April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
TS Eliot From The Wasteland.
I know – everyone quotes this as April arrives, for a dozen different reasons.
I beg to be excused: I love The Wasteland, because I studied it for ‘A’ level at school. It reminds me of the joy and reward that comes from close study – in that case of a text. Just think what riches there are out there, which I have subsequently neglected. We could gain so much for studying a garden like that – but it’s only ever our own garden that obtains anything like that kind of scrutiny.
And the problem there, is that when I venture out in April I expect to discover disasters rather than rewards. This is a garden considerably of my creation and in my mind that does not bode well. Especially in April. Because April is when I begin to scour the garden to discover what has or – here’s the rub (ah – Shakespeare, there’s another neglected treasure trove) – what has not survived the winter.
This has been a winter and so far a spring of relentless rain. So I wonder whether plants have rotted off or drowned. Did they like it? Did I heed too much the doomsayers telling me to plant for drought? (No doubt that will arrive soon). Then I think of the reputation Ireland has, which catches a great deal of our rain as it bashes in from the Atlantic: the ‘green Isle’. So maybe lots of plants have been sopping it up in thirsty joy. We hope.
I go and look.
I look for some tiny decorative ferns, which I used to line an edge.
Yes, a bit out of focus – it’s the bending down that makes it hard to take a pic….This is last year.
Yes, I can see some.
Three out of six or seven.
This is only a partial relief, since I’m focused on Doom. But look! Is that a tiny brown frond??? Phew. Yes!!
Four!?
But what about the others??? Sigh….
I examine some pots.
Now just how is this possible when they’ve been sitting next to each other? (Is there something ominous lurking in that pot??)
Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ . Well, it has one stem….
Last autumn I experimented with a different – to me – way of taking cuttings.
I have a nameless hydrangea which I love, so I stuck some of its stems by the edge of a wall. Most of them vanished. But one put out a couple of sweet little hopeful leaves! Yey! Next time I looked they have also vanished. It is now in a temporary sort of greenhouse, and my fingers crossed:
And yes, I do use organic slug pellets and if only I’d used them earlier.
One of my favourite things in the garden is the arrival of the Euphorbia griffithii ‘Fireglow‘:
This is it in full swing.
That’s two beds full of it. Now I want all four beds full of it. Just in case you’re wondering if such fullness leads to emptiness later, it doesn’t:
Plant thugs and they fight it out.
So I look to see how this mega vigorous thug plant is doing after three years in another bed. Hm.
Well, it’s alive.
Last year we went garden visiting and stopped for tea on the way home.
We had tea in a small walled garden and in that garden were dozens of pale pink valerian. I love valerian and I had never seen that colour before.
A small sample of my valerian.
I have no pale pink, so gardener like, I have to have one. So I nicked some of the copious seed and came home and sowed it. It grew like mustard and cress – mega delight and much showing off to Charles.
Today? Well….
Bit sparse.
Not much there, is there? I peer at it every day in hope that more will pop up. What if those that have survived don’t then survive planting out???
Well, to quote another poem “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.” (Robert Burns).
That quote could have headed up this post, really. So, are you out there gloating, or grieving??
Out there happy and enjoying our beautiful weather. ❤️
50’s to 70’s and just enough rain to help everyone green up.
As I read your posts I realize what a different climate we have. April is our perfect month of rebirth. And the ever present todo list.
The todo list does not come from a gardening magazine, but from the knowledge that July is coming. July and August are our most unpleasant months. Heat and humidity make them something to be enjoyed from the air conditioning after working outdoors at work all day. Even more than 1st frost, July and August are the months to work around.
Last frost is typically mid March. By April 15th the shade trees are almost fully leafed out. The world is perfect for a few months.
We grow weeds that are pretty. Very little doesn’t come back.
Except the rotting of the fancy coneflowers. Some day I’m going to need to try them in pure sand…
Wishing you a beautiful garden year!
Thank you for this – it is quite strange to be writing for an audience which may be anywhere in this tremendously varied gardening world. I’m most aware of it in relation to the plants people may or may not be able to grow, but it’s an education in the differing climates people have to contend with. And it’s always weird hearing, as I do, from Australia, which has its seasons totally reversed to ours in the UK.
It’s part of the wonder of the World Wide Web – a term we’ve almost forgotten. It has broken so many boundaries.
Yes, Matt, but across the river here in Hampton, we seem to have missed out on most of the April showers. I’ve had to water some of my perennials. As for July and August, that is when I start gardening before sunrise, then go inside and work from home at my desk! Getting too old to work in the summer heat around here.
Fear not.. the Japanese painted ferns will survive and thrive.. I have a lot of them and they make it through all the winters in style!! April!!! Ah, if April showers bring the flowers, what do May flowers bring???
answer: The Pilgrims!
I’ll keep my fingers crossed. But Chaucer’s pilgrims set off in April, didn’t they?
Jim in MD here. I’m sure that sixteen people at least have told you this, but we don’t think in terms of Chaucer’s pilgrims that longen to goon on pilgrimages; we think of the Separatists that left England first for Holland, and then crossed the sea to start a colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Don’t let’s get started by what is meant by “the Civil War”… Evil grins, Jim
O them!
Yeah, I have heard of them. And that you had a Civil War too.
Gloating or Grieving? A little of both of course. Our Pacific Northwest weather is incredibly similar to yours that I can honestly say that I have “been there and done it” when it comes to joy and disappointment about this time of year. Actually, I have been pitching out dead perennials for a couple of months now. I am still waiting on the Penstemons and Phygelius to see if they will actually recover. Even though I covered the gunnera (it was its first year) I think I will have to replace it. I told the garden center to order me a big ass one this time, I am not getting any younger. The Guara isn’t looking to hot either and it had been in the ground for 3 years. Oh, not sure about the “hardy” fuchsias either but it make be too soon to yank them out. I love red valerian and I planted several clumps of both white and red. They got hammered by the winter but there are seedling coming up, not necessarily where I want them but so we will see what the next move is. I once thought in my youth that I would breed Centranthus and look specifically for those lighter pink ones but it has yet to happen and I am now a long way away from my youth. Fireglow has always been once of my favorites and I left a clump at my old garden along with a similar one that has chartreuse flowers and spreads. Haven’t quiet got up the courage to transplant a few divisions but this might be the spring to do it. I have to be more careful about introducing too many thugs since my new garden is so much smaller. these last two days for us have brought some wonderfully sunny days but along with the sun we have had late frosts (but light, mostly on the roof tops). I have accomplished much clean up and culling over the last two months but now is the time to do some serious editing (thanks to Mother Nature). Any seasoned gardener knows far too well that gardening is full of surprises, joys, and disappointment. But I can think of no better way to spend my free time that brings me so close to the spirit world and the simple pleasures of life. Our gardens are an ever-changing canvas that are never finished no matter how much we may want them to stay the same. But Hell, I am preaching to the choir.
Great rant as always, maybe one day I will make it over your way, I’ve been to the UK several times and visited many of the famous gardens (and I have relatives by marriage north of London). Here’s looking forward to the month of May, “that lovely month of May as they sang in the movie “Camelot”.
I love that you’ve wanted pale valerian too! I could find no reference to them anywhere.
I hope you do get to the Veddw sometime – it really does seem that we have an awful lot in common. Good luck with the editing.
More like resigned at the moment. Fickle Spring: snow crocus up and blooming, crushed by copious amounts of wet snow a few days later. Gorgeous gold and deep blue Iris histriodes up next, three days later crushed by heavy snow again and then frozen by -10C night temperatures. It’s hard to be philosophical when this happens but if nothing else gardening has encouraged me to always be optimistic and enjoy the beauty no matter how short lived it may be.
That’s bad! Squashed isn’t dead – but your frost sounds a bit lethal. It’s a tough game, this.
Watching, probably in vain, for the second of two white baptisias I had to transplant last year, despite their tap roots. Already have my eye on a replacement at a nursery if it doesn’t show up soon.
Yep, I’ve been checking out fern replacements too…..
Anne-
In complete empathy.
-Chicago
We’re not alone in this, I think – anywhere!
Right now I’m in west Cork in Ireland and it’s dry and bright but all the people we met said they’ve had a horrible wet spring. Of course the countryside seems perfectly happy but I don’t know how the gardens have fared. I’ll ask. Which is of no interest other than to say I read your piece and I’m thankful you are fretting on our behalf. My cardoons and heucheras and primroses are happy, so why don’t you sit in my garden and enjoy their health?
I’ll do that. Have a great trip! XXx
No gloating here, anyone gardening for a while has experienced their own disasters, all too easy to imagine a season going bad when you’ve seen it happen. My northern Virginia garden has enjoyed both a mild winter and a generally pleasant spring, very lucky not to have had the unending rain so many in Ireland and the UK have experienced — but hot and dry times certainly lie ahead, and I’ve seen narcissus flies this week. All part of the challenge.
Yes – there’s always something!
Hi from Maryland. In the picture captioned “plant thugs and they fight it out”, what is that beautiful tall white flower in the right background? I could use something that tall, and if it’s a “thug” then it may be able to tolerate the massive neglect it will get here.
It’s Chamerion angustifolium ‘Album’ = white rosebay willow herb (syn. Epilobium angustifolium Album) – a beautiful, vigorous plant. Doesn’t seem to seed as much as ordinary willowherb does here, but does spread outwards nicely.
Anne,
perhpas a more kindly view of April…
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
I am sure you recognise Chaucer. Forgive me for copying and pasting, but I don’t trust my 84 year old brain to reproduce what I learned so many years aago. Still I love the thought of the sweet showers of April.
Ken Warren
Thank you for this. If you were to find the podcast ‘The Rest is History’ and searched on The Canterbury Tales, you could have the great joy of hearing this read aloud, and then discussed by the brilliant Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook – https://www.goalhangerpodcasts.com/the-rest-is-history
I loved this post. Here we had the “winter that wasn’t” and of course I chose in the fall to sow thousands of prairie pussy-toe seeds because they need cold stratification. Followed all the instructions, and then no snow cover, not much cold and no seedlings on a fairly large newly cleared space. I can really sympathize with everyone’s joys and sorrows as we discover the surprises and disappointments in our dearly loved gardens.
Sometimes we have to think something is out to get us!
I wonder if, rather than “out to get us,” it’s a training ground for patience, perseverance, and that hope that springs eternal.
Pulled out my tulip bulbs in November, then forgot them in empty pots until cleaning the side yard in January. Sorted through them, carefully created the perfect soil mix, and planted the dozen or so that were mold and mush free. Threw the rest on the compost pile. The planted ones put out leaves but no bulbs. My compost pile, on the other hand had a stunning display for several weeks.
That made me laugh! I think they like compost heaps – I’ve had the ones I’ve chucked out after flowering also blooming in the bin!
I enjoyed this article and I’m grateful for it. Now I don’t feel so alone! This has been a particularly wet winter and spring in Western New York State, (U.S. zone 6b) and for weeks I was absolutely bereft, fearing that all my darlings had drowned. I’m just now beginning to see some encouraging signs of life. I have such big garden dreams but my reality hasn’t been so pretty of late. I try similar little “experiments” and feel sad when they don’t thrive and I wonder what I’ve done so wrong. I sometimes have to remind myself that loving a garden is a journey, not a destination.
I hope you have had some of the sunshine that arrived here today – makes me think it must encourage some mysterious spaces to fill.
But I confess, it was so unexpected that I let some seedlings cook in the cold frame!
Keep buggering on……..