As one who failed abysmally on their winter clean-up, it has now become a frenetic Spring clean in time for the first open day. As my daughter said , the good thing about open days is it forces you to tidy the garden up…
As I mentioned in a former post, a bad mulching choice and an unnaturally mild winter turned the “quiet time” in the garden into a very noisy weed party. And since I suddenly realised Spring Open Days were not a thing of the distant future, but events looming, it has basically rained and winded A LOT making the Spring cleaning quite unpleasant!
Most of the gardens are now officially water logged, making me worry a bit about the bare root roses I planted in the border a month ago. I’m thinking I may have to go and scoop them out of the morass and put them in pots for the meantime. Whilst established roses amaze me with how they put up with being under water for a month or two , a bare root rose is a different matter and may expire.
So just days till the first Open Day…if you’re going to make it, please excuse the messy parts of the garden, I’m not going to make it around everywhere in the time left to me and prefer to do some parts well than it all haphazardly! Following September 15th, we will be having another a month later on October 13th and as “real rose time” hits there will be 3; Sunday November 3rd, Saturday November 16th and Sunday December 1st.
Obviously September is too early for full rose appreciation, however the early species roses are in full swing and there are lots of lovely flowering tree and shrubs as well as many spring bulbs to enjoy. The early perennials are starting to show as well, not to mention some later ones that actually never stopped all winter…
It appears I failed to publish this blog at time of writing, oops. In the meantime the weather has seriously come right and the first Open Day has been and gone. Trade was brisk, the weather was kind and lots of people came and wandered around the awakening gardens. In the week since the roses have moved into overdrive and are leafing and budding up fast. It’s such an exciting time of year!
Next Open Day in 3 weeks on October 13th and I really think there will be some early roses blooming in the garden by then.