January in London

It’s that time again, the 15th of the month, when we gardeners show off our gardens – and all our beautiful flowers. So you’d probably think you could run quickly past a garden from London then, not much in flower at this time of year you might think, but hang on, I’ve got flowers, lots of flowers, come and have a look!

Well, at a first glance my garden might not exactly look like it is filled to the rafters with flowers – like it does in May! But my garden got this serene, calm look right now, I’m not sure if I can call it tidy, because it’s not as if it’s untidy the rest of the year, it is just a lot more busy if you know what I mean. Having a garden the size of a postage stamp means I have of course crammed in way too many plants, hence the busy feeling most of the year, but in January a lot of the plants are quietly sleeping underground, waiting for a teeny bit of warmth and thus making this open, quiet, serene feeling I never have the rest of the year. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when my garden is filled to absolute bursting point with flowers! But I do actually enjoy seeing it like this too, for a few weeks every year :-) (Click on the photos to get a much better view)

Some of the slumbering plants are about to wake up from their beauty sleep. This is Hyacinth ‘Woodstock’ in dark purple, or it could be a 'Fondant' in pink, hard to tell at this early stage. From here on it is just a matter of day temperature, the higher it gets the quicker these beauties emerge and flower. I had originally 14 hyacinths, but there has been some loss every year, with bulbs rotting and not coming up. I think I had 9 hyacinths coming up successfully last year so I think I need to start replacing some of them because they are absolutely gorgeous and the scent is heavenly. I have them very close to my seating area so I can smell them whenever I sit down.

And here are some of the many different daffodils in my garden, well on their way up. The tiny shoots to the left are Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’.

The primroses I bought as plug-plants in October are finally flowering and are ready to be planted out in the garden, the frilly pansies does not show any signs of flower buds yet so they will need a bit more time.

But here are some showstoppers in my garden that just keep on flowering! I have a good few cyclamens, so these 3 will have to represent the whole bunch today.

This is Chaenomeles x superba 'Crimson and Gold', such a wonderful and surprising flower display in the deepest of winter, but January is the normal month for this one to start flower. I usually get a second flush of flowers in late February.

And here is another red lady in the middle of winter, this is Rosa, 'Mildred Scheel’.

All my hellebores are emerging, this is the only flowers so far, on one of my Helleborus niger.

And this is Viburnum 'Farreri', or my Ferrari as I call it, much easier to remember!

The 3 sarcococcas I have in my garden are all flowering right now, they have the sweetest scent you can imagine! Here is Sarcococca confusa with berries from last year and flowers just opened.

This is a picture from my front garden, I don’t show it very often, but here is a Garrya Elliptica 'James Roof’ growing in a container. This lovely evergreen bush will be 4 m tall and 4 m wide when mature, which according to what I have read on the Internet is 10-20 years. Mine is 9 years old now and hasn’t really grown much the last few years, so my plan with putting it in a fairly small container seems to have worked! I have of course nowhere to put a 4 m tall and wide bush – not in my front garden and not in my back garden either!

The reason for keeping a Garrya Elliptica  is partly because it is an evergreen bush, but mainly because it gets these lovely catkins in the winter, they look like pearl necklaces hanging from the branches. This is the first catkin to open, there are plenty more to come.

Under the Garrya Elliptica I have planted some primroses. The squirrels keep chucking them out so they can hide their peanuts here, for some reason this is number one hiding place for squirrel food this winter! The poor primroses have been thrown out of their bed so many times it is a wonder they are still alive. I keep putting them back every time I find them on the ground, but I don’t remove the peanuts, I have learned my lesson, I did remove some peanuts 2 years ago from a different pot and the squirrel came back over and over to look for the peanuts it had hidden – they have fantastic memory! Finally I had to buy some peanuts as a peace offering, but apparently they weren’t good enough, they weren’t the peanuts the squirrel had hidden, he kept digging in the pot and finally ruined the plant. The plant, a red primrose, is now in the ground in my back garden recovering and the pot is used for something else, and I have learned my lesson – don’t remove the peanuts, or the squirrel will never stop looking for them.

And in the window boxes in my front garden I have pansies, not exactly a full show of flowers, but there are some here and there. A bit more sun and warmth and they will spring into action again.

And finally, I have bought some lovely garden jewellery, or that’s at least what I call them :-) They are metal butterflies and insects fitted on to ground spikes with either a coloured glass bead or a globe. The globe glows in the dark, it has some stuff inside it that enables it to do that, and so does the wings of the butterflies too. Yesterday, when I took theses photos I discovered that the globes also glows in direct sunshine, haven’t seen that before as it hasn’t been proper sun since I bought them. I have put my garden jewellery in between the plants in the garden, I think they look best when they are slightly hidden among leaves. (Click to get a much better view)

As I am writing the last bit of this post it is now late night and I have just been outside to check again for any snow. Nope, no snow, so that means we actually didn’t get any of the much hyped up snow which has been the talk of all last week! It is a crisp clear night and there is no more risk of snow for now, but possibly next week-end, maybe. That’s a long time till, lots can change by then. I won’t be sorry if we dodge the snow this winter, perfectly fine by me. It is very cold still though, so I hope we get back to our nice early spring as soon as possible!

Now that you have seen what I have in flower in my London garden right now, in the middle of January, why don't you head over to Carol’s May Dreams Gardens where you can see what other people around the world have in flower in their gardens too. Until next time, take care.