Colour in the Woodland

After a freezing cold week followed by a week of torrential rain of biblical proportions, we now have  warm sunshine! This has made the snowdrops and crocus open up and the woodland is buzzing, I couldn’t help but smile when a huge bumble bee tried to help itself to some nectar from a dainty wild single snowdrop, poor snowdrop was weighed down to the ground with its passenger. The sunshine has brought on lots of other flowers of different colours, so the whole effect is very pretty, or I think so anyway. Come and have a wander with me.

Narcissus are starting to flower in the border by the woodland.

Crocus in the back lawn

They quickly respond when the sun comes out.

Single and double wild snowdrops have now joined the specials, hellebores joining in too.

The hellebores provide a lovely contrast to all the white of the snowdrops.

All these are at the side of the new path made a couple of years ago, they have settled in well.

I feel that this very dark hellebore needs some snowflakes around it so that it shows up more, against the soil it is almost invisible.

In this photo the crocus are tightly shut, they need some sunshine like the rest of us!

When the sun moved round a bit, they soon opened up.

Purple, yellow, pink and white, a pretty combination.

Most of the yellow is coming from Narcissus pseudonarcissus, one of our native wild flowers. This is the only one that I allow to go to seed, in fact for the last couple of years I have been sprinkling the seed into areas that are low on narcissus and now I have lots of very thin grass like leaves appearing, I just hope they are from the narcissus and not grass!

The slope at the end of the woodland, everything is increasing nicely, but there is still room for more.

At this end of the woodland are a few clumps of Tete a Tete.

Wendys Gold is still looking good, she has been flowering for a while now.

I think a couple more hellebores are needed at the end of the woodland, I need to go shopping!

Narcissus and hellebores are adding to the colours, along with some red stems.

The hellebore foliage helps to keep the snowdrops in the shade for the rest of the year until it is time for them all to flower once more.

The spaces are all filling up nicely with seedling snowdrops and narcissus, it is all beginning to look how I imagined it years ago!

The narcissus at the front of the previous photo are King Alfred type. There were lots here when we moved in but I prefer the smaller ones as they stand up to the wind much better. I just have this one clump left, I gave 95% of them away, as a reminder that the original King Alfred was bred in a village near to here.

It has taken a lot of splitting of the wild snowdrops each year and now some of my specials can be used to fill spaces too.

The groundcover in this area is Cardamine pratensis, with the purple flowers,  which is the larval food for the Orange Tip butterfly which we have each year in the garden, I don’t mind if the leaves end up a bit chewed!

The flowers are very pretty and make a nice contrast with the snowdrops.

All I need now is a bench so that I can sit at the other end with my coffee and enjoy all the flowers with the birds singing and the bees buzzing in the sunshine. Next week sees the official start of the meterological springtime and at the moment it actually feels as though it is just around the corner. Are you feeling the springtime yet?

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12 Responses to Colour in the Woodland

  1. snowbird says:

    Just lovely Pauline, I did enjoy being shown around. It’s astonishing how quickly the crocus open when the sun shines. We’ve had similar weather to you.xxx

    • Pauline says:

      Lovely to have your company Dina, the flowers didn’t like our freezing weather but have responded well to all the rain , thank goodness. The sun makes such a difference when it decides to shine, everything looks really happy. x

  2. Denise says:

    I so enjoyed my tour of your garden Pauline and I think it is looking quite amazing! I love your very dark hellebore and as you say it would be even better combined with some snowdrops! Hope the spring sunshine continues Pauline…..

    • Pauline says:

      I’m glad you were able to join me Denise and pleased that you like how it is turning out.The sunshine is taking a rest for a couple of days but will be back later in the week according to our local weather forecaster.

  3. Frank says:

    It has filled in so nicely, it really looks amazing this year. Hard to believe that there are more bulbs yet to come, such as the big fritillaria show!
    This might be the first year where I have big enough clumps to start spreading a few out into drifts. Small, thin drifts, but at least I’m no longer looking at a few single drops here and there and that’s it!
    Enjoy your spring weather, you’ve earned it for sure this year.

    • Pauline says:

      Once you start splitting your snowdrops Frank, the drifts soon multiply and soon you will have a carpet! Fancy you remembering my fritillaries! I was looking at them yesterday when I was weeding round them and some have their flower buds already so it won’t be too long before I do a post about them. More spring sunshine today to tempt me out to do more weeding!

  4. Anna K says:

    Oh, to have a flowering spring woodland carpet like that…!! It’s lovely, Pauline. We had a big snow fall a little over a week ago, followed by an ice storm. We got almost a foot of snow here in the city, which buried all my flowering hellebores. To my astonishment, most of them have risen again, as the snow slowly melted. Nature is so resilient!

    • Pauline says:

      I realise how lucky I am to live in such a climate Anna and keep reminding myself that sometimes we have heavy snowfalls in March when everything gets covered! Snowdrops and hellebores are very resilient to the frost and snow, they collapse but then always recover beautifully once temperatures rise once again. I hope your snow has now gone for good and you don’t get any more!

  5. Cathy says:

    All glorious Pauline, and not dissimilar to our garden here, except you have more narcissi out! You have a lovely big clump of Wendy’s Gold though, which I have tried several times and it doesn’t seem to thrive here…

    I was noticing the bees yesterday too, at least three different types, and really felt as if spring was getting close.

    • Pauline says:

      More narcissus varieties are opening each day Cathy, and I think the sunshine this weekend will bring more flowers out. I don’t think I can remember so many early narcissus flowers in previous years, I have to keep reminding myself that it is still only February!

  6. Liz Goodwin says:

    Thank you for another lovely tour, Pauline. Such a lot of colour now. The snowdrops are still putting on a show!

    • Pauline says:

      A pleasure Liz, glad you enjoyed it. I’m amazed at all the colour that has appeared recently,the woodland is certainly changing. The snowdrops will still be flowering for another couple of weeks with the late flowerers just coming into flower now, although the wild ones are almost past their best unfortunately.

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