Month: March 2023

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It has been very wet here over the last couple of weeks. That’s actually a very good thing because this part of England (East Anglia) has still been in ‘drought status’, even after the winter. Suffolk doesn’t get a lot of rain, so the rain we’re getting now should help keep everything growing for a good while. (And, I hope, top up the region’s reservoirs too.)

But after so much grey weather, I’m starting to long for sunshine. And flowers! It feels as if spring has been slower in arriving this year. At the end of March last year our fruit trees had come into flower. By the start of April we had a wonderfully frothy display of apple, plum and cherry blossom. That outburst of flowering seems a long way off still.

Happily, there are some flowers appearing. Daffodils have recently opened their gleaming yellow flowers both in the garden and on the green at the front of the houses here. Those on the green are particularly cheerful, with warm orange coronas surrounded by the brightest of yellow petals. En masse, they are an impressive and cheering sight. Up close (as above) they are simply delightful.

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Red always demands attention and there’s nothing subtle about the way this ranunculus flaunts its frill of glowing petals. It makes me think of the over-the-top style of dress that a Hollywood star might wear for an awards ceremony.

Well, maybe that’s my imagination getting a bit carried away, but Ranunculus asiaticus (or ‘Persian buttercup’) certainly has a glamourous look. The flowers provide a stunningly beautiful and richly-coloured display. (And of course, they’re irresistible to this photographer!)

Like the primulas from my last post, these are currently in stock in garden centres. Here in the UK they’re often treated as bedding plants because they aren’t hardy and it’s difficult to save the tubers for re-planting a second year. Plants bought now can be put outside once there is no risk of frost and will give colour in spring and early summer. Or they can be grown from tubers planted in late spring, to then flower in autumn.

I haven’t yet bought any ranunculus this year (the photo is one from a couple of years ago) but I know that I’ll buy them again in the future. They’re too lovely to miss out on. And it would be fun to try to photograph the rest of the colours that they come in…a project for next spring perhaps?

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Unlike the hellebores in my recent posts, the pretty pink-blushed flowers on this plant are upright and easy to see. Recent hellebore breeding has created a number of plants that have out ward-facing rather than downward-facing flowers and these flowers are bigger too, so make a very eye-catching sight.

‘Rosali’ is a recent purchase – I couldn’t walk past it in the garden centre! (So it may be a good thing that I don’t go to garden centres too often…) ‘She’ will join a small group of hellebores just outside the back windows of the house and where there is a change in level with a retaining wall. (That makes the other hellebores easier to see.) The area also gets a bit of shade in the afternoon, so hopefully won’t be too hot in summer.

This hellebore is one of the HGC ‘Ice N’ Roses’ collection (Helleborus glandorfensis), a new species which has been bred as a cross between a Snow Rose and a Lenten Rose (Helleborus ericsmithii and Helleborus x hybrida). This new species of hellebore is tall (at 45cm). It’s also said to be robust and long-lived. I certainly hope it is, because it will always be welcome in the garden as a joyful start to the gardening year.