Of snowdrops, compost heaps and hard winters...

A week or two back I spent a lovely couple of hours replanting snowdrops passed to me by my great friend and former neighbour Sue, a retired occupational therapist with a small but perfectly formed and packed cottage garden, who is a never ending source of inspiration and advice. 

The snowdrops have gone into my new white border. This is still very much a work in progress having been carved out of the lawn last summer. The border is the former site of our compost heap, which, having become the home of several rats, was dispensed with after one of them actually ran over my husband’s foot - much to his chagrin and the rest of the family’s amusement. Consequently the bed has the advantage of having been dug over with two years worth of compost, but the disadvantage of being almost directly under an overgrown Leylandii in the next door garden and being in the shade for most of the day.

Last autumn it was looking pretty bare, its perennials having died down and nothing to show but a newly planted Parthenocissus Henryana and a Tetrapanax Rex (of which more later). Now, however, it’s filling up nicely: white and green tulips (I’ve lost the labels!), my new snowdrops, a profusion of anemone blanda (actually blue, not white, but hey, they can be the one exception to the colour scheme), an as-yet tiny philodelphus which I hope will eventually hide our kids’ trampoline from view, some clumps of Geranium Pratense ‘Splish Splash’, a couple of white Japanese Anemones and some white Nepeta. 

Anemone Blanda

The pride of place goes to a fabulous Tetrapanax Papyrifer ‘Rex’, which my sister grows in her garden in London.  Hers is the most magnificent specimen - enormous, deeply lobed leaves which would dwarf even the most cheffy dinner plate,  and towering stems which appear to grow several feet each year. 

And how is mine doing? Well, let's not beat around the bush. Even if I wanted to there is no bush worth beating around. My Tetrapanax is a stick. It's 6 inches long, and showing no sign of life, having been clobbered by a typically freezing Oxfordshire winter. I await with some trepidation to see what happens. Just like my still dead-looking Toona Sinensis I fear it’s a case of the wrong plant in wrong place and our frost pocket garden can’t sustain it, but I live in hope and will report back in a month or so. The Toona Sinensis, Lazarus-like, did manage to come back last year so I'm not giving up yet.

Tetrapanax Rex - this is how it should look!

This month's list of things to do includes ordering some worms for the wormery that my husband bought for my birthday present two years ago (some girls like shoes and handbags, but I guess I’m just weird like that). The first lot were victim to some persistant summer downpours and ended up drowning (still feel guilty about that) and I’ve been promising to get some more on a monthly basis ever since. Hopefully we will manage to get composting this year without a return of our furry friends. 

If you are in the area and haven't had a chance to get to Waterperry Gardens to see the annual display of fritillaries they are in full bloom right now. If you can't get there you can still enjoy them in all their glory by looking at this short film I made about them last year. Happy gardening!