My garden in February

I’ll admit to very little garden activity again this month, other than stopping and taking more photos - though I’m hopeful that in the next month there’ll be much more actual gardening happening. But until then, let’s look back at February, when my garden has started to wake up.

The snowdrops, which I ended last month’s post with, have continued to develop - it seems these are the tallest of the two clumps I planted last Spring, and clearly I wanted to see these as I planted them closest to the house. The other clump have made an appearance but there’s not been as many as this. I suspect that both clumps with be even better next year.

It was great to catch the sun on this part of the garden early on in the month, especially at a time when sighting the sun was a rarity. I think I’ve identified the main shrub (bottom left) as a daphne - I’ll have to double check that when it flowers though - but the sun on its leaves, and the contrast of the sun and shadows on the hebe next to it was really uplifting.

Elsewhere in the garden the hellebores have been doing their thing. I’m especially pleased to see this maroon one flower - it’s one we brought with us from London and which originated from my FIL’s garden. I’d taken the plunge and potted it into the border, just along from the cream hellebore which was already here. I thought I’d lost this one, and it still doesn’t have a huge amount of leaves - but clearly I haven’t.

It’s great to have a dark and light hellebore almost next to each other and both enjoying the sun. In our previous garden we had the dusky pink sort, and at some point I might add to my hellebore collection.

You may have already seen in other posts that we had a unexpected pheasant visitor to our garden this month - I’m including it here too, as it really made me smile - and wasted about thirty minutes of our day watching its antics. Aren’t the colours wonderful, and how like the brick wall are they?

There’s also been much bulb activity in my pots. The tulips have started to unfurl their leaves in their temporary spot alongside the garage. One pot seems to have developed some moss over the winter, and another now seems to be sporting four small holly seedlings which I’m not sure where they’ve come from. I think I might try and transplant them to see if they continue to grow as they could potentially be useful longer term, and well, who doesn’t like free plants?

I did have a wry smile later in the month when I checked on the tulips again. The one with the mossy pot has dealt with it in the only way it could - and grown through it. I’m loathed to remove its mossy duvet just yet as I can imagine the weather might be a bit of a shock, but I think I’ll probably need to remove it at some point to give the tulip’s stability its best shot.

Getting the bin in the other day (oh the glamour!) I noticed the sun on this Red Robin shrub and couldn’t help but take a snap or two - the forming flowers reminded me of coral in both their form and colour.

The other colour that’s arrived in the garden this month is the fresh lime green of the euphorbias. These are still contained in the pot that brought them from our London garden, and I still think that’s the best way of dealing with them. I’m hoping to pair them with some flowering tulips again this year - if the timings work out.

I don’t yet have flowering daffodils, and it is still quite early for them, but I think these two pots by the gate are the likeliest to flower first, and I can’t wait.

In my herb planter by the back door things have been pretty sparse over the winter. I cut both the mints back and I’m waiting for them to come back with extra vigour; the flat leaf parsley has continued to provide throughout the winter and that’s been a first for me - though I often forget its there, which isn’t so good! But it’s the oregano that’s currently the star with it’s little cabbage like growth taking up a wider area than the original plant (which was close to where the plant label is), and I can’t wait to see how this goes, and how we can use it in the kitchen too.

My rosemary is a tale of two plants; the older rosemary which we brought with us and suffered with wind damage but then recovered enough to plant in the outer border didn’t make it through the winter, sadly. However the newer plant is thriving. Clearly its a different variety as I never saw a flower on the older plant, ever - but this one looks as if it will deliver plenty of those, and plenty of rosemary too. I suspect that at some point I’ll be taking a cutting or two from this one to increase my rosemary chances in the future.

Thanks for joining me for this month’s update, you can read all the posts in this series, and join me next month to see how my garden continues to grow!

My garden in January

Another short winter garden post this month understandably as most of the time we’ve spent in the garden is either walking to the car or emptying the bins - but I have enjoyed viewing the garden from the house.

And with frosts like these it’s hardly surprising is it?

Thankfully the plants seem to have taken the wintery weather pretty well - though it looks as if I’ve lost the sickly rosemary which I planted in the outside border, I’d hoped it would be able to turn itself around out of the wind, but it was not to be. The other plant that’s looking decidedly dodgy is the one midway in the border below (to the right of the three concrete balls). It’s got a variegated leaf and it really doesn’t look too happy - if it makes it, and I’m hopeful it may, then I think I’ll pop it into a pot and see how it does, as maybe the rootball is restricted somehow.

We had a large leaf blowing around our garden, and neither MOH or I could work out if it was actually a leaf or some cardboard. It turned out to be a very large leaf indeed - I’ve not seen other leaves like this, so I wonder how far it had blown.

The pots of daffodils and tulips are starting to do their thing and poke their shoots through the surface. I was glad to have spotted this as a couple of the tulip pots were double stacked, which clearly wouldn’t have been a good thing - though I’m sure the tulips would have tried their bendy best to seek out the light and grow!

Last March I’d bought some snowdrops in the green and had planted them in the border which we look out over from the house, and was wondering where they’d got to. Towards the end of the month I spotted some potential snowdrop activity, then overnight a single snowdrop appeared.

Since then this one has been joined by a few more, and the second clump is also showing signs of growth - hopefully they’ll really come into their own during February (and of course in the years ahead), but they are a good reminder that spring is on its way, however slowly that may feel at times.

My garden in December

As is the way there’s not a lot of activity in my garden this month, but I do have a few photos to share. The month started with a new addition - another rose - this one also from MOH and for no particular reason either. It’s a lovely rose with gloriously pale petals, and really sweet of him, but where to put it!?

I know that it’s longer term home will be against the brick wall - which is already potentially getting quite full what with the Gertrude Jekyll rose and the homegrown peach tree, but for a shorter term solution I was stumped. It has been temporarily lodging in the trellis enclosure, which has hopefully given it some protection from the worst of the winter weather and when I’ve shaken off this cold (and on a fine day) my plan is to get it into a larger pot. I didn’t rush to pot it on as it seemed happy enough in its current pot, and if MOH hadn’t bought it then it would still most likely be in that pot, but it probably needs something more as soon as I can.

It’s going to look great against the old brick wall in years to come isn’t it?

As I was out in the garden finding the best spot for my latest rose I also spotted some early growth on my tulip pots - the pots are squashed from where I squeezed them into some terracotta pots on the patio with probably too many other pots, but it did the job. Given that we have a lot less demand for pots in this garden, at some point the tulips may be designated their own pot - but clearly not for the upcoming flowering season.

The euphorbias which I brought from our old garden continue to do well, and I’m still loathed to let them loose in the flower beds as I’m pretty sure they’ll go rampant - but this photo has reminded me how good they looked with the tulips last year, so I’m thinking they could be future bed (or pot) fellows.

I’d been keeping an eye on the weather - the wind in particular - and our garden furniture cover, which seems way too large for what we need. After a first blow off failure we’d added some webbed straps to keep things tighter and less like a billowing mushroom. Storm Darragh though was also on the way, and that proved a gust too far.

We’d adjusted the straps earlier in the afternoon as I’d noticed they’d slipped a bit, and all seemed well. That was a false alarm, as when I looked again the whole table and chairs had been lifted and dumped onto the grass. We were very lucky that Darragh dumped them that way and not onto the patio, as I’m not sure the ceramic glass top would have survived if that were the case.

Admitting defeat we hastily moved the furniture into the garage, where it has stayed. I say hastily, but I mean as hastily as MOH could, while I continued to hold onto the still billowing mushroom. Goodness only knows what the neighbours must have thought if they spotted us! But it is safe and in one piece, and now is rearranged more compactly in the garage too - MOH is keen to move it out again, but I’m more in the let’s wait camp.

It was more pleasing to see the signs of new life on the small peach tree - while all the leaves have dropped, you can just about see new buds forming on the ends of its branches. I wonder if we’ll manage to harvest more than two fruits this year, who knows?

One sunny afternoon I spied the most hidden of our mahonias and it’s glorious russet leaves - I’m not sure if the colour change is ahead of the other two because of its position, or for any other reason but I know it’s most welcome.

Taking a closer look around the garden it was good to see the cream hellebore preparing to flower - this was one of the plants that came with the garden, and it’s another one that I’m really happy about. I potted the dark maroon hellebore that we brought with us further along from this one, and hadn’t seen much sign of it, which was ok as they really come into their own in the early months of the year. Looking for that now though, it was good to see a couple of new burgundy stems shooting up through the bark (and weeds!), so it seems happy enough with its new home.

So there’s actually more going on in my garden than I thought, though clearly not as much as the summer months. Next month if I’m lucky I’m hoping to see the snowdrops we planted, and hopefully followed not that long after with flowers on the wallflower planted at the same time. I’m sure there’ll be more too, so I look forward to you joining me again for that update.