One a Penny, Two a Penny

I delayed my rambles round the garden today until well fortified by lunching on hot cross buns, still warm from the oven. As with most days this week the mornings have seen the garden bathed in sunshine following the clear skies and negative temperatures overnight; although there was a degree or two more warmth in the sun today the skies clouded over again by early afternoon, a pattern that looks set to continue for at least another week.

Little patches of snow still remain and no doubt will continue to do so with these stable weather conditions, but most of the garden seems to be just getting on with its seasonal routine again. Everywhere there are buds swelling and changing colour, from pinky tints on the amelanchier to little white globules on the wild plum and the blackthorn. I checked the early bud on Clematis alpina ‘Constance’, pleased to see more starting to appear lower down the plant, and the picture below suggests the outer petals are just about to start breaking apart. This is the earliest of my clematis to flower, but throughout the garden more dry brown stems are wakening from dormancy and sprouting new growth.

 Elsewhere in the borders all sorts of interesting new growth is evident, with those hardy perennials that remained green throughout the winter looking as fresh as ever, and the truly herbaceous ones exuberantly pushing up proof of their existence. Many label-less geraniums are reappearing , with one nudging up next to the pink fingers of this dicentra, and species tulips continue poke their spears of varied shades out of the bare brown earth.

The glories of the woodland edge border are reappearing from under their white blanket, and although some of the hellebores are still bowed down with responsibilities, most are springing back against the backdrop of snowdrops, emphasising the lateness of the latter’s performance this year. There will be snowdrops at Easter!