I am completely, totally, utterly, desperately FED UP WITH WINTER NOW!

[shovetheholly]

I don't get people who love winter. It's cold and dark and there are no leaves or flowers. I realise that I still have another couple of months to get through in reality, but I feel that I have been patient for months already and that it is now, most definitely, TIME FOR SPRING.

Anyone else feel like January is about 13 weeks long?

I've finally got the last of the aliums, crocosmia and ranunculus bulbs in. And was rewarded by the sight of one of the winter aconites I put in last autumn.

I thought the squirrels had got the lot.

Spent the morning digging, again, the new bed. An area reclaimed from leyllandi, ivy and a million weeds. So satisfying to see all the beautiful brown empty earth. I can't wait to get planting!
Just going to make sure no more weed roots to come our ( I'm becoming obsessive) then I'll top dress and the plants can go in. Yippee!!
Astrantia I also liked the ruin garden.

JT do you have any good ivy eradication tips?

I've been a bit of a lurker on this thread but have done a little bit to our new gardens each day since we moved in December. It's a lovely garden but I think I've met my match since starting to tackle the ivy this week:

Ivy!! My only way to eradicate it is brute, force to cut back as much as you can, then pull any lose bits out. I then forked over the base exposing the roots and pulled at them!
I know there are roots still in there, but I will just keep pulling them up until they are weakened! It is my mission!
It is important to pick up any small bits because they will quickly root. Good luck.
P.S. ivy is lovely in the right place and great for wild life.

I've never heard of Big Dreams- Small Spaces. Off to Google!

Aconites are lovely! Mine seem to have vanished from last year. I did notice the squirrels rooting in that bed, too.

Great advice on the ivy. It's not the worst thing to remove, but if you keep any, you do have to keep an eye on it to ensure it's staying within bounds. I have a lot of it in my hedge, and it's wonderful for wildlife - the wrens seem to love it. I, and we get a lot more moths and butterflies since we let it grow. I just periodically check it's not spreading out of said hedge onto the soil!

I have just seen some seeds that I have in the kitchen have sprouted! I now have Aquilegia 'green apples', Scabiosa columbaria 'blanca' and I think what might just be the start of some Anemone altaica through. It is cheering me up no end even though I can't do much outside.

Welcome back Shove. Really missed you. Hope you will soon be fully recovered.

You're so lovely! I've missed posting!

I am really on the mend now. The only trouble is, when I am ill I lose all my impatience, whereas now it is back in its usual industrial strength force.

It's getting so much lighter now! We'll soon have gardening evenings back, hooray! Things are just putting on a tiny bit of growth in my garden, too. The lawn has grown a bit (I think) - as has the privet (this is not such good news, though, as the hedge cutting beckons as soon as I'm able to wield my terrible trimmer again. Some perennials are coming through - just the first tiny leaves on the brunnera, dicentra, and aquilegia.

All my little spring irises have come out today - not a one yesterday :)

my irises came out at the weekend, not sure how long they last as they are new to me

but Doris has done for the daffs....meh.

I've got winter honeysuckle (Lonicera purpusii Winter Beauty), variegated Daphne and Japanese Quince (think it's Madame Butterfly but not sure) in my front garden and Wintersweet, Clematis armandii and Edgeworthia in the back - I really don't like winter's being drab and flowerless, so I have planted a few rugged types who will cheerfully flower mid-winter.

The Lonicera is especially good value as the previous one I had, before I moved house, started to flower late November and continued through until the end of March. The scent was quite fruity and drifted across the road, so although the flowers themselves are not particularly significant in size, they pack a heck of a punch in scent-power. I have planted two of these, one by the gate and the other next to boundary fence. (Hopefully passersby will like the fragrance too.) However I'm tempted to move one of them and replace it with this one which is another shrubby honeysuckle...

I remember Alan Titchmarsh saying that he feels the winter is necessary to appreciate the joys of summer, but to be honest I'm more in agreement with H E Bates, who felt that winter was just too dismal and he, for one, could well do without it!

Hope you're properly on the mend Shove

I absolutely love the smell of that Lonicera 'winter beauty'! It's even better than sweet box, and surely one of the finest smells in the garden at any season? It's sweet and almondy but also with this undertone of lovely muskiness. If I could get a perfume that smelled of just that, I would buy it and then bathe in it every day. I hadn't come across the syringantha - can see why they've named it that way! The colour is gorgeous.

Ooooo oooooo oooooo we have SUNSHINE

Must look at winter honeysuckle - and smell it, sounds brill.
I think it will vary all over the country but I found winter cyclamen etc did really well, the empty gardening bit was January.
Doris has squished a lot of things that started budding though....!

Hope your Doris-damaged plants bounce back alice

Sunshine here this morning too! HOORAY! The ground is absolutely loaded with water here, though - it's really heavy.

It's March! Only 3.5 weeks until the clocks change We even have sunshine where I am today.

Just spent the morning in the sunshine, digging over the new bed, getting rid of the final ivy and weed roots. Ready for compost to enrich the soil. Then planting those waiting in pots. I'm a bit scared!
Also dug out all the grot at the bottom of the old fence ready for the lovely new fence. Great to be outside again.😊

Fantastic JT! I'm trapped indoors today, but I can almost smell the fresh soil from your post! Nothing to be nervous about - it's going to be GREAT!

We are really getting there now! Hellebores, daffs, crocuses all out!

I wish the clocks went back now, rather than in a month's time. The mornings are already really light, and we'd all get a little bit of lovely evening light to potter. I think the US changes their clocks earlier than we do - it seems to make so much more sense!

Go back! GO FORWARD I MEAN!

I started a new job recently, and the office has a garden! With a patio, many many uninhabited pots, and a shady rockery. Roses against the walls, and bulbs sprouting all over. My room overlooks it.

Yesterday I decanted a spare lupin I grew from seed into a big pot, and bought cheapo gloves and a trowel.

A receptacle for all my overflow seedlings! Lunchtime gardening! I am beyond excited.

Office garden wow!
Also counting days till we spring forward.
Three days of rain for my area....like the Greenberg play only less interesting!

Mrsbert - how very exciting! Sounds like a lunch hour project and a half! I do think everyone feels so much better with green space around them.

Astrantia - torrential rain here yesterday, so I checked out Big Dreams, Small Spaces. What a lovely show! The design advice is spot on, too.

Great to have a workplace garden, ready for your input!

Rained all day yesterday so I did a 3 garden centres heading straight to their reduced plant sections and bagged 4 more plants for my new area of planting. Sun today so when it warms up I might get to plant them.