The winter cometh...

It feels like a race against the cold weather.  Just when you think things should be quietening down in the garden, the grass stops growing and the trees shed their leaves, and we find ourselves launching headlong into a frenzy of bulb planting and Parterre sorting.  The kind of activities that make you mentally by-pass the winter and look to the joys of spring!

So 9,000 bulbs are now bedded down for the winter and are, we hope, stretching their tiny roots into the still warm soil, preparing to give us a fantastic show in the spring.

7,000 tulips have gone into the long border and the beds around the house.  They have been planted in a wavy swathe that should give a bold thread of colour along this enormous border.  We have gone for a mixture of purple tulips with the occasional white or striped flower to lift the colour. It's actually a mix of 7 different varieties.

Then we also have 1,000 mascari (little grape hyacinths) which have been divided between little patches on the long border but have mostly found a home on the fernery/rockery. Again a mixture of varieties has been used so that we can enjoy that amazing deep blue but lighten the effect with some pale blues and whites.

My personal favourite is the alliums.  A further 1,000 alliums have been planted around the house and in the long border.  We have included some some 'super globe' along the beds by the house. Not only do they grow incredibly well in this sheltered spot but we also dry the heads and use them inside the house in the winter.  The other advantage of the alliums is that, unlike the other bulbs, they do not seem to get eaten by the field mice. So we live in hope of an amazing display in the spring...that or we will have very fat field mice!

Following on from the Parterre work, we now have our very own Tamar river monster in place. Swim little fish, swim!!