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February 2005

It's February 5th and the first Crocus bud is showing. It won't be long now before we see our annual 'sea of purple', with the heather and crocus varieties we have.

SnowbellsSnowdrops have now started to flower in earnest. Wherever you look in the yard there is a clump of 'Snowdrops', or call 'em 'Snowbells', same difference.

We had hoped that our new Helleborus, 'Ivory Prince', would have been open by now, but, alas all we see is the damage done by slugs.........at least it isn't bloody rodent damage; they would have been a complete meal and all we would have to show would be the stem.

Dicentra SpectabilisOur big bleeding heart, Dicentra Spectabilis, is making a good early start as you can see. If we were to leave this as it is we would have an absolutely massive showing of it in spring/early summer and we'd be constantly cutting it back because it completely overshadows the much lower growing Hostas. So, before long they'll get the spade so to speak and it will be broken up in preparation for our first plant sale of the season - probably early April.

camellia

Although it's kinda hard to see in this picture, there are actually some touches of frost on the top leaves of this Camellia, it's that sort of shimmering on the uppermost ones. For the past week or so we have seen the night time temperatures drop to just below freezing, but it's been nice and sunny during the day.

The buds on this Camellia are swelling nicely; it'll be at least another week to ten days however before we'll see a few more open up, just in time for some rain. No point in having Camellias in bloom if you haven't got any rain to spoil the flowers

Iris ReticulataWe saw the first of these Iris Reticulata 3 weeks ago, since then many more have shown their colours.

Helleborus 'Ivory Prince'Here it is 3 weeks after I took the other picture of our newest Hellebore: 'Ivory Prince' and the first flower has finally opened completely. As you can see, there are plenty more buds lower down; we'll see flowers well into April I suspect.

It's be another week or so before the big show, this is but a hint of what we'll have to look forward to in our annual 'sea of purple' show in the sideyard.

February 26th and our first Daffodil of the season showed it's face today. No doubt many more will follow in the coming couple of weeks.

It's that time of the year for us where we see all manner of perennials poking their heads up: the bleeding hearts are about 2" above ground, a couple of our Peonies are 2-3", a few Hostas are showing swelling buds; all sure signs spring's just around the corner. We have just had over 2 weeks of great weather, no precip, just sunshine, light frost overnight and a bit of fog the past couple of days. It would seem though as if this spell is coming to an end with the return of some light rain for the coming week to start the month of March off on the right foot, but the week after it looks like we will be back to sunshine and temperatures in the mid teens Cº.