Monthly musings: April

Spring perennials

Think ‘spring’ and ‘garden’ and what comes to mind? The odds are it’ll be snowdrops, daffs and tulips, plus popular early-flowering shrubs such as camellias.

But there are several superb spring-flowering perennials that deserve to be part of the seasonal ‘dream team’. They do a great job of ‘joining-up’ bulbs and shrubs to create eye-catching plant associations that launch the garden into full-on display mode right from the start of the growing season. Oh it does your heart good, at the end of a cold, damp, dull and memorably miserable winter.

First on my must-have list comes brunnera (Brunnera macrophylla). Think of it as a perennial forget-me-not, but better. Its airy sprays of small blue flowers are held just above the heart-shaped foliage that cups the bunches rather like gift-wrapping round a bouquet. The clumps slowly spread to cover the ground, making a good foot-high background for other plants from late March to early June. 

Add variegated varieties of brunnera such as 'Jack Frost' to the mix, and you’ll ‘lift’ the whole look by several notches. (They may not flower quite so ebulliently as plain-green-leaved forms, but their foliage is sublime). Brunnera enjoys reasonably well-drained soil and thrives in light or dappled shade – even when the soil dries out - where it lives happily for years without needing to be divided. Chop the whole plant down close to the ground after flowering, and it’ll send out a second set of fresh-looking leaves that persist through the summer, and smother out weeds.

Another must-have is Geranium macrorrhizum. It’s the earliest of the hardy cranesbills to flower, starting in late March or April and continuing for six weeks or so. It makes a neat, low mound of downy, aromatic, semi-evergreen leaves, studded-over with shapely pink flowers, each of which has a curl of long stamens at the centre.

It likes similar conditions to brunnera, so it’s brilliant groundcover under shrubs and roses, but it’ll also take more direct sun so it’s great with the perennial wallflower Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’, which makes low ‘bushes’ of silver-mauve foliage topped with mauve-pink flowers from March till mid-summer. Add some bergenia, the old fashioned elephant's ears, with spikes of pink or mauve flowers and huge waxy leaves. Group all three together for a colourful spring corner.

Several showy euphorbias peak in spring; Euphorbia griffithii ‘Fireglow’ has upright bunches of orangey flowers around April-time, and the chunky Euphorbia characias wulfenii is covered in huge lime-green to chartreuse-yellow domes of flower – it’s an architectural evergreen that looks stunning with a foreground of spring bulbs, but it also makes a stunning stand-alone plant.

If you have a patch of garden with woodland conditions, well-drained soil that’s packed with humus (ideally leafmould) in dappled shade cast by a light canopy of deciduous trees and shrubs overhead, use it to grow bishop's hat (Epimedium). This unusual plant makes medium-sized mounds of striking, heart-shaped foliage through which push stalks of strange mitre-shaped flowers in shades of yellow, lilac, orange or reddish pink throughout April and May. Though only smallish, the clusters show up well against the foliage (which is often coppery tinged in spring in some varieties).

Between them, they’ll make spring special until the big summer garden display sparks up.