January wander in the garden

There is little to remind of a proper winter when looking out the window. Warm temperatures for several weeks have ment that almost all the snow in the garden is gone. There is the odd white blob here and there where the winter sun hasn’t been able to reach, and the flowerbeds are bare, brown and full of leaves and withered perennials from last year. This time of year I would expect the garden to be covered in a thick white blanket of snow, and temperatures regularly dipping down to minus 10 C and lower.

Lots of photos of flowering snowdrops and other signs of spring on social media made me want to take a walk round the garden to see if I could find any signs of spring. And with the January sun gently warming, it was lovely to get out with the camera.

There is little evidence of proper spring, fortunately, because I expect it will get cold in February and everything that has developed too much is in danger of being damaged. Most of the plants have thankfully stayed safely dormant.

Finding the beauty of the mild January garden is not the same as finding the beauty of the bursting June garden. The overview in January is mainly brown with elements of evergreen plants that are half covered by faded, brown plant from last year. You can’t look out over the garden and find the same overwhelming joy as in summer. At least not in our garden which is mainly a garden with herbaceous perennials. Instead, we must look for details and small signs of life. Often these little signs can bring more joy than overwhelming colour in June.

Here are some pictures of things we found in the garden today.

(The featured photo on top shows the merging shoots of Leucojum vernum, one of my favourite plants.)