THE WEATHER -

A mild but wet start to the new year, with plenty of showers as well as sunshine. A wild and wet day on the 5th January, with strong winds and heavy rain for most of the day. Snow showers on the 14th. A beautifully sunny two days on the 17th and 18th, but cold, with a sharp frost at night. Becoming warmer but duller as the week progressed, with steady rain for the entire day on the 22nd. Becoming much colder by the 27th, and the 28th brought bitterly cold northerly winds, with snow showers. Still very cold with northerly winds on the 29th, but by the 30th, the wind had changed and was coming from the south-west, bringing a thaw and much milder weather. The 31st brought dull weather with heavy showers for most of the day, but relatively mild. Maximum temperature 9°C (48°F), minimum temperature minus 4°C (26°F).

I'm really pleased to see that my Garrya elliptica has produced flowers this year. I had to prune it back quite hard around three years ago, as it had outgrown its space, and it had decided to sulk and not produce any flowers! It had certainly put on lots of new growth, but not a flower to be seen..... Still, it's made up for it this year with plenty of beautiful very long grey-green tassels, which are interesting rather than showy. This is an evergreen shrub or small tree. The plant is dioecious, producing male and female flowers on separate plants. Female plants have shorter catkins, which are followed by small dark purple berries. Male plants are the more decorative, with much longer catkins, and these are the ones most frequently grown. Both flowers and foliage preserve well with glycerine, when they turn almost black. For instructions on preserving with glycerine and other methods of preservation, see my Preserving page.

I'm a sucker for coloured bark! At this time of the year, it provides colour in the garden, when there are few plants in flower. One genus of plants which provide a selection of different coloured stems is Cornus, or Dogwood. These are generally shrubby plants, whose leaves are not particularly spectacular in many cases, but they do have a variety of different coloured stems, according to the type grown. They look especially effective when different colours are grouped together in contrast to one another. Pictured are a red variety, Cornus alba, and a yellow variety, Cornus stolonifera flaviramea. The yellow stems often turn a yellowy-green in shade, and the best colour is produced when the plant is grown in full sun.

Other Cornus varieties with coloured bark are C. alba "Sibirica" (bright red), Cornus kesselringii (black) and Cornus "Midwinter Fire" (a lovely blend of red, pink and yellow, all on the same plant).

I hate the cold weather at this time of year, but one good thing about it is that it triggers a change of leaf colour in certain plants. One such plant is Bergenia "Overture", whose leaves turn from deep green to a beautiful claret colour on top, and a lovely deep red on the underside. When the sun shines through the foliage, the effect is magical!

I love to watch the birds who visit the patio bird table, and can spend more time than I should just looking at them and watching their antics! I was especially pleased to see the two visitors pictured above. On the left are two Siskins. I've never seen these birds in the garden before, so I had to look them up in my bird book. They are not particularly rare in general, but they are very sweet. On the right is a Thrush. Thrushes are becoming quite rare, apparently, and indeed I hadn't seen any in the garden for a year or two, but they began to appear again in 2003, and now seem to be quite regular visitors.

In spite of the generally mild winter we have had, some plants are quite late appearing when compared to previous years. Helleborus orientalis is one of these, and I only have two plants in flower at the moment, although several others are just beginning to show flower stems pushing up. The one pictured here is a lovely variety called "Red Lady". This is horticultural red, of course, which is really a dark pink!! There is not really a true red Hellebore yet! The buds and flower stems are quite red, but as the flowers open out, they turn a much lighter colour, with darker veins, and lose the redness. Still, it's a lovely plant, and a pleasure to look at!

That's all for this month...... Happy Gardening!!

Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Crow, Dunnock, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Robin, Rook, Seagull, Siskin (first sighting in the garden), Starling, Thrush, Wood Pigeon, Wren.

THE SNOWDROP
Anna Laetitia Barbauld