Fingers crossed for sowings! I
’ve been busy pruning roses, planting seeds and potting up young plants. We’re fortunate to have inherited a number of established rose bushes that produced flower after flower last summer. I’m especially fond of a dark scarlet rose that trails over the wooden gate at the side of the house. It gives our traditional semi a real country garden feel.
Unfortunately, there’s another climbing rose on a trellis at the side of the gate that didn’t produce any flowers at all last year. We’ve no idea what colourful beauty it might be hiding so I decided to prune it right back to around a foot high in the hope that it’ll be invigorated and bloom this year.
I’ve also spent a contented afternoon sprinkling seeds into little pots. I’m hoping to establish them inside and then plant them out when it gets a bit warmer. Chinese lanterns, petunias, night phlox and snapdragons are all safely sowed and my fingers are crossed!
We’ve got one border that’s a little bare at the moment, although it does flourish later in the season when a peony and rhododendron start flowering. It suffers from a degree of shade because of a fence and the overhanging branches of our twisted hazel, so I’ve been searching for something to brighten it up for next winter.
Luckily, in January’s Garden News I found an offer for some double hellebores and now have five young plants growing healthily on the kitchen windowsill. The plants are recommended as easy to grow and maintain in dappled shade. They also have evergreen foliage and offer ‘unsurpassed winter beauty’. Just what I wanted!
These new additions will complement our existing shrubs and I’ve noticed large buds on the climbing hydrangea, rhododendron and flowering currant. The wisteria and clematis are also starting to produce new leaves. Spring’s definitely on the way!