Five winners for a Gascon Spring

Readers of these blogs will know that I am not a great fan of Springtime in Gascony, certainly not a patch on English springs, and a recent visit to the 'great gardens of Cornwall' has only reinforced my view. Of course these gardens, many of them well over a hundred years old, are exceptional. Everything there conspires - climate, acid soil, and deep valleys running down to the sea - to produce really dramatic effects, with azealeas, camellias, magnolias, and rhododendrons leading the charge, not to mention a thousand tree ferns. Here some of us can do camellias and magnolias but even these with some difficulty, so what are we left with for the Spring offensive.

Well first and foremost I would recommend is Prunus x subhirtella 'Autumnalis', which in fact with me never flowers in the autumn, but intermittently during the Winter - it is often called the Winter Flowering Cherry -  but with a final burst in early Spring. There is a white and pink version, both to my mind equally good. And apart from the flowers it also makes an attractive tree, with often good autumn colour. There is a view that, apart from the ubiquitous Prunus cerasifera Pissardi with its masses of pink flowers in early Spring followed by purple leaves, Flowering cherries  do not do here, but all I can say is that my 'Winter Flowering Cherry' have always flourished. As for P.Pissardi it cannot be denied that when in full flower it is very attractive, but the purple leaf, which one might think would be a plus, turns out to be rather dull and heavy which prevents it ever being in my top five. I have tried more than once P. Tai Haku, the Great White Cherry, but it has never looked especially happy. More successful has been P.Shirofugen, with pink buds and opening to fully double white flowers, and in fact I would strongly recommend it, even if it cannot quite make the top five.

Quite different is the Winter flowering honeysuckle. There is nothing particularly attractive about its shape or leaf colouring: it is just a bush. But when in flower its scent makes it a must: no need to put your nose to it; its fragrance will seek you out. There are essentially two versions: Lonicera fragrantissima and L. x purpusii. I think that I have always grown the former, but then I am not sure that I can tell the difference, but one or the other has to be included

One of the great glories of an English Spring are the bulbs, starting with snowdrops, and going on through crocus, daffodils and narcissus, tulips and on to blue bells.  I have found all these bulbs difficult. Some seven years ago I planted over three hundred snowdrops. This year I couild not find one ! My daffodils at least do not die, but they do not increase, or if they do only very slowly. I do not recommend the so-called English bluebell - Scilla nutans - though having seen thousands in Cornwall I have to admit that they are probably more attractive than the Spanish - S.campanulata. But they do not like our heat, and if what you are wanting is a blue carpet the Spanish will do very well. The best bet , though more a corm than a bulb, is Cyclamen coum. These come will all sorts of leaf patterns , including a very smart silver- leafed one, and a colour range of a very deep purle through to white. They seem to like our climate, no animal seems to like eating them, and they multiple quite quickly. So I am going to put them in my top Five.

Much of our Spring colour is provided by the many fruiting trees, starting with almonds, peaches and pears and ending with the apples. All these are beautiful in flower, and I guess that I grow them more for their flowers than their fruits, since what with the birds, the diseases and and the many insects I never seem to end up with a very good crop. The pink of a peach is wonderful, but for sheer flower power a cherry is very hard to beat, which of course raises the question mentioned above of why one sees so few of the decorative cherries. In the wild are the buckthorns - Rhamnus cathartica - and the hawthorns - Crataegus monogyna. The latter is a very large family and I suspect very underused here, people perhaps being put off by their thorns, or perhaps even more likely because very few varieties are readily available. For me the most attractive all the year round crataegus is the so-called Washington Thorn - C.phaenopyrum, but it is its autumn tints rather than its Spring flowers that makes it a winner. But for a 'Gosh factor' in Spring C.Paul's Scarlet is very hard to beat and for that reason I am going to put it in my top Five - and moreover various nurseries, including Ets Spahl, and garden centres supply it.

I would love to have included a magnolia, one of my favourite trees, and of course to be seen at their absolute best in the Cornish gardens that I have just visited. When I first came to SW France I was rather optimistic about growing them here, and in a garden close to the Pyrenees they did indeed grow with some success, including some of the newish varieties such as M. Manchu Fan and M.peppermint stick. But on moving away from the mountains I have become less optimistic. We do grow some including one of my absolute favourites, M.Star Wars with its deep pink flowers of some size, but I cannot say that they are very happy. I guess that the M. soulangeana varieties, of which there are many, are the ones to go for here, despite the fact that in some people's eyes they have been rather overtaken by the rush of new hybrids  developed in the second half of the last century especially in California and New Zealand. They seem to put up with our clay soil and hot summers better than most, but until I have greater success with them  I cannot put them in my top Five.

So lastly the early buddleyas. B.officinalis is fine enough, and is certainly very floriferous but the flowers are of a rather too pale lilac for my liking and the growth is very upright which makes it a rather gawky bush or small tree. Much more attractive is a near relation, B.officinalis Vicomte de Noailles.There is something of a mystery about this plant. I acquired mine from the great buddleya specialists at le Jardin de Rochevieille, but on searching the net I failed to find any reference to it - a rosemary named after the Vicomte, and also a camellia sasanqua, but no buddleja. I also failed to find it in my admittedly out of date 'Plant Finder', but neither in the very recent new edition of Hillier's 'Trees and Shrubs', so I am just beginning to wonder whether it really exists. Mine certainly does. It flowers at about the same time as my B.officinalis, which is early Spring, but the flowers are of a much deeper lilac/purple, and rather than being stiff as is the case with most buddleyas they droop in what I think is a most attractive way. So much in love am I with this shrub that not only do I include it in my top five for a Spring garden, but I would put it in my top five, all seasons included.

P.S. Since writing this I have been in touch with Le jardin de Rochevielle and they tell me that they are probably the only nursery to produce B.off. Vicomte de Noailles which they found in the famous garden of that name. They are present at the Gaujacq Fairs and I can only strongly recommend  a purchase of this wonderful shrub.