YOUR IN SPRING This year I think, more than ever, we have welcomed every leaf that has unfurled and every flower that has opened more intensely. Spring is always a time of joy in the garden and, if you put the effort in the autumn, there are some real delights to enjoy.
Every year, I promise myself that I will plant up tulips and spring flowering bulbs in the autumn and every year I don’t get ‘round to it’. Not this year! I had the time to plan what bulbs to buy and am now enjoying a feast of amazing tulips and daffodils. Always a delight,
because I have invariably forgotten what I have planted so many months earlier. Spring flowers are not all about tulips and daffodils though. As the evenings become longer the lilacs, peonies and Philadelphus (Mock Orange) start to bloom. Many of the spring plants have gorgeous perfume too. A couple of the best are the rampant climber Akebia quinata (Chocolate Vine), although it has more of a vanilla scent than chocolate I think, and the shrub Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’. Place these somewhere you sit, or by a front door, so you catch wafts of the delicious scent in the air. Flowering trees are at their very best in the spring and one of the most eye catching is the glorious Magnolia. They come in a wide range of pinks to whites like the deep, rich purple of Magnolia Genie to the pure white of Magnolia x
