March 2023 English Garden Tour 🌺

Hello everyone, it's Jeanette here from Enthusiastic Gardener. Welcome back to my garden. I am in Essex. I'm on the southeast coast of England and the equivalent of a US zone 8 probably, although that's more relative to the mildness of our winters rather than the heat of our summer, apart from last summer when it was crazily hot for everyone, if you remember. I've been so busy out here but I will explain as we go around. Hope you enjoy this tour. It's cold but it hasn't actually rained. It's about three degrees Celsius which I'll figure out what that is in Fahrenheit and put that on the screen. So I've just given everything a really good drink and that always perks everything up. The Dryopteris affinis ferns which I moved, or I moved a couple of them, you may remember. They've done so well and then I do have some other ferns which are the ones which die back and I'm particularly delighted with my little euonymus hedge which I planted almost a year ago now to replace the boxwood hedging which I lost all the boxwoods due to box tree moth unfortunately. But here we go. Yes, nothing lasts forever I guess. I've got beautiful Brunneras just coming into life. They are sterling silver Brunneras and then I have Pyrrhus, different versions. That is my apple tree and this area I may get some hostas. I may try hostas. I never have much luck mainly because of slugs and snails and I've tried beer traps. You can see old beer traps dotted around falling over. I need to pick them up and tidy them away, throw them away. They didn't work. I've also tried slug pellets but unfortunately even though slug pellets are kind to animals and children, Lottie eats them so that didn't work out very well. I didn't want her eating slug pellets. She took a shine to them. So here is the first of my blues. You may remember last week I took you shopping with me and I've planted my four new blues, well actually six, six new blues and this one and I've been trying to learn the names. I think I've got it. This one is my favourite and I decided it can go in my bottomless pot. Now these four new ones which I've bought, some people were concerned that they were going to get large but where I've put them I'm happy for them to get large. So this one is called a Picea pungens hoopsii and I just absolutely love it. It's just beautiful and although all my new ones are blue they don't always, apart from this one, they don't all look particularly blue at the moment but I believe that's because when the sun comes out they will shine. This here is my disastrous Norway spruce which everyone was telling me do you know that's going to be 40 to 50 foot high and so what I've done I've cut the top off. I think I'm just going to bin it, it's gone brown anyway, it's not attractive but at the moment it's filling that little gap so we'll keep it for the moment. I just back up, this is what this side of, this is my east facing border all the way from here all the way down to there to the end this all faces east so it gets morning sun. So you can see I've tidied up all my hostas, they look very very small, sorry heucheras, they look very very small at the moment because all I did was take away all the old browning outer leaves, just pull those off and hopefully they will do very well. I have transplanted so many things in this garden, I've moved so many things around so we have the little lime hydrangea which was in Hospital Corner, that's now here, well so many things, the Rose of Sharon is finally planted in the ground, this I think it's called Erysimum and that's done so well and you can see the beginnings of purple or mauve flowers, that's one of my new plants there, I have two of those, where's my finger, that one there, that is a Cammeray Cyparis, it's the same as this, a Cammeray Cyparis, I don't think I'm pronouncing that correctly. Oh the David Austen Rose has been moved to here, so I actually cut this down a little bit just so that's got a bit of light, that will get so tall so I think that will be happy there. I also moved, can you see the pedestal, that's been moved over to here, Lottie's crying, she wants to go in, so let's go around the circle and then we can go around the outer perimeter, this is just about to burst into beauty, it's my Photinia Red Robin, this will be its second spring and that is going to look with a because we do need all the four colours, the red, the blue and the green and the yellow, so I've tidied up my Heucheras, let's let Lottie in, yes I'm back, I had to let Lottie back in, she was crying, that's another Cammeray Cyparis, so I've two, that one and that one, I've moved so many things around, I can't even remember what I did, I was out last weekend moving and transplanting and things like this, this is a little Hydrangea, don't know what it is, it was over there, not doing particularly well, so we'll try it there and that's a David Austin Rose as well, which is called James L Austin, that's my little Spiral Topiary that I did, it's kind of looking a little lacklustre, but the tulips are all coming up, the daffodils are coming up, it's very exciting, oh I divided my Seed of Autumn Joy, so I cut it in half, so we have half there and we have half over here now, so I finally got round to doing that, but you can see all my beautiful bulbs all coming to life and we do have the first daffodils, which is absolutely wonderful and they are I believe Carlton, actually they're not Carlton, because that, no that one there on the right, the ones not in bloom yet, they're Sunlover, these are Carlton's, so that is very cheerful, but you can see all the others coming up, I have a lot of browning on my Lemon Cypress, so especially down the bottom, so fingers crossed they're okay, I think I can just, yeah probably because of the frost, we'll give them a haircut later on, we have the Plum Tree, the Hebe I'm thinking needs to go, I'll give it one more month, if it doesn't, well I'll probably need to just trim it all the way around, I've been googling a lot about Hebes and they don't always get through really really harsh winters, here is the second of my blues and where I've put it here, I don't mind if it gets huge, it can get this big for all I care, it would look lovely, it's another Picea, another Picea Pungens and this one is called Super Blue Seedling, so that is beautiful, next to a Nandina, next to lots of other things, I've moved my Agapanthus which were right there and really the door kept knocking them, every time we had the door open you can see that little hook there, they were just in the way and here is my Triple Ball Topiary which I made recently and that was the Tuscan Totem Pole Van Gogh Cypress, so that's the circle, a complete circle you've seen, everything's tidy, I did do all the weeding, as I say behind the scenes and off camera I have been very very busy, so it's tidy for the moment but obviously we have to keep on top of our weeding as we know, let me show you, can you see this is the next of my blues which that one can grow really big as well, I'm happy with that, so let's go over and look at that one, this is doing very well this bed, the Olive, I'm so delighted, it came through the winter no problem, absolutely no problem, I particularly love this curly curly branch stem, I did have to cut down my little Hebes which were here because I don't think they're going to survive but I cut them right down, you can see I had three and then we've got Lavender either side of the chair, this is my Formium Brown Sugar which seems to be doing very well, a wonderful blue Euphorbia, then I have Carex Moroeae, Ice Dance, these plants here, I have three of those and then these are my blue Fescue grasses but this one is my Pinus and it's called Pinus Vanderwolf's Pyramid, I've been learning the names, I think I've got it now, so that is beautiful and you can see if you look closely it's kind of like two-tone so you've got blue and dark green, don't know if you can see that, that is beautiful, very happy, so because the Yucca, yes yes that's where the Yucca was and I was going to try and keep the Yucca going but it just was all mushy, the stem or the trunk was just mush so that had to go unfortunately and then over here I now have moved my little Acer which was over by my little fountain, the new little fountain, the other fountain, I thought that could do with a little bit of sun, that's called Little Princess so we'll put that there, see what that does and then the Limelight Hydrangea I've put there, we have what's it called, Austromaria up there, still need to sort the fountain out, let's glance over the fountain, I've tidied up these Heucheras, Trachycarpus came through the winter with no problem and here is the last of my new blues and I followed your advice because someone kindly said to me what about a Blue Arrow and I found this is a Blue Arrow, it's a Juniper and it's called, let me think now, Rocky Mountain is the common name and it's a Blue Arrow, Rocky Mountain Juniper, so again that I'm happy, let's back up a bit, I'm happy if that gets quite big, that's fine, so I think I've planted them all where they can reach mature sizes and I'm happy with that and none of these four that I've planted need any pruning so that should be a pop of blue and then we have the Nandina, we have my Ilex Crenata cloud pruned there, Mahonia, see what this does, that's my Ascot Rainbow Euphorbia, that got moved there just end of last year but I think this border is now looking quite nice, I think I will uncover the table and chairs next, so here's what my garden is looking like at the beginning of March and hopefully I'm going to have beautiful bulbs very very soon, I'm very very happy with everything, unfortunate about the Yucca, unfortunate about the Hebe which was one of my absolute favorites but I do think that's going to have to go, one last thing I have pruned my climbing roses, I've retrained them along the wires, that's that one, we've got the walnut tree there and what I think I will do is move the walnut and I'll put it, when I get my table and chairs out, I'll kind of put it in a pot just by the table and chairs I think and then we have to tidy up this area, the clematis is starting to shoot up which is very exciting, have bulbs in these, I have bulbs in here, this is the other climbing rose, it's not a very good one I don't think, I mean it's only got two canes but I'll leave it there, see what happens and then finally more bulbs in here, Richard said to me do you think it's time to take the bunting down, I thought no, why would you want to take the bunting down, so yes I didn't really answer that, anyway that's it, that's my garden which it's nearly spring, I'm so excited so I hope you've enjoyed this garden tour, I'm Jeanette, I'm The Enthusiastic Gardener, thank you for joining me, I hope you're having fun in your gardens and we are almost there, take care everyone, thank you for watching, bye