Garden News | April 2025

Welcoming April in the garden at Leonardslee is almost like the arrival of Christmas for my team and our visitors!

To be fair to March there has been lots to get excited about over the last month with early rhododendrons and camellias coming into bloom along with the explosion of early bulbs such as the many Crocus and also the arrival of the annual Magnolia display too. April is when the horticultural highlights start to really show their stuff here. There’s obviously the general promise of regrowth and renewal that spring brings as everything emerges from the winter slumber, but if you’re a keen gardener or visitor of gardens, there is even more to get passionate about; whether it’s the wealth of new flowers coming into bloom or the interesting projects that the garden team can get stuck into, April certainly promises to be an exciting month!

As predominantly a ‘Woodland Garden’, Spring is one of the most important seasons for us here at Leonardslee. But what actually is a ‘woodland garden’? Well, commonly found on acidic soils, they tend to be formed in layers from the ground cover plants below to the tree canopy above. They are usually vast in size and use a clever combination of informal, natural design but with exotic, unusual plants. Common features include grand views and vistas, large bodies of water and carpets of naturalised bulbs.

Sound familiar? We certainly have all those things here at Leonardslee. The term ‘woodland garden’ became popular in the early 20th century but was a direct result of the English Landscape Movement before it that covered everything from Capability Brown to William Robinson and that in itself was a reaction against the preceding European formality including the like of French parterres and Italian topiary. So, what is there to see in our Woodland Garden this Apri?

Magnolia in our beautiful gardens

There are plants bursting into flower almost every day in the garden this month.

The early Magnolia trees caught us out in March when then seemed to go from dormant to full bloom overnight and were suddenly ablaze with colour one morning! The later flowering species including stellata, loebneri, sprengeri and dawsoniana types for example should all be on display at some point during this exciting month so keep an eye out.

All being well, we should still have plenty of daffodils in bloom during April also, particularly the bulbocodium and cyclamineus kinds which can be found in the Rock Garden for instance. Other beautiful bulbs and spring understory for this month should include Chinodoxa (Squill), Pulmonaria (Lungwort) and Primula (Primrose) for example. Another real highlight this month will be the re-emergence of our many fritillary bulbs across the formal areas. Around the mansion the likes of the fascinating purple Fritillaria persica and burnt orange shades of F. sewerzowii will be wowing our visitors while elsewhere Fritillaria imperialis and its orange cultivar ‘Aurora’ will also be amazing everyone with their statuesque appearance and unusual flowers.

Camellias will continue to take centre stage during April. In Camellia Walk for instance the likes Camellia japonica ‘Valtevareda’ and ‘Rubescens Major’ will join the March display for instance. Down in Camellia Grove there will be dozens of camellias coming to life include the likes of ‘Glen’s Orbit’ and ‘Mrs Lyman Clarke’ to name but two. Whilst in Camellia Grove you will notice that some of the shrubs in here have had a fairly severe haircut. This is the continuing process of restoration pruning that we carry out across the whole garden in a careful, phased approach. March is the best time to do this work as even though in some cases it means we will lose the flowers for this year, it gives the plants a whole 12 months to recover and prepare energy reserves for next year’s display. The hard pruning is best done on plants that are blocking a year, have grown too tall for their space or who are lacking in natural vigour. We always apply a suitable feed and mulch around the plants afterwards to help them on their way too.

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 the rainbow explosion of rhododendron flowers really begins! Everywhere you walk during late April and May, and even into early June, you’ll be almost assaulted with colour as more and more rhododendrons start to do their floral thing. The horticultural highlight is obviously our legendary collection of hybrids bred by Sir Edmund Loder found most noticeably 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. In the Loderi Garden it is often the early red specimens such as R. barbatum, ‘Cornubia’ or ‘Mandalay Group’ that catch the eye first but by the end of the month the full explosion of colour should be well under way.

Spring also signals a new list of jobs for the garden team here at Leonardslee to be getting on with. We pruned many of our Rhododendron and Camellia shrubs during March as mentioned above but April is when attention turns to tackling out hydrangeas. For several years we treated them quite hard, pruning back to the 1st or 2nd lowest set of emerging buds on each stem. However, we found that this often resulted in reduced flowering density so over the last couple of years we’ve only been cutting back to one or two buds from the top of the stems. Again, we’ll feed and mulch them afterwards and this should mean that another bumper display of blooms will be on show this year.

The lawns will start to take up more of our time again too in April. We’ll be finishing up with any feeding and re-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 Salvia, Penstemon or Fuchsia for example, now that the risk of major frosts has hopefully passed – fingers crossed!

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.

Garden Walks

Don’t forget that our we run garden tours each month and this month you’ll be able to join one on the 7th, 16th and 28th. We look forward to seeing you here again in the gardens at Leonardslee very soon.

Jamie Harris

Head Gardener