Why do I love April so much? It is my birthday month so a reason to celebrate – but April is the month of growth. It begins with bare brown branches (apart from the hawthorn which is always the first to come out) and bare brown soil and ends with long days full of the billowing glory of spring, heavy with leaf and alight with flower and the wonderful sight of our swallows having returned home for the summer.
The weather in March has been kind enabling work to really progress in our new walled garden. The builders have fitted all the steel edging around the beds and borders that have been created and they have been filled with good quality topsoil. Hew has done a fantastic job of jet washing all of the walls – no mean feat as they were covered in a thick white lime-based paint from when the old building was part of a dairy when Columbine was a farm. Brick plinths are soon to be built for two statues and an urn to sit on, an old galvanised tank is to be turned into a water feature and soon it will be ready for planting. All incredibly exciting.
Our greenhouse is full to bursting with seedlings – lots of them for the new garden. The joy of growing plants is so much greater when you have grown them yourself and nurtured them from seed. This is the best month for blossom (such a lovely word) and our tulips are at their peak. Everything has an incredible freshness and energy and the whole garden is changing daily – almost visibly as we watch it. April delivers all you could possibly hope for along with the certainty of even more to come.
Kate Elliott came to Columbine Hall in 1997 when she was sixteen. She is now head gardener but also helps with managing the property generally and in conducting guided tours.