Spring loom

Spring cannot be far away with plenty of flowers in the garden, says John

In past times it was a great occasion when the first flowers appeared in winter, usually towards the end as it heralded the coming of spring. Climate change appears to have moved us on to a new scenario. The mild winter is no longer newsworthy as it seems to happen every winter, well at least since 2010 when the severe weather let us know what winter was supposed to look like.

The garden flowers are not complaining. In fact they have never had it better.

My snowdrops regularly start to flower at the end of December and aconites are a mass of colour now at the beginning of February.

Both of these early bulbous plants are spreading at a great pace and allow me to pass on spare plants and seeds to those admire them.

New aconite seedlings germinated at the end of January, but won’t flower till 2023.

Gardeners learn to be patient. We started with a tray of six aconites many years ago, but can now count them as several thousand, and I still find space to sow a few more.

The crocus species usually flower ahead of the larger hybrids, but both are now coming into flower in early February.

Just hope they can keep their heads down as gales and a deep depression is forecast for middle of February.

However the polyanthus in tubs seem to be unaware of this impending storm as they are all flowering happily, and this year I only see one that appears to be getting attacked by a few vine weevils that seem to love eating their roots.

Pansies in pots outdoors are a bit further behind, but the two hanging baskets full of pansies moved into the cold greenhouse to give them some winter protection just love it and are happy to start the flowering season.

Just a bit unfortunate that the warmer atmosphere under glass also favours the greenfly and pansy leaf spot, so some careful spraying on a dull day is necessary.

At the moment there is plenty space under glass as my young lettuce crop is still small but growing and as yet my seed sowing will start in the warmth of the house for a few weeks before going into the greenhouse.

March is usually the month when greenhouse space is at a premium and anything slightly hardy goes outdoors, which is normally sweet peas, broad beans, some onions and geraniums. My wee trial of testing the hardiness of geraniums to be left outdoors in a mild

Gardeners learn to be patient. We started with a tray of six aconites many years ago, but can now count them as several thousand.