While taking a long look at the garden yesterday, it wasn’t the flowers that grabbed my attention, but the beautiful, delicate leaves that are all unfurling from their cases. There are so many different shades of green as well as the purples, golds, creams, blues and silvers.
The view looking across the back lawn towards the woodland is one of my favourites. The dark foliage of the Japanese azalea in the foreground contrasts so well with the frothiness of the new foliage in the background.
Woodland ephemerals are the tiny little plants that decorate the woodland floor, one minute they are nowhere to be seen, the next minute they are up, flowering, setting seed and then over. Blink and you miss them, don’t go on holiday or they’ll be over by the time you get back, but they are so beautiful, they really deserve a place in a woodland garden. The plants that I’m talking about in this post are the Erythroniums.
Erythronium Pagoda.
The garden is bursting forth with the slightly higher temperatures and the sunshine we have had lately, each day brings new flowers for me to enjoy. It seems as though everything in the garden is trying to catch up with itself and forget all the snow, ice and torrential rain that we had during the dreadful month of March this year. however one plant that seems to have revelled in all the rain is the primrose family.
View from the landing window with primroses spreading everywhere.
Nearly a month late, but never mind, the snakeshead fritillaries, Fritillaria meleagris, are flowering in the woodland at last. Today was a beautifully sunny day with a cold wind, the woodland is quite sheltered so it was a pleasure to be there, looking at all the flowers, listening to the birds and the buzzing of the bees, a real spring day at last.
He’s two weeks late, but at last Narcissus St.Patrick has woken up and is spreading his lovely soft yellow flowers round the woodland and the woodland border.
I might be speaking too soon, but I hope not. The garden has an air about it that speaks to me of spring, leaf buds are starting to unfurl and more flowers are opening up each day. The birds are making so much noise defending their territories and bees are starting to buzz each day. Our days and nights are a bit warmer and our mole is playing havoc with the back lawn while he searches for a mate! Yes, Spring is in the air!
The border by the driveway is full of primroses at the moment.
Talk about deja vous! This snow is easily as deep as the first lot, but this time it is sticking on all the branches and twigs whereas last time it was very dry and blew into drifts with the gales that we had at the same time. There was just a sprinkling when it was time for me to go to church, but by the time we left all our cars in the car park were covered! I got safely home but really it was a blizzard and this is where I intend to stay until it stops, the sooner the better. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
Our cold spell put the brakes on our early bulbs, one minute they were flowering merrily with lots of buds to come, but they seem to have been put into the pending file until the weather warms up again. Narcissus are definitely behind last year, with only a few flowering so far. As usual, I will take you for a walk round the garden, starting with the chaenomeles outside the back door.
March frost. snow and ice finished off all the flowers that were out at the time, but now more buds have opened and the bush is looking good again.
No, not that sort of skiing, not with my arthritis and muscle problems! Spending the Kids Inheritance sort of skiing. I have had an idea to make a new path in the woodland, the other side of the ancient trees in the centre, and of course then I will need some more plants to line the new path. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I sent for a few more snowdrops and yes, they did cost quite a bit, but more of that later.
All beautifully wrapped .
I am amazed, the past few days have been the depths of winter, today it is bright sunshine, the birds are singing once more, the temperature is up to 10 C and the flowers are fine, definitely spring time!
I was so surprised to see the hellebores standing up again after 4 days smothered by snow.
Deb's Garden Blog – Journal
Diary of a Suburban Gardener