Garden Diary ~ New Year's Day 2021

Illustration by Lena Anderson.

What a pleasure it has been to spend time in New Year's Day in the garden. The temperature was warm enough to venture out without a coat! Yesterday was perhaps slightly warmer and sunnier but both days provided unexpected bonuses. The first gardening task of 2022 was to snip off the old hellebore foliage and bin it. It was interesting to see that there was evidence of aphids on the back of a few leaves. I than disposed of some soggy tat. Tomorrow the weather is predicted to be cooler but still warm enough I think to get out again and mulch the hellebore plants with some well rotted leaf mould. In the garden there are signs of activity with bulbs beginning to emerge. The first snowdrops are opening which is such a heartwarming event. Some clumps are now quite sizeable but others are taking time to establish. 

Time soon to plan next year's vegetable garden. There are seed potatoes to order. I think that I will stick with my favourite 'Charlotte' which is a great salad potato. Without the allotment I grew potatoes in bags last year for the very first time. It proved successful and I think that a further bag might be purchased. This year's sowing definites include the usual suspects of salad leaves, shallots, French beans, beetroot, courgettes and chard but I will have to consider carefully whether to add on top of this list. It was good to notice yesterday that the garlic cloves of 'Purple Early Wight' planted on the 17th November have started to come through.

After my outside pottering an inspection of the greenhouse and my potted special snowdrops followed. One big change since last year is that I've bought a smaller number of pots in to overwinter. A good number will take their chance in pots outside. A lot of them are now planted in the garden so a few casualties in event of a tough winter will not be the end of the world. In the greenhouse are my favourites and newest additions will I can gaze at a close quarters during the winter months. If necessary I can put a heater on overnight to fend off the worst of any bitterly cold snaps. There are three trays which each hold two dozen bulbs and some dozen or so loose pots too.Some bulbs are duplicates. My two newest purchases are showing mixed promise - galanthus nivalis 'Prague Spring' which was a small bulb on planting will not flower this year whereas galanthus plicatus 'Sophie North' is thriving. Both were bought as dormant bulbs in the summer.

In flower today are the following galanthus elwesii ' Fenstead End', galanthus plicatus 'The Pearl', galanthus plicatus 'Trimmer', 'galanthus Sutton Courtney' and galanthus 'Betty Hansell' and galanthus 'Ding Dong'. Sadly the also early flowering 'Three Ships' has decided not to flower this year. Other 'drops are nearly there but not quite so I shall check again next weekend. 

Also in the greenhouse I was pleased to spot that the first anemone 'Mr Fokker' is sprouting. I planted six in November in dry compost which has been watered yet.

My gardening day is not yet complete as tonight I plan to order some dahlia tubers. some difficult decisions ensue! On this and my new seed packet storage container more to come hopefully next weekend. Happy New Year and happy gardening to all my blogging friends - I hope that 2022 treats you, your loved ones and your gardens most kindly. Thank you for all your kind comments and encouragement last year.