Rebuilding a nursery - Copton Ash

[David Nicholson]

All the very best to you and yours Tim. Always much to see and learn in all your posts.

[Leena]

Happy New Year to your garden, Tim. I love the look of the woodland part, it is the best part of the year when you can see the plants coming up full of promise. Here it is freezing and the ground is frozen, so spring is still far away.

[Tim Ingram]

Thank you David and Leena. Woodland seems to be the way any garden heads and I find these plants more and more appealing (which is why Ian's Diary is such good fun to follow as well). Lovely to see your garden in Finland Leena - such a different climate from ours but so many plants do equally well in both. This is a picture from January 2013 so our very mild weather this Christmas is pretty unusual.

[Leena]

Finland  - such a different climate from ours but so many plants do equally well in both. .

That is true! Many plants just come up and flower later here, and perhaps also for a shorter time.
Finland is a long country and many plants which flower here in April, flower in more northern Finland in May or even later.
Copton Trym was showing it's nose when the cold came here in Christmas, I could see signs of many snowdrops already then, but also many were still patiently waiting in the ground for warmer weather.

[Hoy]

Best wishes for the New Year Tim!

Seems your plants are far more advanced than mine although we have had very mild weather so far! (But next week we will get very cold weather according to the forecast.)

Any luck with the milkwort?

[Tim Ingram]

Thanks Trond. Yes we potted up the milkwort, so hope it will grow away well next spring. We have early daffodils flowering, as in many other gardens, even a few flowers on Gentiana acaulis, but the weather is getting colder now. Last winter was not so different but 2013 was - not many people in the UK win their bets of snow on Christmas Day!

[Anne Repnow]

Your garden is just beautiful, Tim, and that photo with the snow is enchanting.
I wish you lots of success with your 2016 projects!

[Tim Ingram]

Thank you Anne! Gillian and I visited Heidelberg many many years ago for a Plant Physiology Conference, and I remember it well. If our interest in snowdrops continues to grow , we must visit growers on the continent and ask Iris for recommendations!

[Tim Ingram]

This mild winter has advanced the flowering of many snowdrops and hellebores by a month or more and these are examples of some of the more demure species, several of which were kind gifts from David Stephens. Of these, H. multifidis hercogovinus is deciduous but has the most finely cut palmate leaves later - a wonderful foliage plant but not so vigorous or easy in the garden. Near to one plant though we have a strong garden hybrid with green flowers, and developing hellebores with the foliage of H. multifidis but more colourful flowers would be an interesting aim.

[johnralphcarpenter]

They look so healthy! No sign of fungal disease!

[Leena]

H.multifidus hybrid leaves looks great, and all very healthy. I sowed H.dumetorum in December, species are interesting though not so spectacular as hybrids.

[Yann]

Clear and healthy foliage, Tim your Helleborus thrive in your woody land.

[Tim Ingram]

Taking a leaf from Robert and Trond's descriptions of walking in their local environments, these are a few pictures of Perry Woods not too far from Faversham. These are on an uplifted area of acidic sand and gravel, quite unusual for the region (a lot of which is chalky) - one of the highest points around with wonderful views across the farmlands of Kent. The first five pictures were taken in September when we were visited by a Japanese friend; the second five just yesterday in this so far very mild winter. The woods don't have anything of the extensive flora that Robert describes in California, but they are delightful to walk through (and there is a good pub in the middle of them!).

[Tim Ingram]

And...

[johnralphcarpenter]

My wife and I walked there on Saturday! It is indeed a lovely area, albeit cursed with the invasive Rhododendron x superponticum. The Rose and Crown is a nice pub, but expensive. Friends in the North, are you sitting down? Harveys bitter £4.10 per pint!