I thought I would have been back amongst the SoSers sooner, but it’s been an altogether miserable winter and although I had one or two flowering plants in January, nothing worthy of a SoS post.
1. Crocuses in containers. Last year I grew the lovely Crocus Chrysanthus ‘Blue Pearl’, ‘Cream Beauty’ and Crocus ‘Orange Monarch’ in pots which went into the conservatory to avoid the wind and the rain. I left them in their pots outdoors in a sunny spot over the summer to see if they would return this spring. Cream Beauty attempted to flower again, but the rain damaged the flowers before I could bring it indoors. I will remove all these bulbs and try and find a spot in the ground now and see if any survive next spring.
And lesson learned – I will buy new bulbs for containers next year.
The photos below are from last year.
2. Hellebores are now in bud. I managed to get out one dryish day to cut off all the old leaves so that the new shoots and flowers can be seen. Several of the new ones I bought a few years ago are flowering this year so I have a white one with a pink freckly face to join the older ones. I also have about 20 pots of seedlings that need to be repotted!
3. Under the Willow tree the crocuses in the ground have been opening since mid January along with a tiny clump of double snowdrops and an even smaller clump of aconites. I am not too fussed about snowdrops though they do look lovely en masse and they are definitely stronger that the crocuses which get flattened by the wind and rain. On that point maybe I should plant more snowdrops here. You can see that I wasn’t totally successful in removing the lesser celandine from this patch last spring!
The photos above were taken on a dry, but cloudy day. Fortunately the sun came out and I was able to get some images of these pretty flowers before they succumbed to the wind and the rain.
4. My earliest flowers this year were the dwarf irises. Iris histriodes – ‘George’ was the first to arrive in early January in a couple of containers where it was planted two years ago which shows that some bulbs in containers do reappear – followed by Iris reticulata ‘Dijt’ and then ‘Alida’, a pretty light blue. Some of these may have been removed and replanted. I really ought to take better notes!
5. Iris reticulata ‘Katherine Hodgkin’, (a much paler blue with the falls heavily veined with deeper blue and marked yellow at the base) was grown for the first time as I admired her on other blog posts last spring. I also grew several different varieties in the raised bed last year, but very few have returned so maybe these do better in containers.
6. Although the unexpected snowfall we had in February along with freezing temperatures for a week (practically unheard of this far south-west) has caused damage to some of my perennials I am happy to say it did not affect my pretty little Narcissus ‘February Gold’ which are once again flowering in the Woodland Border. And lots of the Tête-à-tête are popping up in an assortment of containers. I was late planting my spring bulbs last autumn, for some reason I could not work up the enthusiasm to get on with the job.
I think I will only be joining in with this meme on a monthly basis this year unless I make any radical changes. It is almost five years since I moved here and for the first year I simply watched the garden grow to ascertain what was there. Now I feel that unless I make some radical changes it is all a bit samey. ‘They’ say it takes around five years for a garden to mature so maybe I have come to the point where now I want or need a change, but despite pouring over gardening books over the winter months, I haven’t got a definite plan in mind.
As always, if you want a peek over other people’s garden walls then please pop over to our host, the lovely Jon, AKA ‘The Propagator’ where you find links to many more wonderful garden enthusiasts from all over the world.
See here for the participant’s guide.
Cornwall in Colours 
Welcome back Jude. Lovely photos. Those iris are lovely and good to know they happily return in a pot.
Only some return in a pot – George does fine. The others I think I turfed out in August and repotted them in October. The ones in the ground didn’t appear at all! Well, two I think.
I’ve never managed to keep Iris reticulata from one year to the next, in pots or the ground. Maybe this time……
George is an iris histriodes and that one does come back in the pots they are in. I must look up more of that kind. Alida and Dijt were removed from their containers in August and replanted. But my lovely yellow ones haven’t come back or Pixie and Harmony in the beds. Still they are cheap enough to buy fresh each year which may be the easiest way.
Very beautiful pops of colour to brighten up my reader 😊
Lovely to see what is happening in your garden again! And what colour you have there! It’s beautiful.
A Beautifully bright and cheerful return. Impossible to remove the celandine I find but I keep trying. I just can’t seem to come to love it!
I don’t mind it except it that it takes over.