Lake District

Storm-tossed willows and poplars

Yes this winter monsoon is still upon us thanks to the Jet Stream being well and truly stuck. Pools of water which collected in rain-sodden fields have joined forces to create lakes in low-lying areas, some of them just outside towns.  There's a large market garden near here which has been half-submerged for a fortnight, its greenhouses incongruously marooned like glass islands in a blue ocean.

Free-range chickens after a rainstorm

On the plus-side, it's been a great season for willows and their golden stems sprout vividly against the grey skies of a passing storm.  

Now is the perfect time to plant a willow hedge along your perimeter (ensuring it's the statutory 50 cm inside your boundary) - simply push some off-cuts into the moist soil and watch them take root!

Pussy willow and hazel catkins

Fluffy Hedgerows

Catkins have been unfurling on many of the waterside trees and also on nut bushes like hazel,  soon to produce those lovely noisettes which French patissiers put to such good use!

Whereas we refer to these flowers as 'catkins', they are known as chatons or 'kittens' in French!

Storm Damage

There's no denying this is a difficult environment for trees, even if they are willows and able to absorb a huge amount of water.  The earth has been sodden for so long that another gale could well uproot some of the taller specimens.

Woodland trees in this part of France seem much more etiolated than comparable trees in England, doubtless due to the hotter and drier climate. They shoot up elegantly thin - unlike their more robust counterparts in the UK - collecting masses of ivy and mistletoe over the years which eventually lead to their downfall.

Beach at Meschers-sur-Gironde

Tons of driftwood has been washed up along the Gironde Estuary after recent winter storms.  Some pieces are more than four meters long but there are also many heavy trunks which could easily sink a small boat!

A couple of weeks ago, we found the bodies of five puffins washed ashore on this beach after a particularly strong gale.  They don't normally come this far south but we read that over 600 had been found on our shores, weakened by bad weather and lack of food.

So-called "Stinking Hellebore"

Garden colour

Mauve-striped crocus

Our drifts of hellebores continue to withstand the ravages of wind and rain. Christmas hellebores are now joined by the taller Helleborus foetidus, with its acid green flowers and sharply toothed leaves - weird but interesting!

Whenever it's sunny, bright clumps of crocus open up greedily to absorb heat on their stamens. Some varieties seem to come back more readily than others and one of the best we've found so far is a plump Dutch hybrid "Pickwick", which also stands up well to bad weather.   

Campanula lactiflora

Elsewhere the important ground-cover plants are producing carpets and cushions of greenery in an effort to clothe the soil and prevent any competition from weeds.

Whilst the campanula on the left can be a bit too invasive, it's easy enough to pull up unwanted plants whilst the earth is moist to stop them getting out of hand. This one flowers in early May and there are varieties in blue, pink and white - which form large clusters of open bells.

Campanula poscharskayana

I'm even more partial to the rockery version of Campanula which is great for edging and filling in crevices.  Again there are several varieties in shades of blue, white and mauve, forming neat little mounds which soon make a carpet if left to multiply, withstanding poor soil and arid conditions.  They're also easy to root

from offcuts at the moment.

Recently planted olive

Back on the subject of trees, I should emphasise to newcomers that the wind on these coasts (and even inland) can blow up in a matter of seconds, ripping off roof tiles and causing structural damage.  We've all been caught out at one time or another and even garden centres can be thrown into turmoil if their plants aren't firmly secured.

This particularly applies to saplings and young trees, as we just found out with this olive tree.  A thin bamboo stake is not enough!  Use a stout post set at an angle and secured with a proper tree-tie.

Shrub of the Month - February

In flower for the whole of February has been our superb Daphne odora with its clusters of pink and white blooms. 

Daphne odora charming the birds

These scent the back garden - and sometimes the kitchen too when we bring a few sprigs indoors.

It's evergreen and undemanding, keeping a compact shape without much pruning.  Ours has been growing in partial shade for about seven years and is now about 4' tall and wide, flowering reliably on every stem.

(Equally fine for scent and form is Daphne burkwoodii which flowers a bit later in spring.)

This month's blog is dedicated to our good friend Aurelien Hemono
"The Man Who Loved Trees"

Waterworld

Poplars along a flooded stream

Rain has certainly been a feature of this winter so far...!  We thought it was bad in December but the second half of January has seen an endless scattering of showers and much more prolonged rain, with occasional heavy cloudbursts of hail.  It's not a good idea to work on saturated ground, even though weeds continue to rampage between the emerging bulbs, and now other plants are coming into leaf thanks to the mild temperatures.

Helleborus niger

Current interest...

A joyfully reliable perennial at this time of year is the Christmas Rose, which has seeded itself in damper parts of the garden and produces flowers in various mottled shades of pink and cream - with just a hint of green.  

Using a digital camera with a flexible viewfinder is a great way to enjoy these rather downward-facing blooms which are otherwise awkward to photograph.

We have a large spread of hellebores in a shady area under the barn wall where the lack of guttering means they get battered by rain running off the roof.  Being such robust creatures, they rarely suffer from more than the odd splash of mud - and even that can be avoided if you spread some bark mulch around them.  (Nor do they seem to mind if you remove the largest leaves once they start to go brown.)

Occasional spells of warm sunshine have brought out some crocus in the south-facing garden, encouraging them to open their petals and bask in the strong light.  They provide a splash of gold in an area where the yellow winter jasmine held sway for several weeks but has now faded and mostly dropped its starry little florets.

Bringing the outside in

Something else which has bloomed for weeks now is the window trough containing three cyclamens.  The dark pink one on the far left (not shown here) has only just come into flower, so that should keep the display going for a while longer. 

I have to say these plants seem to do much better in the open air, where they can be admired on the other side of the sitting room window, with wooden shutters closed over them at night to offer a bit of protection against cold showers.  They get watered about once a week and are mulched with gravel to stop their lower leaves and stems from rotting - a problem which seems to occur more readily when they are kept indoors.

Hippeastrum hybrida

On the other hand, if you want an exciting plant for the living room - one to amaze and amuse you over the festive season - then look no further than the Hippeastrum from South America (more commonly sold as 'Amaryllis' in a department store near you).

They are so statuesque with their in-your-face trumpets and with stems so rigid they could almost be forged from steel... fabulous to photograph in all stages of development.

These days you may get more than one stem from each bulb and the flowers last for a couple of weeks, making them really good value.  It's not worth trying to keep the bulb for another year, so just start again with a different colour (they're all fab!) and, unlike lilies, they're not heavily scented and won't drop pollen over your furniture

For something more traditional, and with a scent which really can fill your room, plant up some hyacinths a few weeks before Christmas. 

I don't know if it's just my imagination but the blue-flowered ones seem to be more pungent than the others.  We usually let the foliage die down naturally in a dry corner of the shed before re-planting them in the garden.

Again, I'm not sure if I'm 'mis-remembering' which colour I planted in our front border but they have all come back as a deep red-mauve instead of blue, which might have something to do with the soil but, in any event, matches the tulips which often appear at the same time.  A case of serendipity...

Walking across the sodden landscape on a grey day, when there is little to divert your attention from the puddles ahead, I am suddenly transfixed by the sight of silvery, spidery lichens enhancing a hedgerow like forgotten Christmas decorations.

Similarly the mosses, engorged as they are with rain, appear more vividly green than at any other time of the year.  I want to pick some and take it home to make a nest for the indoor hyacinths, but somehow I sense it will never look as natural and fresh as it does outside, clothing the lower branches of a shrub.

Mother Nature knows just how to enliven a dull day with some unexpected piece of country decor!

Being able to photograph these tangled thickets of vegetation in low light, in order to admire them later on a screen, provides a useful exercise in close observation - something you do naturally as a child, when you're nearer the ground and everything seems new and extraordinary, but tend to ignore in later life when you're busy getting from A to B and trying to keep the rain off!

Shrub of the Month - January

Viburnum bodnantense "Dawn"

This viburnum is fairly mature now and attracts its own share of lichen as it's planted in an exposed area on the garden boundary.

It's been covered in blooms all through January and they are sweetly scented, a bit like vanilla.

These viburnums are not particularly fast-growing and don't need much pruning - just a tidy-up now and then - which makes them very easy to look after.  They enjoy chalky soil and will reward you with long-lasting flowers in pink and white clusters.

Fine weather for ducks...