Blooming marvellous

You've picked a good time to pop in as the garden is positively blooming at the moment with rhododendrons and azaleas. Now I have to admit that these aren't my favourite plants, I find them a bit brash and too much "in your face" but beggars can't be choosers and currently there's not much else in the garden - yet.  We'll have a wander down and have a look at them.

The first ones we come across are in front of what we refer to as "the travelodge extension" mainly because whoever designed this part of the building had no imagination whatsoever and it just reminds us of travelodges up and down the country. However turn your back to it and you look across towards the chapel - much better!

Although I did say earlier that I'm not too particularly keen on them I do find the individual flowers very pretty. Just lean forward into this bush and have a look at these flowers.

We'll move on now to the next collection of them which is at the top of the drive but if you glance down towards the pond as we go you'll notice a bush coming into bloom. I really do need to cut the grass this week but finding a day when it's not raining is proving a tad difficult.

The top of the drive is where the most brashy ones are - they positively shout at you to look at them. 

I'm currently working on this area and have uncovered most of the original rock garden featured in Francis Frith's photo.

http://www.francisfrith.com/betws-garmon/photos/view-from-rock-garden-plas-y-nant-c1930_b78011/

Round the corner next to the stream we have this one - which is very bright.

As you came up the drive you probably noticed the purple rhododendrons - these and the ones up by Rapture Heights are on the list to be removed as they're the rampant rogue ones which self-seed all over the place and destroy natural habitats. 

However, not all self-seeders are bad news. Have a meander round here but watch your feet as I've deliberately left this area to self-seed as it contains many of my favourite plants such as welsh poppies, primroses, aquilegias, alchemillas and saxifragas to name but a few. These are going to be transplanted to other areas of the garden where they will hopefully self-seed forever and ever!

Well it's been lovely seeing you again - I'm off now to pot-on some baby perennials which will be ready to go out into the big wide world of the garden later in the year. Don't forget to keep checking Plas y Nant's facebook page as there's lots more snippets and photos on there.