March this year is a wonderful month for gardeners down here in Devon. Blossom is appearing on the trees and shrubs, leaves are unfurling, bulbs and perennials are flowering, birds are singing and making nests, bees are buzzing and some days the sun is shining, what could be better.
Scilla siberica on the scree, looking especially lovely backlit by the sunshine.
Rusty Pheasant has been put in place and is guarding the first of the Fritillaries to open. I hope I’m not speaking too soon, but I haven’t heard Mr. P calling from the fields next door for quite some time now.
The flowers in front are a cross between cowslips and primroses.
As the white of the snowdrops start fading away, having kept my interest for 3 months now, the yellow of the narcissus takes over the baton. Yes, we had early flowering Narcissus in flower just after Christmas, N. Rijnveld’s Early Sensation, but it is just now that the waves of yellow are starting to make the garden shine, as if someone has run round the garden with a paintbrush loaded with the colour yellow and given a broad brush stroke over each border.
Narcissus Tete a Tete
I feel a rockery should be a riot of colour in the spring, meteorologically it is now spring, it started yesterday, but our rockery behind the alpine scree is quite frankly….boring! One clump of narcissus is certainly not a riot of colour, so something needed to be done.
Instant colour.
We are now past the peak of the snowdrop season. Most of the earlier specials have finished flowering, but they are now joined with the ones that flower a little later. Also joining in are the wild singles and doubles which are spreading beautifully all by themselves. For those who don’t share my enthusiasm for snowdrops, just click the delete button!
Galanthus Sentinel.
Our weather has suddenly changed once again. Today we have storm Doris howling outside, thank goodness I took my photos a few days ago, before they got flattened! In all our shady borders there are bulbs popping up everywhere and adding their colour to the dark background around them. I’ll start in the front garden with the border by the drive.
Hellebores are doing well and most have now opened their flowers.
Once again it is the 22nd of the month and time for Foliage Day hosted by Christina. Things are stirring in the garden apart from all the lovely little bulbs that are flowering at the moment. The foliage on shrubs is starting to burst forth as well as the foliage for bulbs that flower later in the year. This is a time of hope and the promise of things to come – weather permitting!
Lush bright green foliage of Hemerocallis is showing in most of the borders, such a lovely shade of green.
Some of you may remember me planting up an old tin bath (which was my bath when I was a baby) a year ago, with Iris reticulata and crocus. I was full of good intentions at the time, meaning to plant the bulbs in the garden when they were over.
Somehow this never got done and once again the bath is full of the same flowers, looking very pretty, I think.
Flowers in February depend largely on the weather. Our weather so far this month has been very mixed, a bit of rain, a bit of sun, a lot of frosty nights and freezing days, fog, bitterly cold wind from Scandinavia and Russia (we are now making up for it this week, now that the wind has swung round and now comes from Africa!) and the other day a sprinkling of snow. In spite of all this, the flowers manage to survive and open their petals to any passing bee, and there are quite a lot of bees flying around.
Iris reticulata.
Looking beautiful on the alpine scree.
Hellebores are just starting to open their beautiful flowers. They make the perfect companion to the snowdrops in the garden, adding a splash of colour amongst all the white.
H. Argutifolius.
