February 2023

After the longest spell of dull weather that I have experienced here, we plunged into the cold.

Some plants, like this Camelia protect their flower buds and remain in bud until hopefully the weather turns clement.

The Hellebores have suffered all summer from the excessive sun and heat with a lot of their leaves being scorched. The cold has further retarded their normal blooming time.

The Chimonanthus praecox has shrugged off all the contrarieties of the weather and has given us the most flowers it ever has. There have been plenty of twigs full of flowers to cut and bring indoors to enjoy the perfume.

Not all the Chimonanthus flowers escaped the hard frost but in the warmer days the flowers perfume can be appreciated from a distance.

Now we are in a warm spell and the bees are excitedly gathering pollen.

Every year I search amongst the hazel catkins for the red hazel flowers. They fascinate me and I find them so beautiful. They remind me of sea anemones. I have never managed to take a photograph of them that I am satisfied with. The petals resist the camera. I suppose the answer is to cut off a branch but it seems such a shame. I would appreciate any hints from photographers for next year.

So, after the gloom and the cold, I hesitate to believe that we can glide gently into a normal spring. For one thing, the soil is drying out and we have not had our normal supply of rain to help push the spring bulbs through.

A few more warm sunny days should lift my pessimism.

Hellebores

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If I had only one word to describe the garden today it would be “Hellebores”. I did not do my usual moving of self-seeded plants last autumn but the plants I have moved in previous years are providing so many flowers after another dark, damp week here. The bees love them and gather the pollen until the flower ages and the stamens fall off.

The noisiest part of the garden is near the plum tree, although patches of Hellebore try to rival the plum tree for the highest “buzz” volume.

The plum tree opened up this week but today was the first sunny day that we could appreciate it properly. The flowers are full of honey bees, bumblebees and other pollinators.

We are told that hazel pollen is a very important early pollen for bees. I never see our catkins mobbed with bees like some of our flowers so I was glad to catch this bee this morning with a heavy load of hazel pollen.

Likewise I have recently added Cornus mas or Cornelian Cherry to the garden as the pollen is supposed to be high in protein so I was glad to see the bees on the flowers.

Eriobotrya japonica – will we have fruit this year?

The Viburnum tinus is just opening and will supply pollen to the bees for a long time yet.

Our first Camelia flower opened today. I hope we will be having more sunny days to enjoy it when it is fully opened.

Rain or sun we can watch our birds from the windows.

This plant tray stays outside our kitchen window and is the bathing place for the birds.

Kourosh thinks it is some type of warbler. Its feathers look incredibly downy.

Looking for colour in the February garden

I find the garden subdued this February. However, the cold and cloudy weather cannot stop the bulbs from pushing through.

The Hellebores have been well frosted this year.

But they are coming up in abundance now, untouched by the cold weather.

This is not the case of the anemones. This autumn I planted anemone bulbs expecting them to flower in the late spring. In fact, they started to flower in December but the cold and frost soon damages their petals. This has not bothered the bees who have little regard for the aesthetic qualities of the flowers they visit. Can you see the black pollen the bee has gathered from the anemone?

I am still disappointed with my Chimonanthus praecox. It’s common name is wintersweet because of its perfume but it needs to be planted in a sunny position to enjoy this wonderful perfume on sunny days. We have not had many of those days this year and, despite the plant being hardy, the flower are damaged by the rain and frost.

This year, more than ever, I have been grateful to my Choisia “Sundance” for bringing light into the garden.

Likewise, my willows (Salix alba “Chermesina”) light up the back garden.

I have still left the old flowerheads of some of my sedum in places but I will have to cut them soon as there are shoots of the new plant already pushing through.

I quickly took a photograph to show the garden with a blue sky yesterday. There have been too few bright days recently and we are back to totally gray skies again today.

I am glad we decided to insulate the beehives again this year. I am not convinced that modern, conventional beehives offer the bees sufficient protection from the cold.

Our girls are off out of the hive, as soon as there is sunshine and the temperatures allows it. Some seem glad to just spread their wings in flight but others are busy bringing in pollen and nectar.

Springtime?

January was so cold and I became so impatient to see the Hellebores open.  My Hellebores have obligingly self-seeded and I have tenderly spread them throughout the garden knowing how much I appreciate their colour and the number of bees that they attract in the early warm days of the year.

They are beautiful plants and provide both nectar and pollen for the bees.  The green tubes that you can see behind the bee in the last picture, are the hellebore nectaries.  There is an excellent site if you want more of an insight into the botany of Hellebores with superb photographs.

The winter flowers of the Sarcococca confusa are as important to me as to the bees and they bring their perfume to assure me that spring will not be long in coming.

The crocus bring the longed for colour – no matter what the weather is like.

The plum tree is just as impatient to flower, but with the first flowers opening so early I doubt whether the fruits will survive.  It is two years since we have tasted the plums as although these signs are encouraging, winter will not have finished with us yet.

The willow near the bee hives is covered with soft pussy willow and I saw the male stamens break out with their yellow pollen today.  If the weather keeps good the tree will soon be covered with bees of all sorts.

The carpenter bees (Xylocopa violacea) have returned.

More and more queen bumble bees are topping up on nectar, but I have not seen any gathering pollen yet (they know it is too early.)

The butterflies are around too.  I think this Red Admiral must have overwintered somewhere judging by the condition of the wings.

However, I was surprised to see a Hummingbird Hawk-Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) so early.

All in all I feel disoriented by this spell of clement, sunny weather with temperatures going up to 17 degrees centigrade sometimes in the afternoon.

Perhaps not so disoriented as the bumble bee above who seemed to be looking for nectar in the wrong place.

But finally we can take a lesson from these two bumble bees.  Life is not all about rushing to get nectar.  We need to make choices and decide to just enjoy it sometimes.

 

 

Of cold days and Hellebores

Mid morning today the temperature was not above four degrees Centigrade.  Such a quiet garden.  The Viburnum tinus had no visitors.

At least the willow buds (Salix caprea) are protected from the cold by their white, silky fleece.  There is no urgency for them to open as the wild bees will be still safely tucked into their nests in hollow stems or tunnels in the ground or perhaps in our house walls.  The honey bees will be in their hives while the cold prevails.

I think of the nectar and pollen that the willow will provide but for the willow the season will arrive and its pollen will be dispersed and seed will be set irrespective of the bees and other pollinators because it is wind pollinated.  The bees can help a bit but they depend on the willow much more than the willow depends on them.

The Hellebore are providing colour in the cold weather, oblivious to the chill.

My mainstay Hellebore is a dark purple plant.  I inherited several seedlings of them from my sister’s garden in the U.K. and it has taken some years to establish clumps of them around the garden.

She has been generous with her seedlings and whereas I was hoping my deep purple might revert, I think it is relatively stable.  This spotty pink is probably another of her seedlings.

This one has green markings but but is more likely to have come from a later seedling of my sister’s than a natural hybrid.

The Hellebore self-seed so well I thought I might try my hand at pollinating a white Hellebore with a dark one and collecting the resulting seed.  I opened a white bud and liberally rubbed pollen from the dark red Hellebore, closed the bud and tied thick red wool around the flower head.  I get ten out of ten for enthusiasm and enterprise but the poor flower is brown and shows signs of a too rough treatment.  I’ll try again but more gently.

I did treat myself to a named variety last year in the U.K. –  Helleborus Harvington.  Unfortunately, I have just discovered this refers to the Hellebore bred by Hugh Nunn at Harvington and there are many varieties of beautiful Hellebore that he has bred.  So I still do not have a named variety.

Luckily, I love all my Hellebore.  I do not mind that for the most part they hang their heads and conceal the beautiful interiors.

The bees care little about the position of the flower heads either.

I took the photographs of the bees on the Hellebore on 2 February and you can see the ivory pollen she has gathered.   The Hellebore are generous to the bees and also provide them with nectar.  I, in my turn, am rewarded with lots of Hellebore seedlings that I lift and tend in seed trays over the summer until I find a suitable place for them.

I am finding them very useful in the garden as they can be put under the shade of deciduous trees and will take being baked in the summer when they are established.

Hey girls!  I really am trying to make sure there is enough for everyone.

Spring in February?

Nothing looks greatly different in the garden since the big chill.  However, we had the big wind next with winds over 100 km. an hour and the winds were higher in the coastal regions.   This left our area without electricity.  We were out for just over 24 hours but depending on where you lived others lost their electricity for longer.  In areas with no piped gas, houses are frequently all electric.  So it is a good idea to keep in plenty of candles and a camping stove.  The really super-prepared have a little generator but we have stayed at the candles and camping stove level.

Now we have sunshine and day time temperatures touching twenty degrees centigrade which has coaxed our plum tree to open its first flowers.

After the big wind some of the fine branches of the plum tree had broken and we brought in the twigs to enjoy watching the flowers open inside but they had hardly finished flowering inside before the tree itself had started to flower outside.

Some butterflies are out and from the freshness of this Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) it is a new season butterfly just hatched rather than one that has overwintered as an adult.

The winter flowering honeysuckle welcomes different visitors now like this early bumble bee (Bombus pratorum) queen

and the Carpenter (Xylocopa violacea)

It is not so visible from a distance but the willow tree at the bottom of the garden is opening out its buds too.

The catkins are still at their attractive fluffy stage but soon the pollen will appear attracting the pollinators to this important plentiful source of early pollen.

The Hellebores are making a big impact in the garden now.  The bees make them a noisy attraction but the constant replanting of the self-sown seedlings is paying off.

The different groups are spacing out their flowering times somewhat, depending on how much sun they receive.  I find the ones in full sun flower earliest.

The Bergenia is starting to flower but I dragged it from one poor position last autumn to some other positions where I hope it will flourish.  It has not welcomed the change gladly.  Still there is always next spring.

I was given a heather as a present but sadly with no idea of the species.  It was very pot bound, probably meant for impact rather than planting out.  I sawed of the bottom tangle of roots and sawed it in two.  I had just finished planting it when the bees appeared.  Well, that was one of my questions answered – the bees like it.  The heather I have had success with here is Erica x darlyensis which is more tolerant of chalky soils.  This one does not look the same as my others and has lilac flowers that fade to white.  I hope they will thrive in their new home.

It is only when you look closely that you see the changes in the garden.  The purple flower is self-sown Honesty (Lunaria annua), a bit early, I would have thought.

The violets, both purple and white varieties, appear as weeds in the garden but are always welcome.

In fact, there are a lot of good stuff in the weeds in the garden.

The speedwell (Veronica (perhaps) persica) is covering the surrounding fields and the garden with a haze of blue but this little flower provides much needed pollen and nectar for the wild bees like the one above and also the honey bees.

The hover flies too stop by for the nectar.

Gardening is not for the impatient.  I have longed for a Chimonanthus praecox for my garden and now eventually I have a bush and it has flowered for the first time.  I do not know the species as I bought it in France where the species does not seem to matter much but I love it anyway.  My main criteria was the perfume and one sniff of the heady, sensual perfume told me I had a winner.  Also called wintersweet but I think of it as the ice flower although the weather at the moment is nearer to summer than winter.

A February of contradictions

It has not really been a cold month, with hardly any frost but in the middle of the month there was a hard one that froze the molehills, making cunning trip traps for me as I made my way down the garden.  It has been a good winter for the moles.

The frost tried to beat the spring flowers into submission but the daffodils take it in their stride.

Not so the broad beans that should not be flowering yet.  They are less hardy and have lost their first flowers to the cold.  Will we have a broad bean harvest this year?  It depends on the weather that will follow on.

Some plants look even better frosted.

But maybe it is time to clip the old flower heads to let the sun reach the new shoots.

The Choisia Sundance is a star of the winter garden whether frosted or not it adds a splash of colour even in the dull winter days.

The frosted back garden is quiet.  Although I prefer the cold to the higher than average rainfall we have been having this month.  February has been unusually wet and grey.

But it has not prevented the big plum tree from flowering and on the sunny days I can hear a comforting buzz from the bees collecting the pollen and nectar.  The butterflies also visit but not in great numbers.  Last year we had very few plums as the weather was very similar and the newly pollinated flowers were destroyed by a subsequent frost.  I notice that the tree has been opening its flowers slowly so perhaps like this there will be more chance that some fruit will hold if the cold returns.

The hazel trees started to push open their discrete flowers in February.  The catkins were already open and presenting their pollen to the wind and any passing bees that might be interested.  I have read that the hazel pollen is a precious source of protein for the bees at this time of year but try as I might I’ve never seen any bees on them let alone steal a photograph.  Those sneaky bees!

It’s not hard to find bees on the Hellebores, in fact, you’ll hear them first.  The pollen is a dull grey/beige but it must taste good as it is very popular.

The Hyacinths too are popular with both the honey bees and the queen bumble bees.  But even the bees get lulled into a false sense of spring with a few sunny days.  I found a frozen bumble bee queen one frosty morning futilely  sheltering inside a hyacinth flower.  Why had she not taken better shelter for the night?

The solitary bees have started to appear but I wonder if they regret their early arrival during the rainy days.

The Reinettes (Hyla meridionalis) seem content with the situation.  They croak happily on the patio when it is raining and sit serenely soaking up the rays when it is sunny.  It is so good to feel the winter sun after the gloom.