Six on Saturday 16/02/19

Like many parts of the country we’ve had near freezing nights, foggy mornings and then unseasonably warm days. Last winter I didn’t remove the automatic vents from the glasshouse roof vents and they must have got too cold and so stopped working. The very practical N-G tried to repair them without great success so,as they were quite a few years old, I replaced them all and so this winter have removed them. I propped open one roof vent and the end louvre yesterday morning as it was only 6 degrees in there when I left for work and when I got back at lunchtime it was 35 degrees! The garden has responded well to the mild weather though so lots to choose from for this week’s Six.

1. The Birch tree branches looked so good against the blue sky on Friday afternoon. The white seemed to almost shine but my photo doesn’t do it justice.

2. The pans of bulbs are suddenly full of colour. The blue Iris reticulata opened last week and have been joined by ‘Katharine Hodgkin’ this week. I’ve not grown this one before and love the colour combination.

3. The warm temperature in the glasshouse has started most of the Fuchsias in to growth all of a sudden. In the autumn I cut them back hard and pot them in to the smallest pot that the roots will fit in. It stops them sitting in damp compost and saves room on the bench. I’ll have to repot them soon.

4. Most of my Hellebores are home grown seedlings but I couldn’t resist this one last year. The foliage is really attractive as well. It’s H. x hybridus ‘Dorothy’s Dawn’. Arum italicum has spread far too much and I hadn’t realised that there was so much in this area until I looked at the photo.

5. The new growth has started on the Chasmanthium latifolium. It seems a bit earlier than usual. It’s an easy plant to clean up as the old stems just twist off near the base. If only the miscanthus was so easy.

6. Although Narcissi leaves started coming up before Christmas the first flowers only appeared this week. This is February Gold. I grow mostly the more dwarf varieties as I got fed up with the taller flowering stems blowing over (it can be quite windy in my garden) and the leaves take up too much room while dying back.

It’s another mild day today but no sunshine forecast sadly. The N-G has his own plans so I’m off into the garden and may be gone for some time. Have a great weekend and keep checking our host’s site to see what other Sixers have been up to this week and to add even more plant names to the ‘why haven’t I got this one list’.