The severe winds in March damaged my glasshouse, tore limbs from the cedars and toppled a large oak in the park. First westerly and then from the east, the gardens suffered a great battering and being 660ft up the gusts were fierce. Garden benches were blown into the big pond and off the ha ha wall.  The constant clearing up got on my nerves and the large wellingtonia was as usual the main culprit shedding cones, needles and branches all over the drive. It will have to go; this garden is not big enough for the both of us. Watch this space.

Everything in the greenhouse, despite breakages, is growing well. The last of the cinerarias I composted as I couldn’t stand the sight of them any more, they were going to go on forever and I needed the space for my pricked -out seedlings. All the Melianthus major roots I potted up in the autumn sprouted lavishly and I took dozens of cuttings, (pullings really as I merely tore them away from the old woody growths) and just popped them in the propagator. They all rooted and I am now awash with them. I read that they are all the rage in the best gardens this year...... goody!

Daisy and I have been enjoying walking round the estate checking up on all the bulb plantings from last autumn and the year before. I am very unhappy with a patch of daffs, which are in an ugly unnatural block. I must have been tired that day and will have to remember to soften the shape into a real drift next autumn. Another patch planted under some newly planted Malus have not appeared at all and this is a bother as it is close to the house. The ground is rather wet here and I suspect they have simple rotted. I have never had this happen before Daisy enjoys these walks especially in the woods when we view the new bluebell areas. I have never seen her dig for rabbits or foxes but she does come back stiff with mud sometimes, it must be a beauty treatment of sorts.

Work has begun in the main gardens increasing the size of the ponds. I have been digging up all the shrubs and herbaceous plants I want to keep and either potting them up or moving them immediately to a new garden I am planting at a farmhouse on the estate. It is very exciting to see old friends transported into a new situation. Because some of the shrubs are seven years old they have a greater impact than a young plant from the nursery. Some of the very large shrubs may not survive even though they have huge root balls and the acers will sulk as a matter of course. Nevertheless they all had to go and at least I have given them a  chance of survival. With the money I have saved I am going to treat the garden to some fiendishly expensive rusted iron wigwams to support the sweet peas. Thank goodness for spring.