Sunday trading

On Easter, all the big stores in England are shut. By law. That means no trips to the grocery store, the hardware store (to catch up on all those home maintenance chores you should have been doing) or the garden centre. Small corner stores or gas stations are open (so if the Easter Bunny left you off his list, you can top up with a nice supply of chocolate with that lovely white powdery coating indicating Easter Bunny surplus supply from 2006).

Fun stuff remains open. Like amusement parks or the Royal Horticultural Society's Wisley botannical gardens.

We're not really amusement park people. So we went to the botannical gardens.

I had a dim hope that perhaps the garden centre at Wisley would be open - so I could get some "filler" plants for the mid-May to early June period which is not a peak period in my garden. Alas, no - the garden centre was shut up tighter than a drum. The Vol-in-Law could barely contain his glee. He does not like shopping and he does not like shopping in garden centres.

But actually it worked out very well, because for once we weren't dashing back to make sure that we had plenty of time in the store - so were able to amble pretty much aimlessly throughout the gardens.

And we saw areas we hadn't seen before - including a whole gorgeous hillside of magnolias (only just past their peak), azaleas and rhododendrons (only just starting). And in the rest of the park the mid-season tulips and narcissus were were bloomin' marvellous.

And I wasn't stressed trying to get to the store and the Vol-in-Law was stressed dreading a trip to the store trailing me around and providing lack-lustre, half-hearted opinions on plant selections. We were simply able to enjoy the lovely weather, the beautiful sights and each others' company.

The only disappointment was trekking up a hill on the advice of a sign which said their were acres of amazing blossom in the fruit fields. We'd been scrumping (minor apple stealing) in that orchard on Apple Day back in the fall, so I knew that there is indeed a huge number of fruit trees, row upon row, and I imagined it was quite impressive in bloom. Well, it wasn't. Nary an apple tree was in bloom (too early? too late? bad year?). So there were acres of bare branches on view, instead. But there were some lovely cherries, plums and pears - and let's face it, when you've seen one prunus blossom...



A rare and lovely Magnolia pseudokobus


Sweet cherry "sweet heart" blossoms


Rhododendron Hydon Amethyst


Tulipa Appeldoorn's Elite


Mid season narcissus

You can click thru any of the pictures for a closer look