Sunday, 6 February 2011

Mild but wild

Galanthus 'Lady Beatrix Stanley' -
a really reliable, long-flowering plant.
As promised on ITV West's weather forecast on Friday evening, delivered from Colesbourne by Bob Crampton, the weekend has been exceedingly windy and very dull, with only a couple of glimpses of sunshine today, but not much rain materialized. The wind brought down most of an old Sycamore tree, plus a ton of sticks and branches on Friday night, which is not what we needed to have to deal with on Saturday morning. The fallen tree was no impediment to opening, however, having landed only on snowdrops, and we opened the garden for the first time this year on schedule at 1 pm on Saturday afternoon. It was a bit blustery yesterday but a loyal crowd of enthusisasts turned out, and more came today. I had been afraid that the the display would be a bit meagre, but the mild westerlies have encouraged very rapid development of the snowdrops and other flowers, so there was in fact plenty to see. The snowdrops will continue to develop over the next few weeks, hopefully well enough to earn the  description 'Britain's best snowdrops' bestowed on them by Jeremy Lazell in today's Sunday Times . (He also recommended the Colesbourne Inn's lamb burger with goat cheese and red onion jam, a choice with which I heartily concur.)

fallen Sycamore and Galanthus elwesii
 
Snowdrops for sale

The Spring Garden - sunshine would be welcome

Visitors in the Spring Garden

Galanthus elwesii 'Mrs Macnamara' - early and elegant

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2 comments:

  1. Helen/patientgardener6 February 2011 at 19:09

    Oh no fancy the sycamore coming down the night before you open such a pity. I hope the local Inn is braced for more visitors than normal given the review in the Sunday Times

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  2. Carolyn @ Carolyn's Shade Gardens6 February 2011 at 19:16

    Glad to see such a nice photo of 'Lady Beatrix Stanley', which I grow in my garden. I empathize with you about the sycamore. I have six open days a year, and it never fails that there is some major or minor catastrophe in the garden as the event is about to start. Your gardens look beautiful, wish I could be there, but I wish even more that I could buy the snowdrops for sale.

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