Saturday morning I’ll head up to the summer house. The weather forecast is dismal, so I probably won’t spend much time gardening, but I can tidy up the house and put clean sheets on the bed so it’s ready for the following weekend when I will be up there with my husband.
I’ve updated my blog layout with a spring header. Not to say that winter is over, because it seems it hasn’t actually arrived yet, with December and January so far having been mild and wet, but because the lack of proper winter means that by now I just want spring to get here.
I know it’s still just mid-January, but the aconites are blooming in the gardens of the Royal Library here in Copenhagen, and surely that’s cause for some spring celebration, even if it’s a bit early.
I like the new look of the blog…we have winter so no blooms…how lovely your aconites are out…
The blog header is a shot from last year, and the photo in the post is taken in the gardens of the Royal Library here in town a couple of weeks ago.
I do love that header image, though; the pale mauve crocus is so luminescent and frail, compared to the sturdy, bright yellow of the aconites and the rough stems of last year’s goldenrods.
I will have to go out and check my winter aconites right now. A lot of plants are blooming early but I haven’t seen them.
Winter aconites are normally among the first flowers to bloom here in Denmark. They precede the snowdrops by 2-4 weeks and last year I scattered aconite seeds throughout the edges of the garden, so hopefully in a few years there will be a lot more of them. (My mother tells me they take 2-4 years of growing on before blooming.)
The blog looks very spring like. It can’t come soon enough.
And now, of course, they’re forecasting the onset of frost… We haven’t really had more than 5-10 frosty nights so far this winter, and even fewer frosty days.
I love winter aconties, such cheerful little harbingers of warmer days to come. Which makes me wonder, this year as every year, why I never quite get around to finding a space for them in my own garden… Hope you have a lovely time at the summer house.
Oh, but they take up no space at all! Especially since they live quite happily between perennials and tulips and whatever else will bloom later in the season.
And since they take several years from seed to bloom, you’d better get going!
Ah Soren, you may well say that I encourage others to dip in to their pockets, But what is this we have here, Winter Aconites! I have none and I want them now..
I will gladly collect some seeds in a couple of months and bring them over to Aberdeen. (Of course that won’t give you aconites NOW, nor next year, but maybe the year after or the year after again.)
Wow they seem early. Has it been a mild winter in Denmark? It has been mild here in Wales. We’ve only really had 3 frosts and no snow …… so far anyway. I do love aconites and yet I have none in my garden will need to make a note to get some bulbs in the autumn.
We’ve barely had frost this winter, though it has arrived this week. (Down to minus 8 celsius at night, minus 2-3 during the day.) A far cry from last winter!!!
Aconites are really lovely harbingers of spring, and I recommend them strongly!!! I’ve scattered aconite seeds throughout the garden and hope that in a few years’ time we will have them popping out everywhere each spring.