April into May, 2025

I suddenly realized yesterday that April is almost over and wondered briefly if I had slept through a week or so! Where did April go?!

So many shades of green!

Anyway, here are a few things that happened in my garden this month, starting with my aubergine seedlings. Well, they are still indoors here actually, but have since been put in slightly larger pots and placed in the cold frame on the south-facing and partially covered patio – wrapped in garden fleece to keep them warm at night and stop them from burning in the sun in the daytime. They haven’t grown an awful lot, but hopefully the sunshine this week will give them a boost.

We got a lot of sunshine this month, albeit frequently with very cold and often stormy winds. The housemartins still returned bang on time though on the 17th (it is always between the 12th and 24th of April). I was constantly reminded of these lines from Robert Frost’s “Two Tramps in Mud Time”…

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

In any case, it meant a lot of blue skies, perfect for showing off blossom etc!

I am always worried The ‘Edge flower bed has been struck hard by the winter, and yet by early April it was already bulking up… the Forsythia was in flower, the orange-leafed Spiraea was unfurling, poppy foliage growing…

What a difference two weeks can make…

Two plants growing there that really make an impact both close up and from a distance are:

Euphorbia polychroma – my friend thinks it looks as if it has been sprayed with yellow paint, it stands out so much.

And Spiraea japonica ‘Magic Carpet’. Some gardeners may turn up their noses at the modern and highly marketed hybrids, but this one really is something special. Its foliage starts out orange, fades to a dark brownish green in summer and then in autumn goes bright pink and orange again.

By mid April I felt we had a good enough forecast to throw caution to the (cold) wind and sow the grass under the new pergola in the Words & Herbs Bed. (It is starting to look fuzzy green now under the light mulch of hay).

Another task for April was potting up some newly purchased shrubs and plants for containers/pots in the yard. This area heats up in summer, but is extremely cold in winter, so after losing a few terracotta or glazed pots again this winter I decided to use plastic ones from recycled materials instead.

They will last much longer and will be easier to move if the weather makes it necessary. A lot of the inspiration to increase my collection of permanently planted containers came from my dear friend Annette’s newest book ‘Mein Garten wächst im Topf’ (My garden grows in pots), sadly only available in German. (Annette blogs at personaleden.com)

A couple of shrubs I can’t wait to see bulk out and flower here are a Buddleia with ‘weeping’ flowers like Wisteria, called ‘Wisteria Lane’, and a compact Viburnum called ‘Watanabe’. If they flower this year I will share some photos. It is always a gamble, seeing what will survive several weeks of freezing temperatures in winter, and the harsh midsummer sun reflected off the concrete yard. I can always move things to the shady side of the barn if it gets too hot, which is our refuge too!