A taste of spring

Galanthus elwesii

Pink pinks

The weather has become a little less mild (but still above zero) with less wind and rain (but still damp and breezy much of the time); the forecast for next week actually suggests that temperatures will dip below freezing some nights.  I need to re-secure some of the greenhouse bubblewrap, a couple of panels of which have become detached from their fixings.  It hasn't mattered much up till now!  The few houseplants that were living in the greenhouse have been brought indoors for better protection, but some of the osteospermums and argyranthemums are still in their outdoor pots; I need to get them under cover.  I must also bring in the larger of the two blue echeveriums; it spent all last winter outside (admittedly up against the patio doors so it would have benefitted from some of the indoor heat), but I don't fancy risking it a second winter.

Now that the Christmas greenery has been taken down and sent for recycling I've started cutting flowers for the house again.  Quite a bit of choice at the moment!  There's a little posy of snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii), some slightly battered pinks and a lovely off-white hellebore with a slight pink flush and pink rim.  I'm sure that latter one is new.  Many years ago I bought a couple of hellebore plants and, having nowhere to plant them out at the time, I left them on the path under the dining room window.  I was less careful about deadheading in those days, and they seeded into the cracks in the path, giving me a nice collection of hellebores of various colours, but I don't remember this particular one.

The winter aconites are also in flower, and the comfrey has been blooming for a few weeks now.  No shortage of stuff to cut in the coming weeks unless we have a really cold snap!

Pink-and-white hellebore

The garden is still very wet (and smells strongly of tomcat, which isn't nice).  What little time I've had to spend outdoors has been used to tidy up a bit and do a little light pruning; although this isn't the time of year to prune cordons I've thinned out some of the spurs on the apple cordons while I can see what I'm doing (no leaves to get in the way), and removed a few spurs that are too low down.

The birds are almost in spring mode, quite sprightly and apparently minded to pair up.  We had two dunnocks feeding together the other day, which isn't usual at this time of year.  The bullfinch has been back a few times, on one occasion with another male bullfinch; the attraction has been the seedheads of an oregano plant that was never deadheaded.  There are a few chaffinches around too.  And, as usual in wet winter weather, one or more moles is tunnelling enthusiastically under the veg patch; I hope my tulip bulbs by the wall haven't been disturbed.