The season is turning. I noticed light in the sky as I drove home from work the other night. Colour is coming back to the garden, mostly tiny little pops of colour. Here are some of them, I’m going to start this month’s #SixOnSaturday with February Flowers.
This weeks most lovely discovery is the early flowering of tiny winter iris. The windowbox must be warmer than the garden, even though it gets no sun at this time of year. What lushious colour!
I wish I could somehow display the wonderful smell that sarccococus give off. The little flowers are fascinating when viewed close-up, but the smell is rich and almost lily-like.
My favourite hellobore is tricky to see as he nods his little head down. A view from slight below does him justice.
Tiny winter lovliness is now appearing in the woodland borders. Aconites offer such a cheery yellow against the brown of old sticks and leaves.
Pulmonaria have just pushed out their first few flowers too. Not many yet, but perhaps enough to feed the first few hungry bees when they appear (I haven’t seen any yet).
The best blooms of winter, almost at their peak now. Snowdrops of course. This close up shows the beautiful green stripe detail near the outer ends of the shorter petals. And I didn’t notice until looking more closely, there’s a slightly out of focus fly, possibly enjoying the nectar?
I hope you enjoyed my winter blooms for #SixOnSaturday this week. The blog is going well, but it would be great if more folk on Mastodon, or other parts of the Fediverse got into tooting a Six! Go on, its a much kinder form of social media, not controlled by crazy billionaires. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot
The iris are such a vivid colour, they’re beautiful. Hellebores are really tricky to photograph, aren’t they?!
Those iris are making me very happy this year, yes. Its odd, these are in a sheltered courtyard, but one that won’t see sun until the end of March….so maybe just the warmth of the house has got them going.
Nice images. I think in 2 months, I will see the same flowers here. When you mentioned the bees I started to worry – hope our local bees know better than to wake up. We will have warm temps all next week and they have been unseasonably warm for over a week now, but there is nothing for a hungry bee right now. I miss them in winter and dream of when my Dalea purpurea is in full bloom again. I have scattered seed in hopes of more of this plant, as the bees are mad for it.
Sometimes we do see a bee or two in Jan/Feb, usually solitary bumble bees….no idea whether they make it. But the maritime climate here can be so variable, Feb day time highs can range from -5C to +13C. Mostly, it varies every few days.
It’s true that this hellebore is gorgeous ! Do you use a stick to take a photo without being bothered by dropping flowers? I do
I just got down near the floor with my camera…didn’t do my sore hip much good…..ooops.
A beautiful Hellebore and I have Aconite envy
Love the colour of those dear little irises. The Snowdrops are a treat for me too, as I don’t grow them here.
Lots of cheering colours giving us hope that Spring is just around the corner.