Thursday, January 24, 2008

January in the garden

It has been a glorious crisp, sunny day today, a wonderful change from the recent winter gloom.I went out into the garden to see how well the spring flowers are progressing. There are lots of shoots to be seen.
I can't remember the name of this little shrub but it provides this lovely splash of colour all year round.
I think this hebe is putting out its flowers unseasonably early. I hope it won't suffer in the next cold snap.
I have several varieties of euonymus in the garden but this Silver Queen is my favourite.

I missed the first of the snowdrops, they obviously don't mind being out in the wind and rain as much as I do.
This camellia is called Little Bit. It has been showing off its lovely flowers since the end of November but has lots more buds ready to open.

Debbie is much more sensible, just peeping out to see if the time is right yet.

And, of course, there are the hellebores. They look far too fragile to be in bloom in the middle of winter but it is very cheering to see them. This one is actually a much deeper shade of lilac than appears in the photograph.
The forecast is for a return of wintry gloom tomorrow so it was good to have this glimpse of spring.

13 comments:

  1. Oh how lovely! You've inspired me to lift my head from my work and have a look to see what's been going on in my garden in spite of my studiously neglecting it (except that it's dark now . . . but there's always tomorrow)

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  2. It's amazing how much is going on out there while we are hiding away in the warmth, isn't it, Juliet?

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  3. These are gorgeous. When I told the man at the nursery that the English garden I had planted in back of porch wasn't doing well. He sensibly said, of course not. If you want an English garden, you must go to England.

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  4. I suppose we get such a variety of weather that there is always something that finds it suitable, e. I obviously didn't post pictures of the bare patches and the dead plants!

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  5. If I wanted to see bare patches & dead plants, I needn't go online. They're in profusion right here.

    Do you have cosmos? They're so festive and colorful, always in movement at the ends of their lacy stems. We had them in profusion in Vermont, but here nada.

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  6. No, e, I hadn't heard of cosmos but I've just looked them up and they are beautiful. I see thay smell of vanilla and hot chocolate so I'll definitely be looking for some seeds!

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  7. those are lovely set of plants

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  8. I can take no credit for the works of nature, but I agree that they are lovely!

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  9. You have flowers in January? Yesterday morning the temperature was minus 13 Fahrenheit in Minnesota (-25 celsius). How cold does it get there in Britain?

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  10. Hi Duck, I just checked the thermometer outside my back door and at 15.50hrs it is 50 Fahrenheit, just above 10 celcius. It does drop to around 0 to 5 celcius sometimes but rarely lower here on the coast. We live on the south west coast which is generally warmer than the rest of Britain and we have only seen snow twice in the last 10 years.

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  11. Wow. What a balmy place! The perfect place to retire. Do you have a spare bedroom?

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  12. We live on the south west coast which is generally warmer than the rest of Britain

    Are you sure it isn't the Aga?

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  13. It's a lovely place to live from September to (thru, I think you would say) May, then the Grockle invasion begins.
    You could be right about the Aga, almost everyone has one around here - maybe that's the cause of global warming. It all started in Devon!

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