This is the time of year when everything seems to be waiting for spring. Here and there the tips of leaves are starting to show where bulbs will flower. And the flowers that have made it through the chilly months so far are starting to go over.
We don’t have many winter-flowering plants here (yet). The few that there are, give a bit of cheer and encouragement when we step outside and keep us company as we get some work done in the garden. They also give me something to photograph, although I feel that I really need to grow more winter-flowering plants to keep myself inspired. (I have recently planted a couple of Clematis cirrhosa varieties. They’re just tiny plants as yet but one does have a couple of buds…)
The flowers of Mahonia japonica, despite being past their best, still give a yellow glow from right at the back of the garden. It’s a beast of a shrub to weed around or (if feeling brave) to prune because its leaves are extremely prickly but it makes up for this with its reliable winter colour and the bold shape of its leaves. The yellow jasmine, though, has finished flowering ’til next year. It’s tiny yellow flowers disappeared suddenly during the last week, leaving what feels like a very empty space on the fence that supports it.
That bit of the garden feels even emptier now because the Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ that grows nearby has also finished flowering. (It’s in the photograph below, but this isn’t a recent picture – we haven’t had any snow here yet.)
Some flowers have managed to hang on past the time they would normally be gone. The flowers of the hydrangea in the photo below managed that quite literally, but, since the frosts in the last couple of weeks, have now all turned brown. That little dash of pink was welcome while it lasted.
Another hanger-on was scabious. Tiny little red or pink flowers continue, just one or two per plant, wherever they have seeded themselves around the garden. They make a delightful discovery as you wander round the garden on a winter day. And they show that, despite all the dead stems and foliage around the rest of the garden, plants are still growing and thriving, no matter what the weather may feel like. Life in the garden flows on as we wait for spring.
Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature 