Charingworth Court Cotswolds Garden

So here we are in April with the garden openings for the NGS and the Winchcombe Festival a short 5/6 weeks away.  There is always plenty of gardening to do however much we feel we have done but now we have the excitement of the sculptors starting to send photos of the pieces they plan to exhibit.

The piece below is by Jitka Palmer, whose work is always admired  as every piece is so individual with a story behind it.  I often wonder how she can bear to part with some of them but am grateful she can!

We will also have work by Willa Ashworth, Martin Duffy, Richard Cresswell, Chris Townsend, Barney Yendall and new to us this year Vik Westaway and Mike Bigland.

It should be a good show!

As the house is three storeys, it is easy to get good views of the garden.  The roof gives an even better view but is much more risky! Yesterday it rained and hailed and snowed so no sun but you can see the Mount Fuji cherry in flower and the pink cherry about to flower. There are thalia narcissi all around the left hand side and our new mini deck is just waiting for us to have time to sit down!

As seems to be the new normal, some of the garden is well ahead of where we would expect it to be at this time of the year.  So we have tulips out (when the deer haven’t eaten them!) but we are still waiting for some of the trees to burst into bud.  It is always exciting to look out of the window and to walk round the garden as there is something new to see every day. We now have to work hard to get our vegetables going, keep the weeds under control and to try hard to remember to enjoy what we are doing!

We are hoping for record numbers for the NGS as we have an extra evening opening this year and  we are again on the Winchcombe Art Trail.

Above are dicentra, woodland anenomes, tete a tete daffodils, primroses and exchorda ‘The Bride’

We have had  quite a few very sunny days in both February and March and this has enabled us to get well ahead with our routine weeding, pruning and tidying.  Consequently the garden looks lovely at the moment.  The blossom is coming out, the daffodils have been flowering for weeks and some of the tulips are already out. The magnolia stellata looks particularly lovely at the moment. This early season leaves me wondering what it will look like in May for the opening but the sculpture really helps to provide a lot of interest!

Joanne’s dragonflies were an eye catching exhibit above the pond

Martin exhibited for the first time this year at Charingworth.  His spectacular boxing hares were one of the most memorable sights this year.