Gardening

Spring flowering favourites

After a long winter it’s wonderful to walk around my garden and see signs of my spring flowering favourites getting busy for a wonderful show.

Ajuga, (common name bugle) has kept looking good through the winter but now the rosettes of leaves are looking fresh and glossy and I’m just waiting for the first short spikes of blue flowers to emerge. These are unassuming plants that spread, noninvasively, by sending out runners much like strawberry plants do creating ground hugging clumps. They do well in some shade but aren’t that fussy.

My favourites are the bronze-leaved types like Atropurpurea, the darker Black Scallop and the reddish Burgundy Glow. The flower spikes are short and neat about six inches / 15cm tall. Larger and more impressive is Caitlin’s Giant. Ajuga are easy to grow and propagate as the runners root easily. They don’t seem to suffer from any pests or diseases.

Another tough and accommodating spring flowerer is lungwort (pulmonaria). The plants grow in sun or part shade and prefer moisture. The flowers are loved by early flying bees. They do seed a bit and are best cut back really hard after flowering as the leaves can be tatty and sometimes get a bit of powdery mildew.

They soon grow fresh, healthy leaves after this treatment. Good varieties include the vivid Blue Ensign, the paler Opal and the pink flowered Mawson’s Red or Dora Bielefeld. One of my favourites is Cotton Cool, with almost completely silvered leaves that makes a wonderful foliage plant through the year.

Another lovely spring-flowering foliage plant is brunnera, a relative of borage and equally good for bees. The clumps of heart-shaped leaves are crowned with forget-me-not like blue or sometimes white flowers. Modern varieties have introduced incredible silvered leaves, either netted with silver lines as in Jack Frost (blue flowers) and Mr Morse (white flowers) or almost entirely silver like Looking Glass. They are best cut back hard in early summer to encourage fresh, new leaves.

Spring in the perennial garden is truly something worth waiting for with lots of easy to grow flowers to perk up your plots and beautify your borders.

Janet and I organise Plant Hunters’ Fairs, specialist plant fairs at wonderful locations with special reduced entry on these days.

Please see www.planthuntersfairs.co.uk for a full list of all our 2022 plant fairs. (Please always check the website for event confirmation and ticketing before travelling).

Local Plant Fair dates for your diary: Sugnall Walled Gardens, near Eccleshall on Saturday, April 2. Capesthorne Hall and Gardens on Sunday, April 10. Dorothy Clive Garden on Sunday, April 17 and Monday, April 18. Cholmondeley Castle Gardens on Sunday, April 24. Weston Park on Sunday, May 1 and Monday, May 2.

Martin Blow