Charingworth Court Cotswolds Garden

The Mount Fuji is almost in blossom and the pheasant eye narcissi have opened all at once. The cornus controversa (wedding cake tree) is looking amazingly bright and the pond is full of newts but no frogspawn this year.

I have spent a few hours this afternoon in warm sunshine weeding the beds by the woodland path. Now that most of the leylandii are out there is a lot more light getting through and we should be able to plant a wider range of plants. There are a few wood anemones out and the first blossom is out at last (a pissardii cherry). As ever the pond looks great, this time with the wind rippling the surface of the water. There are lots of newts and the iris are growing at last but no frog spawn. And I saw a bumble bee visit a hellebore – the first I’ve seen this year.

There is still snow on the hill in the distance and huge snow drifts on some roads in the Cotswolds but here in the garden it has warmed up today. You can sense that all the buds are swelling, getting ready to burst out but the hard frosts and biting wind has hit some plants and only the daffodils look really good at present. We are open 6 weeks today which is scarily soon but at least we will have sculpture to look at!

The last owner of this garden who was somewhat eccentric, planted leylandi to hide every house around the property. Over the years we have removed dozens and today we removed most of the ones that remain. Light is now flooding into this part of the garden and should mean we can grow more here and plant new trees.