Goodbye Snowdrops.

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Pauline

I promise this will be my last post about snowdrops this year, or at least I think it will be!!!   Galanthus nivalis, or the wild snowdrops, are now flowering away in the woodland and shady borders, making small drifts of white here and there. More splitting to be done to achieve the wonderful drifts that we see in the press at this time of year. Both the singles and doubles of the wild one multiply so quickly, it really is easy to get loads and loads of them within a few years. Most of the photographs in this post are long shots of my snowdrop borders with just a couple of special ones included.

Snowdrops

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Who’s swimming in my pond!

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Pauline

I was going to call this post ” Sex orgy in my pond ” but I thought that might attract the wrong sort of person and their comments!!  When walking past the pond yesterday there was such a lot of croaking going on and then the noise of lots of splashing, I just had to investigate. Sure enough, the frogs had arrived to do what frogs do at this time of year!

Frog

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Foliage for February. GBFD.

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Pauline

I wasn’t optimistic when I went into the garden this morning to take photos of foliage for Christina’s foliage day, I know, I’m a day late, everything was looking very bedraggled after all the rain yesterday and overnight. Some parts of  the garden still haven’t been tidied since last autumn and they are just a horrible squishy mess, no photos there then! The first plants that caught my eye were the silver ones and the curry plant, Helichrysum italicum, was even smelling of curry, was it the rain that was bringing the perfume on the breeze?

Helichrysum italicum

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Hellebore time.

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Pauline

The month of February is well known for it’s snowdrops, but also flowering now and for the next month or so, are the beautiful hellebores. They come in such a variety of colours and shapes these days, you must see them in flower when you buy, then you know exactly what you are getting. They haven’t enjoyed the frosty mornings that we have had at times during February, but once the temperature rises, the stems come back to vertical and the flowers look beautiful once more. This photo was taken last year, I don’t have enough flowers out on each plant yet to be able to cut some to bring indoors!

Hellebores

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Flowers for February.

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Pauline

In spite of the frosts  that we have been having,  there are still flowers in the garden which don’t seem to mind the low temperatures. A lot of the flowers that we had last month, which were flowering out of season,  have now been burnt by the frost,  japanese azalea, quince, mahonia and Choisya ternata. Most of the plants that are  flowering at the moment are in the woodland, which does give them a certain amount of protection from the weather. The snowdrops that are in this photo are the wild Galanthus, the doubles are flowering nicely but the singles at the back are only just coming out, not sure why they are so late. It’s not just my garden where this is happening, a friend tells me that her wild singles are only just coming up whereas her doubles have been flowering for a while now.

Galanthus

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Second Wave of Snowdrops.

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Pauline

The first wave of early snowdrops are now finished and the second wave is taking over. There have been problems with all the frost that we have had in the past week or 10 days, the hybrids just collapse onto the soil and only right themselves when the temperatures rise. The flowers only open when the sun is shining and sun has been in short supply recently, mostly very grey days with the clouds moving away at night time to let the frost in! In spite of all this the snowdrops have put on a good display in the little woodland strip.

Woodland

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Temperature problems.

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Pauline

When the temperature drops below freezing, as it has lately, hellebores and large snowdrops show that they aren’t happy by collapsing on the ground. As soon as the temperature rises a bit, to above zero, the flower stems right themselves once more and the plants look as they should, with the flowers standing upright. The other day, we decided to meet a friend from Wales at Painswick Rococco Gardens to see the masses of snowdrops that they have beneath the trees. Just one problem, my snowdrops  here were standing proud with the temperature above zero but when we got to Painswick the temperature was minus 5 degrees and this was how we found their snowdrops, all collapsed on the ground.

Snowdrops

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An Award from Lyn.

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Pauline

I really must thank Lyn at   http://theamateurweeder.blogspot.com   for kindly awarding me a Versatile Blogger award. I’m afraid I do have a problem when it comes to fulfilling all the requirements. We are asked to reveal 7 new bits of information about ourselves, I find this rather difficult, being someone from the older generation who likes their privacy, if it is not already on my blog, then I’m afraid any other information stays private.

Back

A bit of a cheat I know, but I will list 7 of the things I love about my garden.

1. Having 59 varieties of birds visiting the garden.

2.Finding Dormice have taken up residence.

3.Feeding the robin while it is standing on my hand.

4.Photographing so many varieties of butterflies.

5.Enjoying the perfume from all the flowers.

6.Working on  new projects with my husband.

7.Having success with Meconopsis plants.

Rose garden

We are also asked to pass the award on to 15 other bloggers – I think most of the blogs that I follow have won it a few times already and how do I possibly choose from so many wonderful blogs?

Side

Please Lyn, forgive me for not taking part fully – I really do appreciate you giving me the award.

 

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Frost at last!

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Pauline

At last, winter has arrived in Devon, we have been having frosty nights and icy mornings. Nowhere near as bad as some parts of the country, but at least it feels as it should at this time of year , instead of the very mild weather that we have been having. An added bonus is the clear sky in the morning which quite often means a beautiful sun rise.

Sunrise

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Hunting for Hellebores.

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Pauline

Keeping all the snowdrops company at the moment are the beautiful Hellebores that are flowering in the woodland and all the shady borders. So many fascinating new cultivars are being introduced to the market all the time, so when I found a couple of areas which needed brightening up, the decision was made to go hunting for Hellebores.

Hellebores

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