February flowers

It is middle of the month again and time to document what’s flowering in my garden right now. It has been very cold the last month here in London, and in the whole of Britain, and although we haven’t had much snow here in London, it has actually snowed 3 times – which is 3 times more than many other winters I have been here. The last snowfall was only a few days ago but fortunately the snow didn’t lie for very long. But the cold weather has slowed everything down and the emerging bulbs and plants have been painfully slow, seemingly doing nothing from week to week.

My garden looks no different from last month's picture! And to be honest, even close up there is not much difference either. Some plants are finished flowering, some still go on, some are almost at the same stage as they were 15th January. The cold period has lasted very long. But there are change on the horizon; today it was 10 degrees in my garden, I was outside and I could almost feel my garden take a deep breath and continue with its business – where everything grind to a halt back in January. Let’s hope my garden catches up with things real quickly!

My Ferrari is still flowering, well that’s what I call it, the proper name is Viburnum 'Farreri'

 

Signs of things to come! My pink Hydrangea is sprouting.

Skimmia japonica 'Rubella' with its red flowerbuds. And Skimmia japonica 'Bowle's Dwarf’ with red berries next to it.

This is a corner of my garden I don’t show off so often, it’s where I have my big sarcococcas. Righht in the corner to the left is Sarcococca confusa  and then I have a Taxus baccata 'Fastigiata Robusta' which is finally starting to grow a bit after having sulked for a couple of years – I think it didn’t like being moved down here after having grown in a tub, but it simply got too big for the tub so it couldn’t be helped. Next to the Taxus is the largest sarcococca, Sarcococca hookeriana var. digyna, my favourite. It sends out suckers which is easy to pull up and just put in a pot and hey presto – you got a new plant. I have one further up in the garden, two ended up in the garden next door and 2 at a friend’s garden.This one has, despite it's enormeous size, had several serious prunings over the years.

Sarcococcas have exquisite scent, so strong you won’t believe it comes from these tiny flowers the first time you smell it. I love these plants, they are evergreen and great fillers all year, and in the middle of the winter, when not much is flowering and certainly not smelling nice and sweetly, these plants are filling the air with such great scent they could compete with any flower I could think of – and the colder the weather is, the longer they flower. Mine have flowered for about 8 weeks this year, thanks to the cold weather we have had.

It is Hellebore season! This is the only Helleborus niger flower I got, not sure why such a meagre result, I had many more last year.

The Helleborus hybridus are ready to open, just waiting for another few days with warm weather. They have looked like this for the last 2 weeks, I have been wondering if they would open for today’s post but they didn’t….I will post a photo when they are properly open!

Look at all the seedling! I have thinned this area out once already, but since then more seeds have germinated. I better start pulling out some more, I want to keep some for growing here and some for lifting later on.

This is Chaenomeles x superba 'Crimson and Gold', and this is third flower flush this season! It’s such an amazing colour in the middle of all the dreary ones, I love that red colour!

Chaenomeles x superba 'Crimson and Gold'

And look at my little ballerinas, already on their way up! This is the large clump of Trillium cuneatum and there are more of these on their way up.

The snowdrops are flowering everywhere, it’s my first year with these ones so I don’t have many but I have spread them out in clumps everywhere. Hopefully they will do well and multiply!

And here is something for next month hopefully, these are some of my hyacinths, poking their noses through the ground.

The primroses I bought as tiny plug plants in October have been in pots since then, occasionally laden with snow, but steadily growing and flowering since before Christmas. Today some of them finally got a permanent home in the ground and I will continue to plant out the rest over the week-end.

That was the roundtrip in my garden this February Garden Blogger's Bloom Day.  If you head over to Carol’s May Dreams Garden you will be able to see many more gardens and what they have flowering right now. Have a great week-end, take care, see you next time!