Signs of spring

I find gardening difficult now, but I do love spring bulbs so I put them in pots. Last autumn Monty Donn had a huge container and he put the tulips in right near the bottom. They were about 2 feet deep. I have never planted bulbs that deep or as densely as he did.

I always wait till the last minute to buy bulbs as you get real bargains, I got 265 bulbs for £25 bulbs. I bought to very large plastic tubs for £5 each and totally packed them out with 4 layers of bulbs. The results have been spectacular.

Tulips that came up in February and still solid and upright with no sign of wilting. Everything is supporting each other and the display is lovely. The tubs are right next to my living room window so I can enjoy them every day,

The huge swaves of snowdrops and galanthus are almost finished, and the 2 meadows are covered with 1000s of wild crocuses, white and purple - well they were. It started snowing yesterday morning and we have had 40cm overnight. The poor housemartins and redstarts who live in our barn arrive 4 days ago, the hobbies and red kites and buzzards too - poor things.

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Here in Hampshire we have daffodils out on the side of the road in a few spots. They may be an early variety but very cheerful. I hope to go to our local NT to see the snow drops today.

I still have the odd osteosperman and penstamen flowering in the front. ( excuse the spelling)

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I am a bit worried about my arum lilies which have floppd right over with the frosty night we have had. Just hope they will recover when it warms up.

Here in central Europe our first snowdrops have appeared, coinciding with severe (but sunny) minus temperatures!

Walking back from the shops and looking in gardens I saw a pretty climbing bush with little white flowers outside one house. A lady came along and I spoke to her, turned out it was her house and her plant.
She said it was a winter flowering Jasmine: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasminum_polyanthum
And this was in the middle of a busy town.

..on my late afternoon dog walk I also noticed lots of dandelions and other weeds which would not normally be about in January... bizarre...

I don't think the daisies ever went away - we certainly had some on the lawn at Christmas.

I am at 1000ft on top of a hill in the Staffs Moorlands and there are very definate signs of spring! The Hazel is full of flowers (lambstails as we called them when young), Snowdrops, tiny Cyclamen a colourful picture, Hamonelis in flower with a lovely sent, Viola still flowering, a white Hellebore and a Camelia flower fully open. First Daffodils are about 6inches tall. So much hapoening that a cold blast will really knock back. But it was lovely to see it all in the sunshine today.

Lots of crocus, daffodils and muscaria bulbs showing shoots and today I've just noticed one solitary snowdrop that's popped it's wee head up. Also noticed that the clematis has green shoots already. Love this time of year because every day has a new surprise!

Daffodils and primroses out. Big buds on the Camellias and everywhere green shoots of more builds. I love this time of year. So full of anticipation and promise.

I love Spring and I love flowers but they are way too early.

Yes, we have had primroses out since early Dec.
No fuschias though, and certainly no daises or dandelions as yet.Plenty of buds on everything, far too early.?

I am delighted that I have snowdrops and self-sown primroses in flower. I have fuschias and osteospermum still flowering their socks off since last summer.

Mine only stopped flowering a couple of weeks ago.

There are new leaves on our fuschia bushes but I think they will probably be killed off by a cold spell. One of the bushes still has big, pink flowers on from autumn.

Not exactly spring, but I've just been out for a short walk, and there are daisies and dandelions flowering on the roadside.
Not quite right for January, is it?

We could still have very cold, freezing weather, ( voice of doom) but it is nice to see the bulbs pushing up and thinking of what we aim to do come Spring.Am looking forward to planting a whole new border and rockery section.

The photos are a lovely sign of things to come.

Driving around a local roundabout yesterday I saw clumps of daisies growing happily in the grass.

Don't think I have ever seen daises this early on in the year.

Somehow I missed a white geranium when tiding up the garden last autumn, it is still flowering even though we have had the occasional frost.

The snowsdrops look lovely.
At the moment we have only some thin green snowdrop leaves, so finger crossed.

I am so looking forward to the spring bulbs, daffodils especially.

Hmm. Here everything is much later in Scotland.
There are viola and primula in pots at my door and a snapdragon which survived the winter looks as if it's about to flower. Are we 6mths ahead or behind?

Lovely, Dustyangel

Lots of buds and bulbs coming up here in the East Midlands