Well January seemed to last about 75 days as it usually does, but the weather is starting to pick up, the nights are getting visibly shorter, and I’m starting to get excited about the garden. At the end of January I won a little photo competition (with the echinops image from last months blog entry) that bagged me £100 worth of seeds from https://www.plant-world-seeds.com/ I was a bit staggered by that, and have had a good clearout and giveaway of some older seeds to make space for all of these!
I seem to have spent the last few weeks pruning about 80 roses in total, I’m now pruning roses in my sleep! Luckily it’s one of my favourite garden jobs of the year. Along with a bit of apple tree pruning, and lots of hedge pruning. Unfortunately the out of control hedge I was pruning was blackthorn, wild rose, bramble, holly and hawthorn, so I have been well armored up for that, thank goodness for eye protection, gauntlets and a thick coat! I have been saving large branches from my pruning this year with the intention of building a sweet pea arch, which, with the help of my husband, we managed to construct this week. I never have anything high enough to let them reach their full potential, so hopefully in summer this will show them off to their full glory! the husband has decided it looks so good, we should make another one for the french beans, so I’m now hunting more long hedge poles, luckily I have plenty of tall hedging here!
The bulbs are all just starting to wake up, but not much else going on in the garden or out in nature yet, but there are plenty of mushrooms to see. I’m not too knowledgeable on them, but thanks to a lovely Facebook group I’m in, I’m learning. Below are some Stereum hirsutum, “Hairy Curtain Crust” on an oak log in the woods, circling the heartwood, and a broken beech tree stump with a Ganoderma species, known as “Artist’s Bracket”. So impressive, they were like stairs for climbing the tree, so strong!
And a lovely welcome bit of colour, winter aconite is springing up in some garden beds, along with the first crocuses amongst lots of snowdrops!
