The gardening year has started!

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After a pretty bleak, and at times snow covered period of some months, things in the garden are starting to come to life! Last week, Les and his team who do heavy work and hard landscaping/fencing, installed the new fence and cleared and tidied the garden, removing all the debris, and revealing lots of inconspicuous little plants waiting to spring into life. With the odd fine day, I’ve been inspired to get out and do further tidying and pruning, among which has been cutting back all the hellebore foliage so as to reveal the flower buds.

At the weekend, the potted hamamelis on the terrace started showing signs of coming into flower, so I moved it so as to be in our sight line from the dining area, and this morning, with strong sunshine from the east, we were delighted by the brilliant display of burnt orange flowers glistening with dew. That really made us feel that spring isn’t too far away.

In fact, the hamamelis was just beaten to it by the cyclamen. These are ones that I planted last year, so this is the first season that they’ve flowered. They’re a deep purple-pink, and look great in the otherwise very bleak border, where the neighbouring snow drops are now starting to appear.

Meantime, inside the house Meg and Hugo’s hibiscus is flowering away. It provided a great display during the summer, and has evidently decided that the toasty interior of our house is just fine and is rewarding us with another burst of flowers.

Isn’t it exciting! The gardening year has now begun. Much work and, hopefully, much delight ahead.

• 18 Jan, 2011
• 6 likes

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