Garden News | April
Most Exciting Months of the Year
As Head Gardener here at Leonardslee, April is probably one of the most exciting months of the year for me. I’m sure we’re all looking forward to Spring and the promise of regrowth and renewal that it brings, but if you’re a keen gardener or visitor of gardens, there is even more to get thrilled about. Whether it’s the wealth of new flowers coming into bloom or the interesting projects that me and the garden team can finally get stuck into, April certainly promises to be a fun-packed month!
‘Woodland Garden’
As predominantly a ‘Woodland Garden’, Spring is one of the most important seasons for us here. Our historic collection of Camellias and Magnolias will still be bursting with colourful blooms well into April for example. For Camellias the key places to head are obviously Camellia Walk next to Leonardslee House where the oldest specimens in the garden can be found, some over 100 years old, or Camellia Grove down at the south west corner of Waterfall Pond. However, you’ll find plenty of other Camellias dotted throughout the garden as you explore, particularly on the upper slopes of the west side of the valley, such Camellia saluensis below the Courtyard Café for example. As for Magnolias, they are many people’s favourite tree and I can understand why. From the Magnolia campbellii County Champion found in the Dell, one of the first of its species to ever flower in this country back in the early part of the 20th century, to the stunning alba form in front of Leonardslee House, they are breath taking whenever you come across them. As we move through April the smaller but no less beautiful Magnolia stellata types will come into their own too. We also plan to plant some unusual yellow flowered specimens such as ‘Golden Pond’ and ‘Yellow Bird’ in the coming weeks, as well as a variety called ‘Blue Opal’ which has striking blue buds.
April is also when our world famous Rhododendron collection really starts to steal the show here at Leonardslee. There have been plenty of early specimens flowering during March and even February this year, but when Spring arrives properly is when the rainbow explosion of Rhododendron flowers really begins! Everywhere you walk during April and May, and into early June, you’ll be almost assaulted with colour as more and more Rhododendrons start to do their thing. The horticultural highlight is obviously our legendary collection of Loderi hybrids found in the Loderi Garden and Coronation Garden, but you’ll stumble upon rare and unusual examples of every size and colour no matter where you wander during Spring.
Flowering Bulbs
Our flowering bulbs will continue to dazzle and enthral our visitors in Spring too. Daffodil Lawn will perhaps be the most obvious April display but I’m particularly excited to see some of our new specimens flowering for the first time, having been planted in their hundreds and in some cases thousands by the garden team last Autumn. One of the most unusual introductions will be the Imperial Fritillaries below the Café steps. From the orange and yellow flowered Fritillaria imperialis ‘Aurora’ and ‘Lutea’ to the purple and white of Fritillaria persica and persica ‘Alba’ these plants are sure to create a big talking point in April. There will also be thousands of white ‘Thalia’ daffodils near Mossy Ghyll to enjoy for the first time and a whole raft of slightly later flowering bulbs which I’ll point you towards in next month’s newsletter.
New Jobs for our Garden Team
Spring also signals a new list of jobs for the garden team here at Leonardslee to be getting on with. April is a perfect time to carry out some restoration pruning on some of our top-heavy Camellias once they’ve flowered, for example. This will revitalise the plant as well as bringing the blooms back down to eye level again. We’ll also be feeding and mulching some of our acid-loving shrubs that need a boost with an organic ericaceous fertilizer and a good layer of bracken mulch. The lawns will start to take up more of our time again too. We’ll be finishing up with any feeding and seeding as well as getting our newly-serviced mowers up and running in earnest once more. April is also an ideal time to divide any herbaceous perennials. This stops old clumps becoming congested and weak in the centre as well as providing us with free plants to place elsewhere in the beds and borders! And while we’re on the subject of herbaceous perennials, now is a great time to finally cut back any leggy, woody or overgrown Penstemon or Fuchsia for example, now that the risk of major frosts has hopefully passed – fingers crossed!
Perhaps the job we’re looking forward to most during April however is getting stuck in to some of our major planting projects. I’ve spent my first year here as Head Gardener assessing the garden through the seasons and working out how and where we can develop the displays for our visitors. There are plenty more projects still to happen further into the garden as we go forward, but this Spring we’ve decided to focus on key areas around the mansion. We’ll be replanting all of the borders around Leonardslee House itself for instance. The south and east facing sides which receive more sun will be filled with a mix of shrubs, herbaceous perennials and annuals in shades of green, purple and orange, all with an eye catching exotic feel. The shadier west-facing border will focus more on foliage plants including ferns, hostas and hellebores for example.
A series of herbaceous beds along the eastern edge of the Rock Garden will also be created, again with an exotic look, but this time with some larger showy plants such as Lobelia tupa (or Devils’ Tobacco) and a number of giant Echium as well as a wide range of more unusual perennials such as Baptisia, Romneya cordata and a range of new Salvias. The planting in and around the Rock garden itself is also due to be freshened up this Spring. We won’t be removing anything important or changing the planting style in here at all but we will be adding some delicate material such as specimen ferns for the cracks and crevices and intricate alpine plants which would have been more prevalent here when the Rock Garden was first created by Sir Edmund Loder back in 1890.
I could go on but hopefully that gives you a taste of what you can expect to see here at Leonardslee this month and what sort of work me and the garden team will be getting on with. Don’t forget that our monthly Tree Walks are available for booking onto where Elliot form the garden team will be sharing his knowledge on some of our most important and interesting trees all across the garden. We look forward to seeing you here again in the gardens at Leonardslee very soon…
Jamie Harris
Head Gardener
