Today I walked round the garden and thought how it belies the fact that it is mid-winter, there are so many flowers either in bloom or in bud.
In bloom are large trusses of golden yellow mahonia, tiny black insects are to be found deep in these flowers and they are a favourite of chaffinches, who spend a great deal of time looking for them.
The pretty mid-pink flowers of viburnum bodnantense with it's amazing perfume alerts the senses before I am even near the shrub, it is a great addition to the winter garden.
Ivy is blooming and will be such great succour for early bees, drawn out on mild winter days.
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| Hellebore |
Bright yellow winter aconites are made more attractive by the green collar around the base of the flower, these flower under trees, in flower beds and in the lawn and are a great addition to any winter/spring garden. These plants are easily propagated by digging up their tubers as the plant is dying back and either breaking or cutting it up before immediately replanting the pieces.
There have been primroses in flower the whole of the last year, the common primula vulgaris and for the last few weeks, I have been enchanted by a new type of primula flowering in the garden, it is Jack in the Green and is quite delightful. It has a normal looking flower which then has a green ruff of small leaves around the base of the flower. I am hoping it will seed and colonize the surrounding area. The primrose with it's pretty pale petals and delicate perfume is and has been the favourite flower of many folk, including Benjamin Disraeli who was supposed to have presented Queen Victoria with a posy of primroses.
Cyclamen in varying shades of pink stand proudly above their mound of very attractive leaves. These cyclamen leaves are so attractive that if the plant bore no flowers it would still be worth having in the garden.
Amazingly we still have roses blooming, beautiful pink ones on two different bushes.
Dropping down a wall is perennial arabis, its bright white flowers, held above the carpet of its mid-green and yellow variegated leaves.
The hazel, birch and garrya ellyptica are attractively covered in long, dangling catkins reminiscent of the decorations hanging from a Christmas tree.
In bud are dozens of hellebores, it is a shame that these hang their heads because when you gently tilt them and look into their faces it is very pleasing, they are usually speckled and so pretty. A few years ago I read that a new variety had been bred that held their heads face upward, as yet I haven't seen any though but would be interested to do so.
Clumps of snowdrops are showing fat white buds above their density of leaves. This year we will have to divide them or risk losing them as the clumps are so dense and I recently heard that they suffer from red spider mite at this stage, which kills them if they are not divided. This job should be done while the plant is in the green, in order to be sure of successful division and replanting.
Plump daffodil buds are rising from between their short three inch high sword like leaves.
The magnolias and camelias are fatly budded and together with all the above mentioned show a promise of spring not too far away.
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