Oakwell Hall In March - Part One

My last post about Oakwell Hall was in October last year, you can read about it in my Garden Visiting In October - Part One and Garden Visiting In October - Part Two posts. At the time of that visit, the walled garden was winding down and there wasn't a lot of colour to be seen, though the trees and plants still had their leaves. At this time of year, the bare backbone of the garden is to be seen, though there's so many evergreen shrubs that it has plenty of structure.

Here we are looking back towards the Hall.

 

 

Our visit took place last Saturday, a lovely spring day. The temperature had risen and the bees from the hives in the garden were out and about busily foraging amongst the flowers. You can see some of them at the entrance to the hives.

 

No garden should be without snowdrops at this time of year and I was pleased to see plenty in the borders.

One of the beds was filled with hellebores, lots of different colours. The flowers were literally buzzing, there were so many bees amongst them.

Another plant which flowers at this time of year is pulmonaria, again, the bees were enjoying these flowers.

The apple trees in this centre bed had fruit hanging from them on our last visit.

The trained apple trees have been pruned and are looking very neat set against the brick wall. There's some wonderful varieties.

Catshead. A green/pale yellow apple with many russet dots. So named because the shape of the fruit resembles a cat's head. It's an English cooking apple which was found in England in the 1600's and can still be found in the West Midlands.

Devonshire Quarrenden. A dark red flushed apple with a pale yellow background. An old Devon variety which dates back to the late 1600's. It can still be found in old gardens today.

Lemon Pippin. This is another cooking apple, small to medium sized with yellow skin. It's believed to be English but its history is confused. Possibly introduced from Normandy. They were in England prior to 1700.

The daffodils weren't out but it won't be long, they're budding up nicely.

The crocus have been planted on a bank, it's nice to be able to see them at close hand rather than having to stoop.

Primulas have been planted near to the Hall. They give a real zap of colour at this time of year.

It's nice to see the crocosmia and sedum just starting to regrow, the garden will take on a whole new appearance a few months down the line, just has it has since my last visit.

I'll show you more of Oakwell Hall in my next post.