Never a Dull Moment: Top Blooms for February

The February garden is dominated by the usual seasonal stalwarts, the snowdrops, the witch hazels and, now gradually coming on board, the hellebores. There are too many of each to list the top ten but above are a selection of hellebores, still not yet at their best (‘Double Lime’, ‘White Spotted Lady’ and ‘Harvington Double White’) and below is ‘Ginns Imperati’, one of the many snowdrops bobbing about in the snowdrop border:

The native snowdrops in the woodland edge border enjoyed this morning’s sunshine and blue skies and were encouraged to spread their wings a little, the milder day also favouring a single bloom of Clematis cirrhosa ‘Jingle Bells’ (sadly out of focus!):

My newest witch hazel, ‘Strawberries and Cream’, is probably at its best now, as the shreds unfurl from their restrained huddles and show more of their true colour, a very definite strawberry red centre blending into Channel Island creamy yellow:

Some of the other witch hazels are over now, but the view towards the apple trees, between the stream and the shrub border, shows ‘Spanish Spider’, ‘Diane’, ‘Ruby Glow’ and ‘Zuccariniana’ still in full flower, with rivulets of Crocus tommasinianus running through the shrub border and the streamside grass. Not surprisingly, the crocus were loving the sunshine too.

Joining the ranks of these seasonal stalwarts were numerous clumps of native primroses, in the woodland, under the apple trees and in random crevices as shown in last week’s Wordless Wednesday. Sadly they are rarely as pristine as these newly flowering clumps:

Solid and dependable, these blooms form the backbone of the late winter garden here, with the snowdrops and witch hazels flowering over a long period and providing colour to my rambles from December onwards. There is certainly never a dull moment in this UK Midlands blogger’s garden – and if you pop over to Chloris’ blog at The Blooming Garden you will undoubtedly find there are very few dull moments her February garden or those of other bloggers either. Thanks Chloris, for allowing us to share our top monthly blooms.