of the tour!
Frank
Thank you Frank. I love the cream honesty with the tulips. I thought it was really hardy and I am surprised that you lost it. The rest of the tour is coming up soon.
What a lovely tour of your beautiful garden, I was so pleased to see long shots as well as the plant portraits as they give an idea of what the garden is really like. Your sunny border is singing spring time at the moment even though you say it is planted mainly for summer. I must put some narcissus and tulips in a border that I have made for late summer because at the moment there is nothing flowering! I’m looking forward to the next part of your garden!
Cathy suggested that I did some shots of the garden and I thought it was about time that I did it. I always enjoy seeing round your garden. Of course a garden is so much more than a collection of plants. I will try and show more of it in future but I get so excited when lovely things come out that I tend to focus on them. I write a monthly column for the website of my garden club about what is in bloom each month and of course there I am concentrating on individual plants. It has become a habit.
Thanks for a most enjoyable tour round part of your garden with so many wonderful pictures of the various plants and flowers. xx
I’m glad you enjoyed it. It is nice sometimes to see more of peoples’ gardens as well as the plants that they grow.
Thank you for your tour of the garden, and don’t apologise for the pauses – that’s part and parcel of it! And you say there’s more to come, which is something to look forward to! You seem to have so much in flower, at the moment. I think that’s where I’m falling down. Most of my spring interest, is localised in the “Woodland” border. The other borders are planted for later interest. Maybe I’ve “over planned” with no room for spontaneity. You have a beautiful garden!
What a beautiful garden you have. A real gardeners garden full of interesting bulbs, perennials, shrubs and trees. I look forward to the next instalment. D.