08.01. Garden stroll

I had a brief stroll in my garden today, brief because despite the bleak sunshine it was rather chilly. I was curious to see the state of my garden, after barely having seen it for snow for weeks, and also not being outside much because of the low temperatures. In normal winters, i.e. winters where the temperature is between 5-10 degrees most of the time; I will be outside in my garden most days when it doesn’t rain, at least for an hour or so. It will be too cold to sit down of course, but I will usually be taking some photos, tidy up a bit and generally
just keep things at bay. There isn’t that much to doo during the winter, but a bit of clearing up can always be useful.

Today I was pleased to see that my crocuses are well on their way up, as you can see from this photo. I have lots of crocuses at the end of my garden, but also some in two large pots further up. The ones in the pot here are earlier because they get more sun, so the crocus season becomes therefore stretched that way.

I also found the first sign of daffodils on their way up! I know it’s not much, and there is a long, long way to go before my garden is covered in yellow bells, but still, it’s a start, right? And I know how fast it goes from here; from the first tips emerges to the whole garden is smothered in green leaves and yellow tipped stalks just waiting to pop their lovely scented flowers. I can’t wait, it really is the start of the spring for me and a significant tick on my calendar :-)

I was also pleased to see that the cyclamens at the end of my garden seems to have survived the very cold December we have had, being covered in snow for weeks on end; I don’t think they are meant to survive this, but luckily, they don’t seem to know that! I had planned to have a thorough rearranging of that end bed in my garden this summer, moving a lot of plants out, dividing plants and moving some plants in...but it seems I might need to rearrange my own plans for this summer, I won’t be doing much gardening as instead I will be recovering from yet another hip operation. I am sure there will be more about this in a later post.

The cyclamens in my front garden are still doing well too, those that are left. If you read my blog on Wednesday this week you know why I am missing many of my cyclamens from my window boxes in the front garden, if you didn’t read it I can tell you a squirrel has taken an interest in them and has nicked quite a few of the 20 I originally had! But here is one that has survived frost, snow and squirrel attach. The plan was to transfer all these cyclamens to the end part of the back garden in the late spring, before they die down, and plant summer flowers in the window boxes as usual. I might have to do all of this a bit earlier in the year than I had originally thought, possibly just planting some temporary plants in the window boxes, or even getting some plastic plants in – like my neighbours across the street! They have some lovely flowering plants in a hanging basket, and I thought it was a bit strange that the flowers looked the same for months on end – until one day I stood talking to my neighbour on his side of the street, and was close enough to actually see the plants, and saw that they were fake. Lovely plastic plants, but still plastic :-) Not sure if I will go down that route yet...

And finally, some of the pansies looked so nice, I think I need a photo of them here too, and by now you are fully updated with the horticultural events for week one, 2011 of my garden – both front and back!

That’s it for today I am afraid, hope you have enjoyed the photos, and maybe they have even cheered you up a bit on this bleak January day. Take care....I’ll be back.