Celebrating creation in Lent - Part 2: 1st Sunday in Lent to Saturday 4th March

 1st Sunday in Lent, 26th February

We have been blessed with a beautiful sunset this evening - we get so many here, and every one is different!

Monday 27th February

These pollarded willows give us great winter colour, ranging from bright yellow through orange to burgandy, as well as providing useful rods. They will be cut down to the stumps in early March, allowing the wildflowers in the bed in front to flower in the sun. Over the summer they will grow again a full eight foot to provide us with flames of colour over the winter. They would also be good for living willow sculptures and play houses. If anyone would like cuttings, just ask!

Tuesday 28th February

Daffodils for St David's Day, tomorrow the 1st of March, for all my Welsh family and friends!

They are volunteers, which came with top soil after our extension had been completed almost 20 years ago, so many that I mowed them down where they were not wanted. They come in two kinds:

# The earliest are these old-fashioned double daffodils. I'm not perfectly certain of their identity, but I think they may be 'Van Sion', first recorded 400 years ago. They can be found in a lot of old and abandoned gardens. They do not produce any seed, but clump up well as you can see.

# A little later comes a daffodil with pale yellow tepals and a darker trumpet, a cultivar of the wild species Narcissus pseudonarcissus, but somewhat larger. They aren't properly out yet, so I'll post about them another time.

Wednesday 1st March

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant hapus!

Some more daffodils for St David's day proper. Marty had these front of the house in pots years ago, but they ended up on the compost heap, where they flourish still. Every year I mean to move them somewhere more fitting...

Thursday 2nd March

Bergenias, cultivars of B. crassifolia in the Saxifrage family, sometimes called 'elephant's ears', are a marvellous spring-flowering groundcover plant. They come in many different shades of pink, shading to purple and red, as well as white. They are tough as old boots, strike easily from segments of rhizomes, and clump up well.

Ours, which came from my aunt Sally's house, are a delicate pink. They have been flowering for weeks and are now at their best.

Friday 3rd March

Some years ago my brother and sister-in-law gave me a present of this charming Japanese cherry, Prunus incisa "Kojo-no-mai", which is just coming into bloom. It is really a shrub, growing to little more than 2 metres, and needs no pruning or other maintenance. It looks rather dull for most of the year, but for a few weeks in Spring it is a stunner, covered with delicate white blossoms emerging from pink buds. The Japanese name means 'flight of butterflies'.

 

Saturday 4th February

These scrumptious white double primroses came originally from my brother Tom. They multiple easily from division, and seem to be more vigorous than other doubles - I used to collect them, but all the other kinds have been lost.

One of the lovely things about private gardens is the memories they invoke, of people who gave you plants, or places where you bought them, or collected seeds. How we are blessed by the memories!