Kitchen Garden Forum

We are amazed we still have a beautifully formed flower on the climbing rose Zephyrin Drouhin, a flowering Welsh poppy (both outside) and flowers on a La Campanella fuchsia in the unheated greenhouse. No doubt, we shall soon be surprised by the arrival of real winter.

I was just thinking exactly the same while walking round the garden this morning Monika.
They aren't all in terribly good condition but there are alsorts of things still flowering: roses, marigolds, mahonia, viburnum, heather, borage, pansies, fuchsia, red valerian, some chinese kale I forgot to pick, wallflowers, polyanthus and a few others. I know some are usually in flower now but it is nice to see some winter colour.

It just goes to show how mild the winter has been so far.

Not much flowering in mine at the moment. Do have a lovely yellow stemmed willow and red stemmed dogwood looking great. The walnut trees look wonderful too, fabulous bark covered in lichen which gets overlooked when the leaf is on. Usually got a very early daff in flower by now but only just poking through the ground at the minute.

MW

At one of the gardens i work at they have some nice Delphiniums in flower, also some Mcmillian roses. The Mahonias are very good this year too.

It's not unusual to see roses in flower at this time of the year, but they're usually stragglers — tatty and lacking in colour. But I walked past some in a park last week which looked as good as they would if they'd flowered in June. There's still some of last year's summer bedding keeping healthy, notably geraniums, some of which are still trying to flower. They moulder in the wet, though. If things keep up like this, I can see we're in for a Daffodil January, much like many winters up to 2010.

I just have a winter flowering cherry tree out out at the moment. Everything is just almost underwater in the garden. Even the pond is overflowing so I hope the goldfish don't emigrate into the flower beds

There is a lovely display of Swan River Daisies flowering on the rockery - a nice cheerful surprise and lots of spring bulbs appearing.

Oh, I forgot to say: there are lots of flowers on the tiny erigeron (mexican fleabane) and a clump of primroses.

I have mahonia and fatsia shrubs flowering at the moment. shame I can't get my garrya eliptica to flower, in the 15 years I've been growing it, it has only once ever put on a rather pathetic display of about 3 tassels!

Nothing much flowering here but the uncovered rhubarb is amazingly advanced with the new buds beginning to break.

John

It is a good job there are a few flowers out, the bees have been out foraging this morning. We're having a stormy afternoon though so I hope they got back to the hive in time.

Hi all,
I have a Hebe in full flower. It's fairly sheltered and near the sea though.
Gerry.

Nothing just loads of mud and water and it is not as wet here as most places. Our allotment is like a quagmire we can't get onto it on the paths as they are just dreadful. Need to look at that this spring.

Just being out in the garden , 2 yellow winter aconites, snowdrops pushing through with one white tip showing, helleborus orientalis purple and the big green helliborus, still flowering from the autumn red and pink kaffir lillies and pink and mauve stocks which I thought were annuals.

Bren