Lengthening Days

Yes, everything is wakening up, including the gardeners who can now work on until five o'clock.  The snowdrops appeared just a couple of days after the snow went and have increased daily.  We have them scattered about the garden and lots and lots up the wood in great drifts.  We have two clones of snowdrop.  Both came from mother in Lesmahagow.  One is the common or garden Galanthus nivalis and the other, a taller one with broader leaves and darker green chevron on the inner perianth.  This, John Grimshaw says, is G. x valentinei but he does not rate this particular clone!  It does multiply well and is early.

We have them associated with the Arum italicum 'Pictum', now called A. i. 'Marmoratum', and the Setterwort, Helleborus foetidus which does well in the dry shade.

Hellebores are pushing up rapidly in the garden.  Our favourite is this picotee which we got at Ashworth Nurseries; it is particularly early and vigorous.

And of course the early clones of primroses have been out for some time now and don't seem to mind the bad weather.

Messing with catkins

There is not much new in the garden just now but as the thaw finishes we hope to start the roller-coaster.  The first lot of hazel catkins I brought in the house before Christmas did not flower - not enough accummulated cold perhaps - but the ones I brought in from Henfaes a couple of days ago are quite different.  On the tree they had developed well in spite of all the freezing weather.  There must have been enough sunshine to heat the catkin itself. 

Anyhoo, they were only in a vase in the back window for a couple of days for them to lengthen fully and open.  We had some fun tapping the twigs to watch the pollen swirl about and had partial success in photographing that event.  You can see the small female flowers with their tuft of stigmas too.

Hogmanay - is it time to dump the posies of 2009?

Although the garden has just about gone to sleep with all this cold weather, we have plants inside that amuse us.  There is the posy of dahlias we have in the loo.  These were City of Rotterdam and they dried out gradually and were transformed into another phase - a dried posy with considerable attraction.  See for yourself below.  The question is: when to dump?

We have a Camellia in a pot which is early flowering and we take it in to enjoy it close up in the conservatory.  It is a cultivar bred by the Puddles at Bodnant  and has the name 'Hiraethlyn'. It is a lovely simple flower which retains a bell shape and often hangs downwards like a bell.  It does very well in a pot if the vine weevil leaves it alone.  We lost one that way before.

Have you tried Witch's Butter?

Boxing day was another nice day so Corbie collected some more Christmas decorations from the garden and driveway.

Rosa gentiliana syn multiflora var. cathayensis (I need to sort out its nomenclature) still has great swags of hips and R. 'Scintillation' has the orange and green ones.  'Cupid' provided the giant ones. Berries of Cotoneaster horizontalis were mostly taken by the blackbirds but enough were left to brighten the berry collection.  Added to the flower list were gorse, broom, osteospermum and periwinkle.

C and L are here for a few days so we went out for a walk round the circle from Tregarth to Cororion.  The holly growing out of the oak tree is still doing well and we encountered a nice bit of witch's butter, Tremella mesenterica, growing on gorse.

Christmas Day

A pet day today.  Full sun with nice clouds over Liverpool Bay and not a breath of wind. 

The annual Christmas Day garden flower hunt is over and I have bagged some amazing flowers despite the rotten weather we have had.

The photo shows:
Roses Windrush, Dainty Bess, Stanwell Perpetual, Old Blush China and Phllys Bide and hips on Cupid
Convolvulus cneorum, Schizostylis Mrs Haggerty and while; Nicotiana alata Sensation, Algerian Iris, Jasminum nudiflorum, Viburnum tomentosum, Erisimum cheiri (wallflower), Bergenia cordifolia.

Run down to Christmas

Corby managed to rescue the Dahlia tubers from the shed bed before the hard frost arrived.  They will be dried off a bit and stored in the shed until they produce cuttings in the Spring. Now 20 tulips have been planted, Mr Tesco's cheap mix of pastel and purple in a central array. Lily-flowered Burgundy will go in the back row, and multi-headed Antoinette in the front row. These should flower first, and be short.
                                                                                       
Corbie continues to pick the long spears of silver from the Iris under the kitchen window.  These open in the kitchen warmth into the most increadible helio and tiger striped flowers.

This is Iris unguicularis, the Algerian iris which is also found in Greece.  It likes a stoney site at the base of the south wall of the house.  I managed to track down the name unguicularis - it means shaped like a claw or narrow-shanked (the petals). It blooms from late October into Spring and produces a flush of flowers every week or two - hundreds in all.  The flowers look very delicate yet survive outdoors through the worst weather except that something eats them.  The buds are frequently eaten off at the tip and sometimes are completely shedded.  Mice or snails?  It is probably mice as the slug pellets don't seem to be the answer.  The plant must be 30 years old as mother Jean from Lesmahagow brought a bit down.  A couple of years back, the plant almost died off - disease? -but has grown back strongly more recently.

Stone wall risen again

Dave Grundy has done a fine job; the wall is good for another lifetime or two. Now everything else needs planning, especially how the levels will work. A lot of earth-shifting is on the cards. I want to make a level area that will keep the sun a little longer than the rest of the north-sloping garden. There is the potential to create a sheltered, sunny corner, something we've never had.