Definitely feels as if the garden is moving on now with the season. Since dodging the worst of Goretti the weather as been very mild with low pressure systems regularly rolling in from the Atlantic. Unfortunately though this has meant rain every day so far this year and the recent Storm Chandra caught many trees off guard. The water table is so high it didn’t take much wind from a different direction to topple quite a few more. They were completely waterlogged as can be seen in the images below. We were busy replanting a couple of broken Dicksonia squarrosa ferns when the first two went down narrowly missing the leader of Magnolia sinica. On the bright side this is a great stroke of luck as it is critically endangered with only about 50 individuals in its native habitat. This is the only plant growing here and though several branches broke, it somehow survived a double hit from a monster pine/larch combo. Also more luck with the rare Trachycarpus group from Nth Vietnam which look quite perky under this fallen Abies log arrangement!

This lovely small growing Pieris ryukuensis (maybe a geographic form of japonica?), is flowering for the 1st time, very early; and pleasing with a dash of pink on several of the flowers in each truss. On a recent wander it was hard to pick the best thing in the garden between the Rhodo protistum (ex NW Yunnan) and this Clematis urophylla busy taking care of a power pole. 1st equal it was as they are so different but outstanding in their own way.

We have a month to clear the garden before opening on Sunday the 15th of March. There will be a few areas roped off where large trees will still be on the floor and work is still in progress. But all paths will be cleared and the top part of the garden will be fine. We have taken the decision to leave many large sticks on the floor until the ground is dry in Summer, when big machinery can be brought it without too much compaction to the soil, lots to look forward to with the Magnolia flowers just emerging….