My Little Garden 9th Jan 2021
The first £1 bunch of daffodils of the season is a welcome sight on my kitchen windowsill. There’s so much joy in these flowers for minimal expense and they will be a weekly treat for as long as they are around.
I can’t wait to get out into the garden again, but the ground is hard and frozen so there’s very little I can do other than planning for spring and summer. And if business proves to be a little quiet for the next few weeks due to the current Covid situation, at least I’ll have a little bit of free time to enjoy some local walks. As golf courses are also closed, even though two people playing golf is arguably very little different to two people going for a walk, I may even have the husband for company. The downside to this is that he walks fast and I have very little time for photos.
After last week’s snow, it turned very cold at the start of the week so I’m kicking off my Six on Saturday choices with some of the plants in my garden affected by the weather.
- Frost
My first choice is a plant that was new for 2020 and one that I’ve featured before. It’s common name is Japanese aster and whilst it does have tiny aster like flowers, it’s the variegated leaves that are the real attraction. It’s not supposed to be evergreen, but it’s having a pretty good try at hanging on to it’s leaves and giving the heucheras some competition for front of border winter colour.
A couple of other perennials that are still standing and which are positively enhanced by are the frost are the verbena…
and the aster that featured in last week’s blog, but covered in frost rather than snow this time.
2. Water Feature
I’m not sure how I ended up with a monolith water feature originally, but even though it wouldn’t be my first choice these days, I would like it to work. The pump broke down last year and I just didn’t round to fixing it for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately the reservoir for the water is surrounded by bricks and the grid that holds the decorative slate is cemented into said bricks so it requires a little bit of effort. One of many projects on the list for 2021.
3. Bulb update
These snowdrops have stalled over the last couple of weeks, but more clumps are peeping through now. I have a couple of new varieties in there somewhere but not sure which is which until the flowers open.
The iris are coming on nicely after reappearing from the frozen snow.
4. Neighbours
It’s a bit of an understatement to say that I am not currently happy with my neighbours. They have no interest whatsoever in gardening and can rarely be bothered to even mow the lawn let alone do any weeding or look after the trees and shrubs they inherited when they moved in. They have paved over the front garden, installed a large unsightly shed in the back and the last straw is the destruction of a tall laurel hedge that provided a roost and safe place for the birds that visit the garden. Aargh!!
5. Indoor bulbs
The hyacinths have shot up over the last week. I spend so much time in autumn sorting out the bulbs for the garden that I always forget how much I like indoor flowers in January. I may need to buy more very soon.
6. Stems
I love the colour of the cornus stems in winter. They really light up a shady part of the garden and this variety is my favourite.
And there we have the first Six on Saturday for lockdown number 3. We don’t categorically know how long this one will last but realistically I am expecting we will go full circle into March. At least the garden centres are open this time!
For more ‘sixes’ take a look at the blog of The Propagator who is the creator of this weekly collection. There are also many more excellent photos and blogs on twitter under the hashtag #SixonSaturday
