Garden Blogger Bloom Day

It is Sunday the 15th January, usually the coldest part of the winter here in London, UK, and today it actually is quite cold! I am not sure if we had any of the forecasted frost last night; by the time I got my achy bones out of bed there were no sign of frost in my garden, just a very crisp, sunny, 7 degrees January day. After having had breakfast I took my camera to start my round collecting images for Garden Blogger Bloom Day.

Garden Blogger Bloom Day is a feature hosted by May Dreams Gardens and over at that blog you can see what gardeners all over the world have flowering in their gardens on the 15th every month. I haven’t done this before so this will be my first Garden Blogger Bloom Day post, or GBBD post as it is called. So what could be blooming in a tiny London garden in the middle of January, you might wonder? Well, quite a lot as it happens, but despite the rather mild weather we have had lately, nothing out of the ordinary is flowering right now, it is just a little bit earlier than some past early winters. And by a little bit I mean a week or two, no more, although some winters everything has been many, many weeks later than this. Let me give you a guided tour and let’s start at the front for a change, I don’t post photos from my front garden very often. Here I have window boxes with pinks and pansies at the moment, both in flower.

Now let’s move to the back and take a look at my garden. At first glance it might seem completely in hibernation and as if nothing is happening here, but let me walk you around so you can take a closer look and you will see that a lot is going on here.

My geraniums are happily flowering and have lots of new buds coming.

This is Fuchisa Pink Marshmallow, a so-called tender fuchsia usually sold as annuals here in the UK. These are new of this year in my garden, but I have another tender fuchsia, Bella Rosella which is 7 years old and it grows happily outside all year round so I hope this one and the other 2 will do the same.

Here is a hardy fuchsia, not sure what type it is as I got it as a cutting from someone’s garden. Still lots of flowers and new buds.

This is the ugly duckling of the garden that turns into a ravishing red beauty! My Chaenomeles superba 'Crimson and Gold'. After the flowers come nice fruits which can be eaten if cooked.

I have quite a few cyclamens in my garden, most of them flower right now, but I won’t put a picture of them all, that would be too much :-) Here are 4 of them. Look at all the crocuses on their way up!!

And here is the first crocus in flower, not completely opened up, but you can already see this is going to be one of the yellow stripy one.

And look at that gorgeous hellebore! Not completely opened up yet, but not much to go now.

This is Sarcococca confusa, the scent is just divine and so strong that when I stand at the backdoor in one end of my garden, I can actually smell the lovely scent from this Sarcococca, which grows in complete shade in the far opposite end of the garden! I also have a Sarcococca hookeriana var. digyna which will be in flower in a couple of weeks, taking over when this one is almost finished. A lovely evergreen plant for the winter garden!

And this is my Ferrari!! No, it’s not actually called Ferrari, but I remember it as Ferrari because I can’t seem to remember what it actually is called. Hang on, just got to look it up….yes, I remember it when I see it, it’s Viburnum Farreri. I think Viburnum Ferrari is much easier to remember! It hasn’t  opened its flowers completely yet, but not long to go now and it might be finished long before next GBBD, so I thought I would post it today. Highly scented, lovely plant.

And lastly, a rose. Many people are surprised that I have roses in my garden in the winter, but my roses flower all year round except for when I cut them down in the spring. Depending on how warm the weather is it might take them 4-6 weeks to start flowering again, but that’s the only break they take in blooming. This rose is Peace, and it looks so different in the winter compared to summer. In the summer it is bright pink to orange and then a strong yellow; in the winter it is a more delicate yellow to almost white.

That was the walk round my garden on this chilly 15th January 2012, hope you enjoyed the trip :-) Until next time we meet, take care!