November flowers

 It's NO-vember - damp, grey and dark by 4 o'clock -

but there are still some flowers out there bringing a bit of colour to the scene.

Fuschias still glorious in there pots outside the conservatory.
They'll need to come indoors when it gets frosty.

Don't know the name for these. Their colourful flower spikes bloom from mid-summer onwards through the autumn.

A hellebore! They normally start to flower in january or February. Crazy seasons!

Cyclamens and sedum still flowering, though not covered in bees as they were in October.

Sun, snowdrops, beans & spuds

The sun is shining today after a week of more horrid wet and windy weather. They are giving the storms names now, perhaps to make them less scary, or maybe because they are such frequent visitors. The latest was called Imogen. (Thankfully we haven't had it as bad as Devon & Cornwall). That's been the pattern this winter - wet, windy and warm. We had only one week of sub-zero in January and one day of snow which disappeared within 24 hours. Altogether very mild, but the wet is disheartening. The ground is sodden and virtually impossible to work. However, now Spring is springing - snowdrops and crocuses all across the lawn, hellebores which started before Christmas are in full flower - and birds singing.

Snowdrops in the grass

Yesterday, not able to do much outside, so in the greenhouse I planted up 3 big pots with some of last year's Kestrel potatoes. Last year's potatoes weren't very big and I'd forgotten about the box of Kestrels in the garage. However, they are sprouting nicely, so I planted them up 4 in each big pot and will cook the rest. They haven't gone soft.

I also planted 7 pots of Broad Beans (Masterpiece Green longpod) - 5 to a pot. This year I had to buy seed because last year's went soggy on the plants. Usually I save bean seeds. I have some Runner Beans which have been saved each year since my Mum bought the original back in Dorset in the 80s. Can't plant those yet because they are more tender than the Broad Beans.

Pretty pink hellebores

Bumble bees

Seen a lot of big bumble bees especially on the hellebores and heathers. We've had a lovely few days with quite a bit of warm sunshine during the day which has brought out the garden flowers nicely - daffodils, hellebores, primroses, little pink starry bulbs....I saw a deep red camellia in full bloom up by a house up on the main road and some ornamental trees looking gorgeous.

However, no honey bees yet. Maybe they are still being fed by their keepers and don't need to get out yet. Hope this isn't a sign of empty hive syndrome around here. There's loads of flowers, both in the garden and the surrounding fields and hedgerows. I can't believe that not enough food can be a problem for fewer bees. More likely disease or pesticides.

That was January!

Not much to say about the garden this month. The weather has been varied - from heavy rain to frost and now snow - so there hasn't been a lot of opportunities to do much gardening. I stole a few sunny mornings to dig over part of the vegetable plots and add a bit of compost and to cut back quite a lot of ferns (bracken) and dead foliage which with the wet weather has just been lying all soggy over the soil.

Single snowdrops

Snowdrops are coming up. The single ones mostly in the flower beds are a little ahead and standing up with their heads bobbing. The ones in the grass (can't call it a lawn!),  mostly doubles and a bit shorter, are just coming up now. Have to be careful walking on the grass because it's full of little green & white spikes.

There are just a few hellebores in flower. Bulbs generally seem a bit behind. I suspect this indicates more cold weather before the end of the winter.

The water level in the surrounding field is pretty high with the green pipe flowing strongly and the pond almost over-flowing.

Sunny days

Snowdrops

Despite dire weather warnings and floods around the country we have had four days of glorious sunshine. There's a stiff breeze but it's not cold or frosty. Had a good session in the garden on Sunday. There's a lot of  dried couch grass which last year went crazy everywhere, and clumps of wet leaves and soggy foliage to clear away uncovering loads of snowdrops






and few hellebores not quite open, except for this beauty:

Yellow hellebore

Hellebore flowers

Our hellebores are just poking their heads up into the cold and wet January. I did a search for hellebore flowers on Google images and got a glorious display - all colours and shapes photographed by garden-lovers everywhere.

Take a look >> 

They sow themselves and cross pollinate so I'm looking forward to seeing what we get this year. Here's some of ours from previous years:

Cold end to the year

During the week before Christmas we had severe storms with violent winds. Thankfully only minor damage here but friends further south were flooded out.

The corrugated roof on the lean-to was lifting off with the wind and the rose arch (tubular metal construction which replaced a previous home-made one a couple of years ago) is flattened. Also a section of roofing-felt on the summer house was blown off. So far nothing serious - but the forecasters are promising more wind and storms for the new year.

Yesterday was fine and sunny and this morning is cold and frosty with just a little breeze. Doing a few tidying jobs in the garden:

• Cutting back the old leaves from the hellebores so we can see the flowers - and indeed the little buds are already showing colour.
• Clearing the overgrown reeds from the little pond. I'm always worried about disturbing the hibernating frogs and newts but it has to be done to stop the pond getting smelly.
• Covering the already-emerging rhubarb with compost to protect from the frost.
• Removing the dead leaves from the hostas which are lying on the gravel and getting soggy and messy with all the rain.
• Trimming the climbing roses which seem to have ambitions to reach the sky.
• Having a big bonfire!

Hellebore Posy for Mother's Day

It's a cold day with snow flurries sweeping in from the north east. It's Mothers Day so I picked these hellebores from the garden to make a little posy for my Mum.

Hellebores from the garden make a lovely posy for Mum on Mothers Day.

Tidying up the hellebores

The weather has been cold and wet. They have promised snow but at present it's grey and pouring with rain. Yesterday I had a quick hour in the garden before the rain set in and managed to tidy up the hellebores in the bed outside the kitchen window. I cut off the old leaves so we can see the flowers better and, in any case, the leaves are going brown and will die back soon on their own. There are little new leaves sprouting and lots of little seedlings which will flower in a couple of years.

 

 

Winter's here!

Not much news from the garden during the last couple of weeks. We've had days of torrential rain when it's been too wet and depressing to do much outside except clear drains. Now we've had a spell of very cold and clear days. The frost has not cleared from the lawn at the back of the house.

The trees have shed all their leaves and are looking dark and dramatic against the grey/blue sky. Paul raked up 8 barrows of leaves from the lawn to give the grass some light and prevent it dying.

There's a huge amount of tidying to do, pruning, weeding, digging over the veg plots and spreading compost. But it will have to wait for more clement weather. Despite the weather the first hellebore flowers are appearing!

We have a stream that runs when the water table gets high and goes through various – intended – waterfalls and ponds but ends up in an unintended water feature just outside our back door. I think we should make it permanent with some fish and build a little bridge across like you see in fancy houses on films! But I’ll probably just keep my wellies by the back door…

Hellebores providing a great show

We have a lot of hellebores which are giving a particularly good show this year. They start flowering on inch-high stems in January and keep going. The last rain we had (about 3 weeks ago) gave them a boost and they shot up with some 15-18 inches high. We have various colours but they self-seed and so there's a predominance of mid-pink with greenish markings