What's happened to winter?

5 comments

What a contrast to last year! Everywhere flowers have continued in bloom or have started flowering unusually early. In my patch, the expensive hellebore that I bought last year has beat all the other hellebore into bloom.

Meanwhile, modestly in the north facing border, the cyclamen have either continued to flower or have come into bloom since Christmas. We have both autumn and spring flowering varieties, which differ in their foliage and their flowering season, although the flowers are very, very similar, so it’s actually quite difficult to differentiate them when they are in flower simultaneously. We have a modest display which, I hope, will gradually expand under the prunus tree, as they self seed.

The only other colourful thing for a while has been the sunrise. From time to time we enjoy, albeit fleetingly, a really spectacular sunrise, and as the back of our house faces east, we can admire it as we have breakfast (assuming we are up in time!)

Tonight we have a frost forecast, so I must now go out and fleece up some plants, such as the scented geranium in a pot outside the front door. By rights, it should die off in the winter. The challenge now is to keep it going until next season!

Thus has begun 2012.

• 12 Jan, 2012
• 6 likes

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