Things have finally started to grow!

Things have finally started trying to grow!

Hacquetia

It's been such a long, cold winter - the third really cold one in a row. This year though, the temperatures have stayed low for much longer - unlike 2012, when things all started growing like mad in March and were then clobbered by the cold and lack of sunshine for the rest of the summer.

Anemone Blanda

That said, there really is no such thing as a 'normal' year, and maybe this is just more typical British weather than what we've been used to of late. Thankfully the last couple of weeks has seen temperatures rising a bit, and even the odd few hours of sunshine! 





In my garden things are finally starting to come up, thank goodness. I have a lot of herbaceous stuff which disappears underground in the summer so it's been looking, well, brown and muddy for months now! But every day I can see more tantalising glimpses of things bravely poking their heads up: species geraniums, achillea, alchemilla mollis, rudbeckia Goldsturm and lysimachia punctata, with its tiny cabbage-like shoots sprouting like a mini allotment patch.

Lysimachia punctata

A lot of these were planted as small '3 for a tenner' plants last spring so it's exciting to see how they will do in their second year. 




Perhaps my favourite is a fabulous catmint: Nepeta nervosa 'Blue Moon' - a great favourite with the bees, and the most intense deep blue flowers. Having failed several times to get lavender to thrive in my chilly garden I think I may give up and plant Blue Moon in its place this year.

Nepeta Nervosa Blue Moon, and happy bee.                                       Copyright Clare Holt

In the new white border (it's probably a bit grandiose to give it that title, but that's what it's going to be!) the tulips I planted last autumn have all come up - - the ones that I didn’t manage to get in, beaten back by the dark and cold of pre Christmas, I have put in the other side in the ‘new’ bed. As I write (mid April) the late-planted tulips are starting to venture out of the earth perhaps encouraged by the slight warming up of the last couple of weeks. I have no idea if they will flower or not - but I take the attitude, perhaps naiively, that plants want to do what they do and given half a chance they'll pretty much get on with it. 

Although the white border is still a thing that exists in my imagination as much as anything else, I have taken advantage of the kindness of my wonderful gardening friend Sue and planted some passed on snowdrops among the anemones, cyclamen and erythronium. Now it's just a case of waiting another year to see how it all looks. Patience, as ever with gardening, is not just a virtue, but a necessity!