We are getting ready for our May opening this year. Like all gardeners we have wondered what the strange weather over the last few months will mean for this season with some very early flowering. So the witch hazel and the chaenomeles japonica have been in flower longer than usual. In the autumn we celebrated family birthdays with a weekend of bulb planting. A few weeks earlier we had widened the borders around the lawn as over the years the plants have grown outwards. Now we are reaping the benefits with hundreds of small daffodils in flower and hundreds more tulips getting ready to flower in a few weeks time.
The frogs and newts are busy in the pond, the birds are nesting and we even had a kingfisher visiting. Last year one of our blackbirds learnt to catch newts and we watched him catch more than we could count. I was amazed to look out of my bedroom window one morning to see a kingfisher dive in, catch a newt and then sit on the deck and eat it. They look a lot tougher than fish to get down!
In the vegetable garden the broad beans look good, the potatoes are going in and the sweetcorn seeds are ready to sow in root trainers. Soon the courgette, squash and runner bean seeds will be started and the whole cycle will start again. That is what I love about gardening – you never know what will do well and what will disappoint in any year but you remain optimistic and know that the highs will be better than the lows!
So come and visit us and help raise lots of money for the NGS. We’ll be waiting to welcome you and the Children’s Society will be serving tea, and cake each afternoon.
Charingworth Court Cotswolds Garden 