Spring and hidden orchids

As Spring arrives our shady glade, which you can see in the photograph starts to produce the lovely green of Bluebells under what is a rather splendid Acer palmatum which has superb red leaves throughout the year. In among these bluebells are some of our earliest orchids to appear, the Early Purple, Orchis mascula. We are not entirely sure where they are, but we do know they are in there somewhere. They hide well at this early stage of growth, even though they share the same purple spotting of the leaves with the Common Spotted Orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii. It would be possible to wade in and find them, but that would damage the bluebells, so with a great deal of patience we wait. When the bluebells flower we will spot the Early Purples sticking their head up with a distinctly different shade to the flower. Then we will know that the wet winter has been survived and our other naturalised orchids will start to appear, ensuring our seed supplies for this year. In the same way, unknown to us until they flowered we had a little patch of Snow Drops appear, completely hidden in among the bluebells.

Along with the bluebells you can see another plant which is far less welcome, Ivy. A splendid plant in its own right, it has taken to blanketing the ground, almost attaining the status of a weed. Control is by pulling it out by hand, which is a backbreaking activity. But for as long as we leave it on the trees and fence for the Holly Blue butterflies, we will accept a little ground cover.

We are now starting on a big repotting exercise for the show season, many of the plants now ready for sale are four years old and the compost is starting to compact. By repotting the plants we can be sure you get the best plants possible.