Well, what a week. Boris asked us all politely to stay at home, and apparently we didn’t, so now the order has come that we must. Easy for the boys and me, already naturally isolated here at Oaklands, hell for those in big cities, and impossible for the health services. There are many writing about COVID and its catastrophic impacts right now, so this is simply about this place and what is happening here. Or not. Because the works have stopped now, to keep the Anemone team safe, and to comply with the new stricter measures. And of course this is essential. It leaves me however with the interesting challenge of what to do with a hundred-odd baby plants, most of which are now approaching their teen years in plant terms, and most of which would much rather be in a luscious new bed than sitting in a smallish plastic pot. I mentioned in my last post the desired timing for some types of perennial, and the eternal lure of the plant sale. To use an avian metaphor for a horticultural issue, those birds are now very much home and roosting. In these times, happy troubles, as our lovely Danish friend would say.
The fact that the weather has been absolutely glorious for the last few days has only amplified the growth question: the bees and hover flies are out, the birds are cranking up the choruses, and with the vernal equinox now passed, light is bathing us earlier and later each day.
Even the shrubs I moved to avoid their death by bulldozer seem to be thriving - the hamamelis (witch hazel) is coming into leaf, as is the black elder. Little cornus cuttings are budding, and some of the young fruit trees are in leaf.
I sidestep any decisions on these housing challenges around the house - do I order plastic pots online and re-pot everything? Move the plants into some of the old beds near the house, meaning further re-location later in the year (says she optimistically) - or let them sit in their current homes until I can actually hear them screaming? Happily we have a permanent and rich source of procrastination at the end of the garden, so I decided to walk around the wood to check on the progress of the many bluebell bulbs we planted last autumn, and also to see how much last year’s clearing had helped the spring growth recover.
The light is remarkable, obviously helped by a bright blue spring day, but this time last year the front of the wood was an impenetrable wall of evergreen laurel. Now, you can walk straight through to the far side (through Neil’s ‘Indonesia’), and as the trees are only just beginning to come into leaf, the woodland floor is sunlit. The laurel stumps are starting to re-sprout, but with two teenagers here with me in lockdown, we are confident the regrowth can be dealt with promptly.
The light has worked its magic. All our bluebells appear to be doing well - a little mud-spattered from the storms, but strong and healthy - even where they have been in the path of further clearing. Existing colonies have expanded where some of the old azaleas have been cleared. There are hundreds of snowdrops which I can now divide while they are still “in the green”.
The primroses have also expanded hugely thanks to the increased light levels. There are times when we look at the remaining sea of gleaming toxic laurel and feel overwhelmed, but this is really encouraging: bees and butterflies are appearing already, and smaller deciduous trees like young hazels and hawthorns are sprouting near their parents. Hope springs eternal, as they say.
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