Let there be light

What’s been happening here at The Laskett?

We had two very successful weekends for early spring opening, even though the weather wasn’t on our side for parts of it. To those who came out to support us, wrapped up in all the wet weather gear, it really made us feel supported with what we are doing here, so thank you.

April bought the opening of The Laskett for the new season. 2025 will hopefully hold a few surprises but I will tell you more about those when we can confirm. For now, one surprise which won’t be a surprise by the time you read this – we are now open on Wednesdays, so that’s three days you can visit us, eat cake and walk around the garden (this is what dreams are made of for gardeners). I work so hard to avoid eating the cake so please come and help me with this arduous task.

Booking is still required via the website before you visit, but hey it’s a step in the right direction for our local members and tourists to Hereford so they can enjoy the garden and learn about Perennial and the people we all support. By opening more this means we need more volunteers to support us, so if you want to help in the shop, café or welcoming visitors, please get in touch via email (thelaskett@perennial.org.uk) or come to The Laskett and fill out a form and have a chat with us.

May in the garden

The garden is really starting to pick up some pace now. Make sure you take some time to just enjoy your work over the winter; for example, signs will start to show if your winter pruning went well, which I’m sure it did. Pots of bulbs, if not ransacked by wildlife, will be trying to pull your focus and should take pride of place by your front door or outside your main windows.

This year we are excited to see what comes up from the thousands of bulbs our volunteers have planted over the last two years.

The winter was all about getting to grips with the borders and some simple maintenance and mulching, using our own well-stocked compost bays. If you're following The Laskett’s social media pages, you will have seen that we found a nest of grass snakes enjoying the warm sanctuary in January.

Highlights for me around the garden include Sir Muff’s Parade: as you come round the corner you are greeted by a Ribes sanguineum 'Elkington's White' – a flowering currant. Though the fruit aren’t as palatable as other Ribes, the main show is its spring display of white tubular flowers dangling gracefully in the sun. This is a great shrub to consider for a boundary hedge as it’s great for early nectar followed by the berries for wildlife.

Also, the display this year of Narcissus around the garden is looking amazing. Last year we had an overall blind year which can occur if the bulb has not stored enough food during the previous season. But 2025 looks like a knockout year with the early varieties such as ‘Early Bride’ and ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’ already being out. There are still lots to come, so April and early May should still hold a great display.

We have a Forsythia × intermedia 'Lynwood Variety' close to the house that’s always trained into a topiary piece but it’s not enjoying this treatment. So, after flowering this year, which we’re lucky to get as we cut off the buds, we will cut back the main older flowering wood to reinvigorate some stronger new growth and keep it growing as a shrub which I’m sure Shane will thank me for.

One thing you will see as you take a stroll through the garden is that the birds have had a whale of a time rooting through the mulch in their hunt for food, so please bear with the condition of the paths. We are trying to control this by adding short bed edges with hazel and Cornus that Louisa and the volunteers have coppiced from the field hedges that surround the garden. It’s a long process but it will be beneficial in the end. Coming from a National Trust property where beds were edged in steel edging, it's nice to have this opportunity to use a more natural product. It’s nice to be challenged by the wildlife who reside here as they do claim the garden in the winter.

This is also a time where you can split and move most grasses. A favourite I have in the garden is Calamagrostis × acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', located behind Britannia in the Serpentine, and it looks its best (for me) in mid-September catching the light in the golden hours of the garden. 

My final thought to leave you with is that May is like the start of a race. You have done all the months of prep work and we’re currently taking our positions on the starting line of summer: ON YOUR MARKS, GET SET…

James
Garden Manager, The Laskett