Yogi Claire will lead you in this unique yoga class is suitable for all levels, with a focus on relaxation and mindfulness.

Gentle, flowing sequences and restorative Yin yoga postures will be fused together, along with meditation, breath work, poetry, seasonal anecdotes and guided relaxation to help you feel balanced, grounded and rejuvenated.

Where exactly in the Gardens we practice is weather dependent. If it is warm and sunny we can practice amongst the trees and flowers. If the weather is less agreeable, we have the option to retreat under a canopy, protecting us from the elements, while still allowing us to enjoy the scenic gardens.

Book directly with Claire  – click each date below

Sunday June 14th   10am

Friday June 19th 6.30pm

Please arrive at least 10 minutes early to check in and set up your mat so the class…

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Blossom season starts with blackthorn (sloes!), then beautiful pink fluffy cherry blossoms around the city, before moving on to the generous blossom of pear trees, then apples.  The highly scented Hawthorn (‘May’) and Elderflower follow later.

This Blossom Bash free event is a great way to start the season and brighten the experience for our eyes and nose…all welcome, just drop in.

Sunday 22 March 2026, 10:30am to 3:30pm

a day of family filled fun, fresh air and FREE activities.

The National Trust held an family picnic event in the grounds of The Charterhouse in Coventry to celebrate the start of the 2024 Blossom project. Picture by Shaun Fellows / Shine Pix Ltd

Activities include:

• Flower Crown making with Ildiko Nagy
• Scavenger Trails around the gardens and orchards
• Interactive storytelling with Pyn Stockman (11.30am and 1.30pm)
• Facepainting with Coloured Cheeks
• Blossom themed crafts
• Photos with our Blossom Queen.

We’ll also be showcasing the four winning designs from the National Trust Blossoming Spaces Competition which were submitted by primary and secondary children across East Birmingham.

Special Offers

The first 150 people to enter the event and share how they heard about the Blossom Bash will receive a token for a free hot or cold drink from the café.

Additional free  free travel: NT will be arranging coaches departing from, and returning to sites within Shard End, Heartlands, Bromford & Hodge Hill and Yardley & West Stechford. For more information about the coach, please email Birmingham-Blossom@nationaltrust.org.uk

More events

Look out for more blossom events at the Gardens across the season:

• Morris into May, Sunday 3rd May,
• ‘English Hanami’ blossom picnics, with Japanese food  Sunday10th May,
• Elderflower foraging and cordial making (tbc),

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Our sense of time is a bit out of alignment these days –  lockdown has meant that many of us have been looking inwards and at our gardens. We’ve been noticing change and growth perhaps more acutely than ever before. But even so .. we lockdown and the beginning of spring and now summer is well on its way… how did that happen?

Here in the garden at the start of the month we are busy finishing the summer bedding displays. Risk of frost is surely passed and the summer plants that went in a few weeks ago have established and are flowering. It is really important though to water these temporary residents if rainfall is lacking. They won’t put on their best show if they are struggling to survive and desperately thirsty.

We have all rediscovered our love of hanging baskets this year. All kinds of improvised and hand nurtured baskets and containers are seen around peoples front  doors and on balconies. Now, just because you can go out, don’t neglect their love and care. Any reserves of goodness in the compost, or within the plants themselves, are being used up for growing and flowering. A regular feed with some water soluble fertiliser will ensure your baskets keep looking vibrant. You’ll  need to water your baskets everyday by now as the sun dries out the compost very quickly. So feeding them while watering is no extra work for you.

‘Dead heading’ …

Flowers, just like bird song, are not there to please our eyes – or ears. The plant produces flowers as part of its main job – to reproduce itself for next year. It is merely a happy side effect that we humans like the look of flowers. So, armed with that knowledge we can intervene and try to help the plant produce more flowers for our benefit.. Once a plant has flowered and set seed it’s job is complete, so will relax …and die back. The answer for us humans is to fool the plant by removing all the old flower heads and it will keep on trying to reproduce by pushing out lots more lovely flowers.

A time of plenty in the Veg. plot

In the vegetable patch you can now start to reap the benefits of all the extra time you’ve been able to put in over the last few months by harvesting some of the crops you have been caring for.

Items such as salad leaves, peas and beans should be ready to eat and weeding around the vegetables becomes easier. With the heat of the sun any small weeds can be hoed off and will frazzle and die. Happy eating and keep growing your own food… Hyper local is good!

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This scrambling vine has graced the courtyard for quite a few years. It happily climbs the height of our lovely walls and has a strange habit of changing colour as it grows… white and pink in almost random proportion and then into green. 2 years ago it was hard pruned, lest year’s show was meagre.. but this year!!! And we are not there to see it :-((

Actinidia kolomikta was collected by Charles Maries (a local boy from Hampton Lucy in Warwickshire!) from Sapporo in Japan in 1878… which is why it’s in our courtyard and not in the main Garden – ‘wrong period’ we love the Victorians, but our dates are 1680s -1760s.

Here also is a wonderful drawing by Jeni Neale of the Birmingham Society of Botanical Artists – a big thank you to her for her permission to share the drawing.

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It you’re planning a proper weekend out – in the back garden/ allotment/ windowsill – here are some very useful links.

‘heir and a spare’

Don’t forget, if you do have any ‘spares’ or ‘extras’ in your propagation pots, do keep a few aside for us, please. If you can.

When we reopen, we’d be very grateful for any donations of plants for us to sell to the public – a way we can raise some funds to fill the hole that has appeared this year. Many thanks  (Ps we cannot take strawberry plants. Please keep your plants at home until we open – we cannot look after them at present. Many thanks

RHS and Garden Organic

The RHS is going all out to create the event of the season online this year. This week saw the launch of My Chelsea Garden, in conjunction with the BBC’s The One Show. It’s a national competition asking people to enter pictures of their garden in one of the following four categories: Back Garden, Front Garden, Indoor Garden (Houseplants, window sills, balconies, etc), and Kids’ Corner Garden.

The competition runs until 18 May so do feel free  to send in your pics using #mychelseagarden 

The RHS are also supporting local nurseries by promoting the Plants Near Me website – if you are looking for plants and gardens product, enter your postcode and see who is still selling- and often delivering.

Working with the earth

As always the national charity for organic growing, Garden Organic has an absolute wealth of advice and helpful information – you can access a lot of their information without being a member…

Here is the link to some great and timely podcasts https://audioboom.com/channels/4987940 

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Things should be moving along pretty quickly now the highlight at the start of the month has to be tulips and with April’s sunshine and showers plants are growing at pace but there are a few things that you can do at the start of the month to reduce your workload later on. 

Applying a layer of mulch around trees and perennials before the warmer weather arrives not only will keep the moisture locked in but it will stop a lot of weeds from emerging saving you valuable time later on in the season that can be spent doing other important garden jobs .  

Give your plants a feed, trees shrubs and hedges will benefit from a slow release fertiliser. Roses are especially greedy plants feeding will aid flowering in June. You can buy specialist rose fertiliser but any fertiliser that contains a mix of potassium nitrogen and phosphorus will be beneficial. 

Sow any hardy annuals now in their final positions these fast growing plants are a cheap way to fill a border with colour during the summer plants such as pot marigolds, Californian poppies and cornflowers are good choices. Those annuals that are a little more tender and don’t like the cold can be sown undercover now in pots and placed out once the risk of frost has passed. 

In the vegetable garden it’s time to plant out your potatoes, early crops can be planted at the start of the month and main crops at the end of the month. Courgettes, marrows, squashes and pumpkins can now be sown individually in 5cm pots undercover and tomatoes, aubergines chillies and sweetcorn should now be sown undercover as they need a long growing season to produce their fruits. Don’t forget to thin out any seedlings that were sown in March, in order to reach their full potential plants need space as well as sunshine and showers. 

It’s a good time to completely empty any compost bins for mulching. Hibernating animals should now have woken and moved on, but still be careful as you don’t want to spear any frogs or hedgehogs with a garden fork. 

Stay safe all, and hope to see you again soon. The next Gardener’s tips will be posted at the beginning of May  CBHGT x

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Traditional Japanese food by Pika Pika will be available on the day, with a selection of delicious sushi and curry available.

Bring your own food and drink too. Cafe open for light refreshments
Music and other activities likely! Take part in learning how to create beautiful origami creations.
Normal entrance fees

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A member of the Ericaceae family of plants, most commonly known as heather, the flowers bear a strong resemblance to those of heathers, with bell-like downward facing flowers in small clusters.

You may have also seen this plant in a well known Morris & Co. design, used in fabrics and wallpapers where you can clearly see the red fruits and white flowers.

Have a wander down to the Lower Wilderness to have a closer look at these interesting plants..

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Kale does well over the colder months, so will hopefully add some interest in the garden over the following darker months. As pigeons take a fancy to stripping the foliage off plants in the Brassica family, the precaution of placing net over the kale plants has been necessary to stop them becoming just tattered stems!

I have used two beds to grow the kale in, with 20 plants in each one, and to create a neat formal look the use of a tape measure was implemented to ensure even spacing.

The botanical name for kale is Brassica oleracea var. acephala, ‘Brassica’ being the genus consisting of cabbages, ‘oleracea’ meaning that the plant can be used as a vegetable and ‘acephala’ meaning ‘without a head’, i.e that the plant is loose leafed rather than with a head as many cultivated cabbages have. Kale has a long history as a food crop, being one of the most important green vegetables in Europe up until the end of the Middle Ages.

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