Our strange winter continues with no white stuff in the garden or lower elevations of the valley. No precipitation of any kind has fallen for weeks and I wonder how area vegetation will look come later months, if none is received. The temperatures have remained mild for us ( only -5C – 8C at night) with no plunges into Arctic temperatures so that should make up for lack of protective snow cover on the garden plants but our forests are dangerously dry at this time.
The perennial borders are laid bare and so I harvested some tattered, but green, looking Hellebore leaves and trimmed the Forsythia, earlier than usual. The Forsythia opened its flowers within three days of clipping so the shrub is definitely ahead of normal in its development. There are no signs of Hellebore flowers yet but if these mild temperatures continue they should also show buds earlier than usual. I will trim the protective leaves then.
Into the boat shaped vintage vase went chicken wire, a chunk of forest Wolf lichen, Letharia, Hazlenut, Corylus avellana twigs, as the catkins were showing, and Forsythia, probably ‘Northern Gold’. After a couple of days on my mantle giving time for the flowers to open, this went to the gallery.
Thank you Cathy of ‘Rambling in the Garden’ for providing this shared opportunity to remind ourselves how valued are gardens are.
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