Gardening in Emsworth.

 I visited the Arundel Castle Tulip Festival on 18th April with a few other EHS members.  It was quite spectacular.  In the grounds surrounding the castle thousands of tulips are naturalised, often mixed with the white narcissus Thalia.  The ornamental cherries were in full flower too, looking magnificent.  There are thousands more tulips in the formal part of the garden, some in pots with labels and others en masse in the various beds.   I grow tulips at home and the photo above shows some.  But what are they?  My resolution for next year is to make note of what I've put in and where they are.   Some come every year, white ones particularly, but I plant a few new ones each year because most don't appear again.

 For a few years I've been growing carrots successfully in a bucket or similar container.  They don't grow huge but they pull out very easily and come out clean.  This year I've used a large pot which I filled with peat-free compost mixed with horticultural sand(proportion about 5 to 1 compost to sand).  I sprinkled the seeds over the surface, then covered them with a thin layer of the compost mix and watered them with tap water.  I used the variety Nantes this time.  Adelaide is also good.  Both are early finger carrots.  They should germinate in 2 - 3 weeks.  

Epimediums are great for ground cover in dry shade.  Their flowering time is now. The photo is of Epimedium sulphureum , the most commonly grown variety.  Also appearing now are the new leaves, bright green compared with the old ones turning brown.  Sometimes I cut down the old leaves before the flowers appear.  They look good either way. Hellebores also do well in dry shade, pictured here with epimediums.

 The ground shouldn't be too wet when you plant potatoes, so I'm waiting for it to dry out a bit before I put mine in, probably after Easter.  They can be planted up until the end of May.  It's simple enough - use a trowel to dig hole the depth of the trowel, put a potato in, and cover with soil.  Space early potatoes in rows 30cm apart.  Rows should be 45cm apart.  Second early and maincrop potatoes should be spaced roughly 45cm apart and rows 60cm apart.  The difference between early, second early and maincrop potatoes is the time it takes for them to mature.  Earlies take about 10 - 12 weeks, and maincrop 15 weeks.  Earlies are the 'new' potatoes while maincrop are the ones to store over winter.