Wordless Wednesday

My new camellia, Camellia japonica ‘Takanini’.

It’s spring in London!

The last couple of days has done wonders for my garden, it’s like the whole thing has been hung up to dry - and it has helped immensely that it hasn’t rained for a few days. The flower beds are no longer making swish-swashing sounds when I dare to step into them and the pots no longer drip when I lift them. I even had to water the large hanging basket with my tender fuchsias, now renamed evergreen fuchsia! All the fuchsias have started to grow like mad and I am not quite sure what to do with them, normal rules has to go out the window, I have never had evergreen fuchsias before, things like pinching out the new shoots....ehh, how do I do that?

February in my garden

The news is repeating itself to such a degree that it makes us kind of numb – I don’t think I can hear about any more storms and floods and yet, every day the news is filled with it and every week we are hit by more storms and floods somewhere in UK. Wednesday was dubbed ‘Wild Wednesday’ by the media and the winds reached hurricane force certain places on the west coast of England. Here in the calmer corner of South East England we are more worried about flooding and the saturated rivers, and where on earth all the water is supposed to go eventually. It all leads down to the Thames River, and that river goes straight through London. The Thames barrier is currently saving London from being flooded and since it was built in 1982, the Thames Barrier has been raised 150 times in order to prevent flooding in central London. This year's wet winter has required it to be closed 28 times since December the 6, accounting for 18.7 % of the total closures in its 32-year history. And the forecast today is for ANOTHER month of this weather.

Cooped up indoors

The relentless rain and stormy weather is continuing here in Britain, we are well into the third winter month and the third month of the same pattern of days and days of rain and wind with the odd single day of clear and sunshine. For me here in London, this winter has mostly meant a very mild winter. I have not suffered any flooding like many people have done here in the south. But my garden is so saturated with water that I am wondering if everything will survive or if bulbs and herbaceous plants has started to rot. Every time I lift up one of my several hundred pots and containers in my garden, a flood of water runs out of the bottom. It feels strange after having worried about getting enough water to my garden last summer when we had such a long spell of warm weather. It seems a rather long time ago now, but it is only 7 months ago.