This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Monday 22 February 2016

Winter colour

It's about a month until the official start to Spring... this time of year its lovely to see masses of snowdrops and crocuses - sure signs that warmer weather is on its way.


The great thing about crocuses and snowdrops is that they get bigger and better each year as they develop, and as the bulbs multiply underground. These are fab little plants that are worth investing in!
After snowdrops flower, simply lift, divide and replant some in other areas of the garden to get more plants for free. They do well planted under trees. 

The dogwood Cornus shrub is best known for its brightly coloured stems in Winter. You may see in the photo that little buds are beginning to grow on some of the stems, indicating it's soon time to give it a hard prune.  A job for the coming weeks.

I've been in Winter slumber along with my garden, and now there's lots of tidying to do and preparations for Spring. Not long now until seeds will be sown.... March and April will be busy months!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

10 comments:

  1. How lovely! I had crocuses and snowdrops at our first house & they are such a welcome sign of spring. I've been meaning to get some more spring bulbs planted here, but other tasks often take precedence. One of these days, I'll get around to it.

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  2. The early spring flowers seem to give you a nudge and tell you to get out there don't they?

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  3. It will be interesting to see how hard you prune your Dogwoods. I hope you will post some photos. I have recently given most of mine a very severe pruning.

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  4. Sounds like you have your work cut out for you, as we do here. You will just get to it sooner. I did notice that the daffodils and tulips have broken through the ground now that the snow has melted. I don't know about the crocuses, though; they are under a layer of bark mulch. Happy Clean-up.

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  5. Spring is coming, what wonderful news! Our winter has been quite mild this year, so I'm expecting my first blooms soon. Iris reticulata is always the start of my garden season.

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  6. Lovely photos.. Not long now till Spring, it's a lovely time of the year. Looking forward to getting into the garden more :o)

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  7. My crocus are up, too, and how wonderful to finally see some color in the garden. Happy gardening!

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  8. Look at those crocus. The combination of the purple and yellow is wonderful. Yes. We are busy here. We are just beginning to emerge outside from the cold winter. Now we will have wind for a month. And sun. Which potatoes will you grown? We will pant reds, Idahos, and my favorite, Yukon golds. Let the work begin.

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  9. All are just gorgeous! Love the early spring bulbs, however, they do not do well down here.

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  10. It's certainly very colourful there in your garden Kelli.

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