My Little Garden 7th Jan 2023

4 min readJan 7, 2023

Well, here we are at the start of another year. Christmas has been and gone and even though the days are short, life in the garden seems distinctly more cheerful. I managed a good tidy up this week, despite torrential overnight rain and a lingering, and extremely annoying, cold of the old fashioned non covid variety. Lots of exciting little shoots are popping up everywhere, from the pots to the borders, and it was good to do a little bit of uncovering. The robins and blackbirds seem to appreciate it too.

January also marks a full year since I started writing monthly garden articles for Cheshire Life Magazine, and I was really pleased with the ‘anniversary’ feature about a wonderfully quirky garden called Crewe Hill on the Cheshire and North Wales border. The garden has everything from beautiful roses to a sub-tropical garden full of Musa basjoo, Tetrapanax and a Paulownia tormentosa that looks stunning when covered with lilac coloured blossom in spring.

But back to the reality of my little garden at the start of January, and I began the week wondering what on earth I was going to find to photograph. You can make a garden of any size look good in spring, summer and autumn, but a small north facing plot in winter is a bit of a challenge. But I’ve done my best, even going to a nursery for the annual hellebore purchase which was such a chore, and here goes . I hope you’ll forgive the lack of colour for the first week in January!

A winter leaf

This Tetrapanax was given to me by the owner of Crewe Hill a few months ago when I went along to take photos to accompany the article. It is currently residing in my cold porch which is the equivalent of an unheated greenhouse. I expected it to lose all its leaves over winter, but here we are. It is ultimately destined for a forever home at Bluebell Cottage Gardens, but I’m going to pot it on in spring and hopefully get a few photos first. The responsibility of keeping it alive is immense.

2. Snowdrops

I have a few different varieties thanks to gifts from a generous friend over the past few years, but I can’t remember which one this is, so I’ll have to wait and see.

3. Sarcococca

This is a dwarf variety called ‘Little Gem’ which lives in a little pot (not so little really). It’s going to have lovely smelly flowers.

4. Wallflower

Erysimum ‘Winter Orchid’ is still trying it’s best, having been flowering since last spring. If it doesn’t make it through the winter, it doesn’t owe me anything and I will happily replace it. An excellent value plant.