It has rained.
A lot.
So much rain that I am as tired of writing about it raining as you are reading what I have written about it raining. The long and the short of it is that I am not sure I have achieved much meaningful in the garden at all in February, yet the garden continues unperturbed.
In the driveway the Cornus officianalis has been flowering for weeks. This little shrub is wonderful this time of year and I bless the day I planted it.
By the front of the house the quince hedge is covered in flowers. As I am never quite satisfied I do wish it would grow up to the height of the windowsill, but this is being picky, I love this hedge.
The backgarden looks quite green and so it should, it has had a lot of rain.
In the Courtyard the Prunus Kojo no mai is flowering. This small shrub was a present from a friend and I am pleased that I have kept it alive for a couple of years now. Previous attempts at growing this shrub had been by planting it directly into the garden and had ended in shrub-death. Now I have had this one for a couple of years I am getting tempted to plant it out into the garden, yet I fear that might be the end of it. For now it is happy enough living in the Courtyard so why ruin a good thing I ask myself?
There has been standing water in the garden for some days and this is very, very unusual.
Never has there been so many puddles that are not draining away. The garden is mainly heavy clay but this puddling is unheard of.
This causes me a lot of worry; not so much for the garden itself but for what it means if this is a sign of our climate changing. For me the odd puddle is annoying, for those people getting regularly flooded this is a crisis that cannot be ignored.
On more cheery thoughts, the Spring Border is looking forward to Spring. There are hellebores, snowdrops and pulmonaria starting to flower.
The blue anemone blanda are starting to flower.
Buds are starting to form on the tree peonies, this is always an exciting thing to see.
The Prunus Ben Chidori is a happiness of pink scented blossoms.
The Magnolia Fairy Blush, which quite frankly took so long to settle in it is very lucky it was not dug up, is covered in buds this year. All is forgiven.
The edgeworthis is in flower and the scent is divine. It is one of my favourite times in the garden when the edgeworthia flowers. It is worth all the angst of hoping that the winter will not be too harsh for it. This year I am worrying less about it freezing and more about it drowning, but so far so good.
The Dancing Lawn is in its jewelled phase. There were bumble bees enjoying the crocus, but they flew off everytime I went closer to them.
In the veg borders there is some purple sprouting broccoli sprouting purple.
The greenhouse has been visited by Miss Haversham, most of the time this fleecing is not needed as we are barely getting below freezing for more than one night at a time. It is however so unpredictable that I do not want to un-fleece it just yet, I like the temperature to be at a steady above 4 deg usually before I unwrap.
and the pond is full, I would worry if it was not as there has been so much rain. There has been some frog movement in the pond and also a visit from a heron.
Whilst I usually end with the pond, this month I have to add a postscript as this was by the side of the pond - I am thinking big frogswan?
Thanks as ever to Helen for hosting this meme.
