The Lakeland Gardener

Snowdrops - the symbol of hope  The soil is sleeping now.    There is a surge of activity to come.   The first snowdrops are poking their tiny buds above the sodden earth as if to enquire whether it is safe to emerge. The white bell shaped flowers, with smooth dull, green narrow leaves, are the first sign that spring is on the way.    The snowdrop does not have petals but instead has six white flower segments, known as tepals.    There are two structures three outer, convex in shape, and three inner, that are shorter, and have a small green notch at the top. Snowdrops do not rely on pollinators to reproduce but will usually be visited by bees and other insects on a warm day. Part of the national collection for snowdrops is held in Carlisle, Cumbria.    Margaret and David MacLennan have more than 1500 species in their nursery, including species and named varieties. The scientific name for snowdrops is Galanthus - it means milk flower.   Collectors of snowdrops are known as Galanthophile

Like a giant elephant's foot the massive Araucaria araucana sits proud in a Pinetum just 4 miles from my home.    The vicinity, alongside Aira Beck, was landscaped by the Howard family of Greystoke in the 1780's and is close to the shores of Ullswater, the Lake District National Park's second longest body of water. The area, used as a pleasure garden, contains footpaths, tracks and bridges.   Over half a million native and ornamental trees surround easily accessible waterfalls - the Cascades, High Force and Aira Force. In 1846 the Howards created a tree garden below Aira Force when they planted over two hundred specimen conifers (firs, larches, yews, pines, spruces and cedars) from all over the world.    This was the age of Victorian exploration and Empire, collectors were travelling the world discovering new plants to set into the landscapes of Great Britain. Cone bearing trees are easily distinguished from other woody plants.   None more so than Araucaria araucana, known

  Dove Cottage, Grasmere, Cumbria "When I undrew my curtains in the morning, I was much affected by the beauty of the prospect and the change.    The sun shone, the wind had passed away, the hills looked chearful."    Friday, 16th April 1802.     Dorothy Wordsworth (1717-1855) Today snow is falling.   Once more our fell is covered in white powder.     Dorothy Wordsworth sister of Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) wrote regularly in her journal.   Through her diaries we possess a social history of Dorothy's life and times. Dorothy and William moved into Dove Cottage, Grasmere, in 1799. "D is much pleased with the house and appurtenances the orchard especially;   in imagination she has already built a seat with a summer shed on the highest platform in this our little domestic slip of mountain"     December 1799   Letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) I visualise new plans for my garden during these cold, shadowy days.   Take out pencil and paint

Strolling the gardens of Lowther Castle you may come across the ghosts of those who have walked before.   Since 1150, through thick and thin, the Lowther family has ruled the North of Cumbria, their wealth accumulated through the development of coal.    Phantom spirits flourish throughout their vast estate.   Sir John Lowther (1605-1675) - the first Viscount, formally laid out the gardens, fathered 10 children by his first marriage and four by a second marriage William Wordsworth (1770-1850) - English poet.   The Lowther estate owed his family £5000 in legal fees and outstanding wages  Sir James Lowther (1736-1802) - Earl of Lonsdale, known locally as "Wicked Jimmy", a skinflint with a natural flare for political skulduggery  JMW Turner (1775-1851) - outstanding Romantic painter whose Lowther Sketchbook can be viewed in Tate Britain, London Robert Smirke (1781-1867) - leading architect of the Greek Revival style - he began work on the designs for Lowther Castle in 1806 www.lo

Thick snow clads the fells, the blue sky has turned to pink.    Our garden, our road has been covered in snow for two days.    Early this morning the temperature was minus 8 degrees centigrade. We stay at home, logs burn in the stove, inside the cottage the air is warm.   All is quiet, peaceful only chattering of birds disturb the calm. Yesterday in the morning, a short period of excitement.    A van stalled on the hill outside our garden -  a Border TV motor vehicle was stuck in the snow. The ITV  TV team had arrived to interview our neighbour-Amy Bray. She lives another mile along the lane.    The crew do not make it past our house. After strolling up and down the hill the ITV team are rescued by the Bray family. They arrive with spades and a wheelbarrow, they s pread salt and grit, call farming friends.  An hour passes before two tractors appear to shunt the van up the hill, turn it around. The crew decide to abandon the plans to interview Amy at her home and "mike her up&qu

  On the twelfth day of Christmas I wander through my garden.   My mind's eye sees the images of Kate Greenaway's fairies.    I search for the Elf Ring.    Are there " Ten lords a-leaping" ?    I count the number of elves in the illustration.  How many  f airies dance on toadstools.    I make a wish - to discover fairies in my garden. I look under under leaf debris.   Are they concealed behind rocks?   Buried in the snow?  The birds chirp.    Suddenly the tweets, the chirrups reach a crescendo.    Do birds see fairies?  We have many birds in our garden but none louder than the sparrows.   I estimate more than thirty.   They live amongst the evergreen shrubs that clad the front of the house.  The spiny shoots of Berberis thunbergii are the perfect foil for sparrows, for fairies, and for elves. During the 19th Century the Victorians revered fantasy, romantic stories and fairy tales.    Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) illustrated children's books.   This most famous creat

  Poet, Painter, Engraver and Visionary William Blake (1757-1827) witnessed a fairy funeral  "I was walking alone in my garden, there was a stillness amongst the branches and flowers and a more than common sweetness in the air; I heard a low and pleasant sound, and I knew not whence it came.   At last I saw a procession of creatures of the size and colour of green and gray grasshoppers, bearing a body laid out on a rose leaf, which they buried with songs, and then disappeared.   It was a fairy funeral".  T he mystical, crisp, clear days are over - dampness fills the air.   The soil beneath my feet is wet, sodden.    Snow static on top of the high fells.         The past few days have been perfect.   Frozen ground, blue skies, sunshine.   The preeminent time to prune trees and shrubs.   To remove dead, diseased, displaced, damaged wood.    Incisor cuts above the bud with clean, sloping cuts.  After, with the debris, I built wildlife and fairy habitats.   Twisted stems and boug