Cyclamen

Goodness readers, there isn’t much going on in the garden at the moment – the couple of cold snaps that we’ve had in December and January have put nearly all the plants back, and who can blame them – in my north-facing plot it takes long enough to warm up in the best of years. But I was very cheered by these cyclamen, who have taken several years to establish themselves but are now going great guns. I’ve always had a great fondness for this plant, whether as a house plant or in the garden, and I remember my late Aunt Hilary’s garden, where all the spring flowers had naturalised themselves. I imagine it’s something of a building site now.

Cyclamen in Aunt Hilary’s garden

And my one patch of snowdrops is also spreading. How I love spotting their pristine white flowers from the kitchen window! If I stay in the house until I’m about 120 years old, maybe they’ll have filled up the rest of the garden. Or maybe I should divide them  this year. Truth be told, they’ve been such a long time coming that I’m nervous about interfering.

And then the buds are coming on the flowering currant, one of the finest of the early flowering shrubs, and a magnet for the hairy-footed flower bees in late March.

Flowering currant buds…

The flowering currant in April

I don’t know about you, Readers, but it’s felt like a very long winter this year. However, as I was taking a few photos this afternoon I noticed a trio of great tits chasing one another round and round the whitebeam, a robin singing, and the first shy heads of the grape hyacinths appearing. We’re nearly there. One more push and we’ll have gotten through another year!