And, one of my new favorites, purple
dead nettle or stinging nettle gives a deep yellow/green shade.
Expert tip:
Dead nettle prefers moist but well-drained soil and full to part shade but can be affected by root rot if the soil is too wet and is prone to slug damage.
Jim Brady found English bluebell growing at Aughton, noting commoner cow parsley, dandelion and white
dead nettle blooming away too.
Dead nettle, lady's mantle, foxgloves, elephant's ears, euphorbia, cranesbill and some hellebores are the most notable exceptions.
They include basket-of-gold,
dead nettle, diascia, evergreen candytuft, most geraniums, nepeta, rockcress, Santa Barbara daisy, and Swan River daisy.
At Eccleston Mere, coltsfoot, red
dead nettle and yellow charlock are flowering away, and Jim found good patches of flowering lesser celandine in Rufford.
They include basket-of-gold (Aurinia saxatilis),
dead nettle (Lamium maculatum), diascia, evergreen candytuft (Iberis sempervirens), geranium, nepeta, rockcress (Arabis), Santa Barbara daisy (Erigeron karvinskianus), Serbian bellflower (Campanula poscharskyana), and Swan River daisy (Brachycome multifida).
And he reports white
dead nettle flowering at Lathom.
White
dead nettle, green alkanet and even star of Bethlehem are now blooming, but I could only find one cuckoo flower in flower on Sunday.
Cover any bare soil, especially around the edge of the bed, with a frill of ground-hugging
dead nettle Lamium White Nancy and Euphorbia myrsinites.
GEOFF SMITH sawa brimstone butterfly in his Eccleston garden last month, while Jim Brady observed several big patches of Danish scurvy grass in bloom along the East Lancs Road, and flowering wood anemone, marshmarigold and white
dead nettle - I noticed the latter too this week, at Marshside.
TUCK in dainty daffodil bulbs such as Tete a Tete between ground cover plants like variegated
dead nettle, periwinkle or Lamium maculatum "White Nancy".
