Garden Blogger's Blooms Day - February 2013

Another 15th of the month, another report on what's in flower on this day.

Not much.

The garden may be pregnant with possibility but, even though the days are lengthening and it's not too cold - about 9C at the moment - it is still winter.  I don't have the space to have a lot of winter flowering plants so I don't concentrate on them.  But there are still a few in the garden and even the sparsest blooming is worthy of note.

About one winter in three Pelargoniums, the bright summer geraniums, survive the winter unprotected outside.  I used some red, star flowered ones in a window box last year and they are still producing the odd flower, undaunted by a few minor frosts.  They'll look better in the summer.

Hybrid Geranium in a windowbox

Normally I'd have three or four of my camellias in flower  by mid February but only one, Camellia 'Cornish Snow' is in full flower, the 8ft/2.3m tall shrub studded with the paper white blossoms.  I do enjoy this one for it's sheer exuberance of flowering - though it's difficult to get a good photo as wind and rain mark the blossoms very readily.

Camellia 'Cornish Snow'

'St Ewe' is also normally early in flower but this year I've had one solitary flower open so far - and that's well hidden in the shrub so I can't photograph it.  But, to judge by the state of the buds it'll be well adorned by next week.

Camellia 'St Ewe' buds ready to open

Primroses, Primula vulgaris, seed themselves around in the garden.  They're a UK native and very common in the local area.  In another month shady hedgebanks will have carpets of them but for now I've a good many self sown yellow forms already producing their first flowers.  Later, there will be red, pink and white forms - but not yet, not this year.

Primula vulgaris

Sarcococca humilis is still producing it's whispy but strongly scented little white flowers on the bush in the front garden...

Sarcococca humilis

 ...while Mahonia japonica is still going strong after two months flowering.

Mahonia japonica

I illustrated a couple of hellebores I've got in a sunnier spot in my previous post.  This is what happens in a shadier spot when a mild winter allows my slugs and snails to survive.

Helleborus x orientalis - rather slug eaten

 Fortunately Helleborus argutifolius seems far more resistant and it's flowers are doing well.

Helleborus argutifolius

Other than those, Clematis cirrhosa 'Freckles' is in flower - but then there are few months when it isn't.  The same could be said about my two abutilons, 'Patrick Synge' and 'Waltz' but, with only three flowers between the two plants - and those rather tatty -  they can hardly be said to be floriforous at this time of year.  So, I'll mention but not illustrate them.  Outside the kitchen door, rosemary is in flower on the few flowering shoots left after regular trimming to adorn roast lamb joints.  As for my spring bulbs, well, the best that can be said is that they are sulking.  Even the early crocuses haven't come into flower yet - and may well pass over before next month's Garden Blogger's Bloom Day (or be eaten by my slugs and snails).

As always, my thanks to May Dreams Gardens for hosting the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day meme.  Head over there to see what's flowering in many more gardens round the world.

Signs of Spring

Although winter is far from over there are definite signs of spring in the garden and locally.

I've had frogspawn in the little pond for about a fortnight now:

Frogspawn in the pond

To one side of the pond Camellia 'Cornish Snow' is flowering well:

Camellia 'Cornish Snow'

 Hellebores are producing their lovely flowers:

 Snowdrops were looking a picture when I visited Saltram House late last week:

Snowdrops at Saltram

As were their Welsh daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus:

Narcissus pseudonarcissus

And on Dartmoor the hardy little native ponies were grazing on fresh grass rather than dry, winter withered vegetation:

Spring is on its way - which means I'd better get on with a clear up!

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day January 2013

After a two month hiatus from blogging I thought it was about time I shrugged off winter torpor and got my nose back to the grindstone.  And what better way to restart than with another entry in the Garden Blogger's Bloom Day series.

It's bleak midwinter here in Plymouth.  Which means cool and wet, the occasional mild frost - though that may change over the next week - and even the odd sunny period.  Like this morning.  Although the cloud is coming in and there was snow on the top of Dartmoor when I took the dogs out this morning.  So don't expect too many flowers.  It's not the season for them.

Having said that there are a select few to brighten the darker days.

Two well scented blooms always flower at this time of year.  Mahonia japonica has given rise to a good many hybrids such as 'Charity', 'Buckland' and 'Winter Sun' but the plain species is just as effective, with spiky, holly like leaflets in whorls around upright stems.  The flowers are small and yellow but carried in good numbers on terminal sprays that, with me, open from December through to February.  On warmer days the scent is quite heady.

Mahonia japonica

Mahonia japonica

Sarcococca humilis, the Christmas box, is a small shrub with whispy little white flowers that never flower for Christmas but are in full swing now.  The scent is fantastic, making the approach to my front door a perfumed experience on still, cool days like today.  Black berries are still on the plant from last years flowering - the birds can't be hungry yet.

Sarcococca humilis

The first of my hellebores in flower is always the Corsican species, Helleborus argutifolius.  Almost shrub like, with upright stems of bright green, serrated leaves, it regularly starts just after Christmas and continues till late March.  I remove the old stems at the end of autumn to make way for the new, a policy that works well for all hellebores. I've had this one in place for about twelve years now and it is extremely reliable in its production of winter flowers.

Helleborus argutifolius

Iris unguicularis is more sporadic.  I can get flowers from my small clump anytime between December and March but the actual dates are entirely dependent on the amount of sun.  I had a small flush earlier in the month after a couple of days of brighter weather.  They're nearly finished but I feel justified in illustrating them - albeit with a photo I took last year.

Iris unguicularis

In the rear garden Clematis cirrhosa 'Freckles' carries quite a good crop of blooms at the moment.  OK, it does flower virtually all year round unless halted by frost, but it's at its peak at the moment, clothing the shed wall with green foliage and drooping bells, white outside and red spotted within.

Clematis cirrhosa 'Freckles'

Underneath it is Fuchsia 'Karl Hartweg', a tender fuchsia that usually gets cut to the ground each winter, but springs back to flower in Autumn and as late in the winter as frost will allow.  It's doing well at the moment, with lots more of the tubular flowers to come.  In the wild they'd be pollinated by humming birds but we don't get those on this side of the Atlantic so the odd fruit is likely to have been set by the more prosaic activities of bees.

Fuchsia 'Karl Hartweg'

I've the odd new flower on Hydrangea 'Mme Emile Mouilere', a perpetual bloomer if frost allows, and on my two Abutilons, 'Patrick Synge' and 'Waltz' but most of the rest of the garden is now in winter hibernation.  With one other exception.  Camellia 'Cornish Snow' has been producing scattered flowers for a good three weeks now, the herald of the new camellia season.  Next month 'Inspiration', 'Donation' and 'St Ewe' should be starting their season.  Their buds are fat enough!

Camellia 'Cornish Snow'

As always, my thanks to May Dreams Gardens for hosting the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day meme.  Head over there to see what's flowering in many more gardens round the world.