Blooming Friday - Winter (11 FEB 2011)

This week we enjoyed a rare sunny interval in London, so I took the opportunity to compile a photo collection of the blooming plants in my garden.

Before I started gardening, I never opened my back door in winter ....

The huge hellebore leaves, which protected the emerging buds when it was bitterly cold, have been cut away, to allow the flowers to receive applause, their work is done. The snails, grateful for their shelter, didn't eat the hellebores.

 

Multiple flowers on bare, haphazard branches are certainly more striking without foliage to distract the eye.

Winter jasmine and chaemolenes have been blooming faithfully since the autumn leaf shed. I haven't noticed any pollinators around, so I guess they must be feeling somewhat frustrated. Maybe that's why the flowers appear enlarged and even more attractive, in their yearning, as the months go by.

I didn't appreciate the beauty of bushy heather, until I saw close-up the magenta bead-like florets with their black protusions.

Lamium (a weed ?)   rises through the thawing lawn readily adorned with its lilac hooded flowers.

The primula has lost last year's leaves, seamlessly superimposing them with plantlets, giving the impression of immortality. The apparently delicate violet and gold petals have been covered by snow and icy frosts but remain unscathed.


This hyacinth, presented to me by Mr. T, is the first spring bulb to bloom in my garden,  a signal that winter is drawing to a close.
The leaves of my own bulbs are literally inching out of the ground daily.

Snails made sorties to feast on broccoli leaves at night. By day, pigeons ripped off healthy snacks when the soil was too hard to peck for worms. People tell me about their failed attempts with broccoli, as the leaves grow huge without a hint of delivering the goods.

Patience is required -

don't forget that broccoli is also called winter cauliflower.

For more Blooming Friday posts about Winter visit  Roses and Stuff