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Snowdrops and daffodils...
The ground may be hard and the grass crunching under foot or the soil may be soft and squelching with every step of our boots. The rain may be battering against our anoraks, drops of water travelling horizontally, carried by a ferocious wind; the air may bite our finger tips, redden our noses and sting of our ears. Winter weather can be harsh; we retreat to the fireside, making promises for the spring, but our gardens never sleep.
Through the short winter days and long cold nights, under darkest grey skies, in gales and deluges, ice and snow, plants in our gardens live through it all. In the depths of winter, or the first stretches of early spring days, flowers will emerge from the cold earth, to illuminate the dark, to brighten our days and warm our hearts.
A Christmas Star
Envisage a pure white flower in the garden on Christmas morning – the Christmas rose. In fact, Helleborus niger will rarely be seen in yuletide flower in the garden; its common name bestowed because of its popular treatment in the past. Dormant plants were lifted in the autumn, potted in a green house and cajoled into an early growth, its winter slumber denied. The flower shoots would emerge in time for the seasonal festivities white petals like a bowl, presenting a golden ring of stamens.
In the garden it keeps its head down until February, only then do the flower buds emerge and open. Adventurous nurserymen have crossed H. niger with the green blossomed H. argutifolius to produce a robust hybrid, with dark green leaves that stay throughout the year. This was done when the green flowered parent was known as H. corsicus. The resulting plant, the produce of this cross was given the unimaginative moniker of H. x nigercors.
Whether it was vision or curiosity that spurred the originator of the hybrid to do this action we do not know, but we can be thankful for a great garden plant, a hybrid Christmas rose that flowers at Christmas. It is a plant not just for Christmas, but goes on flowering with white flowers through the spring. The flowers inherit the purity and whiteness of one parent while its evergreen foliage and vigorous growth is also bestowed upon its progeny. As the flowers age, shades of pink stain the petals, like a wine stain on a table cloth, and soon all the petals are coloured.
This robust garden plant is easy to grow, tolerant of shade and happiest where the soil is well nourished and not too wet. Each Christmas it returns to flower brightly and beautifully, lighting up the garden, like a bright star in the dark.
Colourful Crocus
Picture a flowery mead, studded with yellow and blue chalices of light - crocuses can look amazing when naturalized in grass. Sods of grass can be lifted in the autumn, a handful of corms thrown down, and then the grass replaced. The colourful petals will emerge and create a spring meadow of colour. The green foliage outlasts the floriferous display; photosynthesizing, making food which the plant will store in the corm, fuel for next year’s show. It is important that we leave this growth of foliage to complete its natural course. The grass must not be cut until the crocus foliage has turned yellow. This will be early summer and the uncut long grass is a much more suitable haven for wildlife than regularly sheared lawns.
Crocuses are easy to grow, cheap to buy and flower reliably each year. A handful of corms, covered with a few centimetres of soil in autumn, rewards such easy endeavour with great extravagance. First they appear like spears of colour, blue, purple, lilac, yellow and white, their rolled buds stretching above the soil. On sunny mornings they unroll, celebrating in the sun, their golden stamens glowing in the light. A few corms of Crocus ‘Lilac beauty’ have quickly become a colourful colony in our garden, each corm propagating, multiplying, packed together jostling for space, their flowers a bunch of joy.
Smaller flowered types, called species crocus are first to flower. Bigger flowered hybrids appear a little later, usually with rounder petals, broader and, in all ways, bigger. Both types combine well and give flowers over many weeks. They are planted in autumn, but it is not too late to have some in the garden this spring. Garden centres will have pots of flowering crocus for sale and while not as economical as buying the corms, a pot or two will add a splash of colour for little expense and remind us that spring is on the way. Some spring bulb plants are actually better if planted as growing plants rather than from bulbs.
Golden Aconite
Imagine a carpet of gold, laid out under the bare branches of a tree in January. From a distance, shining gold flowers light up the earth and, as you get nearer, you see the richness of each individual flower, a cup of golden bloom raised a few centimetres above the soil on a plate of frilled green leaves, like an offering to the heavens. This is winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis.
A European native, it is also known as wolf’s bane. A relative of the buttercup, it has similarly bright cup shaped flowers and is easy to grow. In autumn the dried tubers are offered for sale, looking like dry cat food. The dried tubers are often disappointing, sometimes only a small percentage grow, it is much better to buy pots of them flowering. Once planted in a shaded spot they thrive, self-seeding and gradually carpeting the ground.
They are one of the earliest plants to flower in the garden. Their golden blooms are beacons for early pollinating insects, woken from hibernation on mild winter days. On a sunny morning it is not unusual to see a hoverfly sucking nectar from their blooms.
Cyclamen Pink
Spring cyclamens emerge in February – a tapestry of pinks and whites, woven flowers, a magic mat of bloom. Nodding buds open to graceful flowers often with dark blotches at their base, followed by round green foliage, heart shaped at the base. Sometimes the leaves are silver lined, silver marked or completely silvered, a precious backdrop for the dainty blooms.
Cyclamen coum is native to the Black Sea and it distribution extends southwards to Iran. In our gardens it is happy to grow in sunshine or shade, but the round flat tubers dislike wet soils. They are ideal under trees and shrubs, happy in a rockery and content in pots.
Sold in quantities in garden centres in autumn, dry and dormant tubers establish well. C. coum is a highly variable species; the flowers can be any shade of pink, pure white, plain coloured or deliciously deeply shaded towards the base. The foliage can show even great variability. Buying the plants in flower allows us gardeners to pick our favourites – a real find is a silver leafed. This hardy species should not be confused with the larger flowered florist’s cyclamen, hybrids of C. persicum, which are highly floriferous and more widely sold, but quite tender. These softer larger types can be quite good in pots outside as long as there are not hard frosts. They make long lasting indoor plants in situations where the temperature is cool, unheated frost free porch ways are ideal.
Signs Of Spring
Take time to admire snowflakes in early spring. White bells of flowers with tiny yellow decorative spots at the tips of their petals beguile during cold spring days. Leucojum aestivum is larger than the more widely grown snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis and related species. Both are easy to grow but can be tricky to establish from bulbs. The bulbs hate to be dried, and inadvertently they do get too dry in transport and storage. Autumn planted bulbs often disappoint, with only a few of each ten bulbs planted germinating. All the books advise planting them ‘in the green’. This means planting them while they are growing, leaves and flowers present. Commercially there are few outlets that offer them in this manner, but it always good to be on the lookout. Snowdrops and snowflakes offered for sale in pots are usually containerised bulbs rather than plants lifted from growth.
Sometimes garden centres will pot up left over stock and snowdrops, treated in this way, tend to be weak plants. Look out for strong growing plants or, if someone offers them to you from their garden, don’t say no. Dig with your hands if need be, snowdrops should never be refused.
Rewarding Investment
Snowdrops, snowflakes and hellebores need little attention. A good mulch of bulky organic matter laid in autumn or late winter is well appreciated by the plants. Many gardeners report that animal manures are not liked by Galanthus species. Later in spring, a few handfuls of fish, blood and bonemeal is all that they require. Crocuses and other naturalized bulbs rarely need any attention and cause no concerns to the gardeners once their foliage is left to grow after they have finished flowering. These early flowering gems are not just food for a gardener’s soul, but are sources of nectar for pollinating insects.
Hellebores and spring bulbs are good investments, increasing in number, spreading through the soil to give more enjoyment with each passing year. They are versatile, happy in the shade of the trees, naturalized in grass, in borders and beds, in pots and baskets. They are tough, defying the elements, happy in wind, rain and cold. Spring bulbs are beautiful and colourful; they remind us of the vitality and renewal that spring brings each year.
A Soil Association report in the UK finds that Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offers many benefits to members,
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