Winter

In this part of the world, in January it is winter. Days are short, it is dark when I leave for work and dark again when I come home.
So it is mostly in the weekends that I can see what is happening in my garden. It has it's advantages if you don't look every day: you get little surprises, like all of a sudden some Iris reticulata jpeg 11 Kb are flowering half of January (That was last year, normally they flower in February). And very soon you see snowdrops jpeg 10 Kb, crocus jpeg 18 Kb and puschkinia brightening up the garden.

Over the years I am looking for plants, that stay green or even flower in wintertime, so it does not look so barren. Against the shed and the fence for example I grow some ivy and Euonymus fortunei for a greenish background. I also leave old flower stems from Anemona vitifolia 'Robustissima' jpeg 11 Kb, etc. to keep some height and to catch snow on the rare occasion there falls some.
Last year we had a very early snowfall, the first of December. Until then it had not been cold at all, so even the roses jpeg 14 Kb were still flowering, a strange sight with snow on them! And the birds had still left quite a few berries on the Pyracantha jpeg 15 Kb growing against the front of my house.

Last year I bought a Viburnum tinus jpeg 14 Kb, it starts flowering in December, has a lovely smell and nice dark-green leaves. Also Leucothoe axillaris 'Scarletta' jpeg 17 Kb, which has beautifully colored leaves in winter, turning green later on.
Then there is a Skimmia 'Rubella' jpeg 14 Kb, the dark red flower buds come out in autumn already and look very pretty also until they open up in February to soft pink flower spikes.
These plants I keep in containers, so I can shove them around, give them a more prominent place in winter, when they look nicest and put them in the background when the summer flowers need more space.

But the real gems for this time of the year are plants from the Helleborus family. To start with Helleborus foetidus jpeg 19 Kb, the light-green flowers come out in November, contrasting nicely with the dark-green leaves, and staying till March or April.

Then there is Helleborus 'Atrorubens' jpeg 20 Kb, it took some years before it flowered, but February this year showed quite a lot of beautiful purple flowers. After a while, their color starts to turn green, and they still are nice.

Like it's sister, Helleborus niger jpeg 11 Kb, it can take snow, even when it flowers. They sag a little, but when the snow is gone, they go on like nothing ever happened. Niger is the one called Christmas Rose, you see them quite a lot in flower shops around that time, but in the garden their top show is March or April. If I had a bigger garden, I would put in more varieties, I love them all!

Well, what else is there: groundcover like Vinca minor, Viola labradorica keeps its leaves, some remnants of Lamium maculatum 'Beacon Silver', and my all time favorite Heuchera micrantha 'Palace Purple' jpeg 16 Kb, but I will tell you more about that one later.

Right now, let's go on, I feel like spring is in the air.