The first day of spring

After such a wet and windy winter, and what is going on in the world at the moment, everybody needs a little cheer and a great deal of joy which spring can bring us. This blog is designed to not only celebrate the official beginning of spring, but to hopefully inspire those of you who are isolated at home to get outside into your gardens and enjoy the peace, tranquillity and beauty that can be found from all the different plant species that appear at this time of year.

For many people spring symbolises new beginnings and rebirth, similarly, for us gardeners spring is like the beginning of the year in the gardening world.

Now we have the bright colour of glorious daffodils and other radiant spring flowers, whose vibrancy just lifts the spirits. We have a British native flower in our garden called Narcissus pseudonarcissus, the Lent lily. This flower is becoming extremely rare however, Britain is still the leading producer in the world of the cut flower Narcissus. Did you know there are over 26,000 species!

Starting from the driveway at Pensthorpe, this year has brought a good display of a wide variety of daffodils and there are many more around the gardens of Pensthorpe. Around the red squirrels you will see Narcissus thalia, a multi-head almost pure white, and, in the Wave Line Garden, one called Winston Churchill; frilly white with a bit of yellow and an amazing scent. There’s also the reliable little dwarf tete-a-tete at the end of the Wave Line Garden near our popular Boar sculpture. They are such reliable bulbs and need such little care apart from when they get overcrowded. When this occurs, we simply just lift them up, divide them and then spread them out. Many parts of the plants are toxic which is great as it means they don’t get eaten by the wildlife and spoil the visual display for us humans!

Daffodils aren’t the only bulbs emerging at Pensthorpe now; there are lots of alliums and tulips in the Corten Infinity Garden. Snowflakes Leucojum, which are very similar to snowdrops but taller, can be seen in the Wave Line Garden.

There are a few bulbs coming up in the Millennium Garden including Tiny Scilla, Dwarf bulb, Russian Snowdrop Puschkina.

If it safe for you to do so, we hope you can take some time to sit in your own garden and wonder at the plant species you have, or do a little bit of maintenance such as weeding. Now it is more important than ever to keep your well being in check and getting outside is such an important aspect of positive mental health and happiness, we hope you can use your gardens to alleviate some of the stresses this current coronavirus situation is presenting to us all and we hope you can enjoy your outdoor space as an extension to your main living space, at this difficult time.