Green Girl Gardener

First Six in March and the world is feeling more hopeful and Spring-like. The kids are going back to school on Monday, not that I have any, but it feels like a step in the right direction and two weeks after that we’re allowed to gather up to six of us outside, including in our gardens.

I’ve not been well all week and have struggled through work and then pretty much collapsed in bed so today is the first time I’ve ventured in the garden since last weekend. If I’m honest, I was expecting to see more signs of life and changes since then, but I guess I need to be patient! Not my forte!

There was one plant showing signs of life though which always makes me happy.

I realise this doesn’t look like much, but if you look closely, and perhaps squint a bit, you can see top right and bottom left, the first little purple shoots of my eupatorium starting to regrow after its long Winter snooze. It didn’t grow as big last year as it did the previous two years but I’m keeping everything crossed that it does well this year. I may take a couple of cuttings once it gets properly going.

Also showing signs of return are my Welsh poppies which just appeared last year for the first time.

These have a beautifully cheery bright yellow flower in the Summer and they have sprouted up behind the chairs on our bistro so we can sit and enjoy them whilst we’re soaking up the sun (hopefully) in a few weeks.

My bergenia ‘elephant’s ears’ has produced some flowers since last weekend.

This is generally as good as they get! They were given to me by the cleaner at work from her garden a couple of years ago. She brought them in without any soil on their roots and I plonked them in the garden when I got home. They’re completely in the shade and probably water deprived by next door’s trees but they are demonstrably still alive so that’s good enough for me for a completely free plant.

Also starting to look like it’s waking up is my honeysuckle.

This flowered for the first time last year, in its second year, so I’m hoping for good things from it this year.

Moving on to a plant which is coming to the end of its flowering season.

This is a hellebore which lives in my birthday planter. It was from a sale table a couple of years ago and this year has been its best performing year so far. Its flowers start off pure white but they’ve morphed into lime green now. I only noticed today how gorgeous the middle of the flower is. It looks like loads of babies feeding on their mother. I’m sure there’s probably some green science to this but I’ll just admire the prettiness.

For my final point I’m going to share my latest plant delivery.

I ordered this from QVC so long ago I’d completely forgotten about it! It’s a Prunus Kojo-No-Ma which means butterfly dance. It’ll have gorgeous pinky white flowers in a few weeks with any luck and I’ll be able to show you why it’s called butterfly dance. Just got to decide whether to keep it in a pot or not, and where to put it.

As ever, I’ll be sharing my post in the Propagator’s comments – why not check some other Sixes out.