The Excitement of a Waking Garden

It is when the garden comes to life in early springtime that is for me the most exciting time, especially after a hard winter or one that produced periods of extreme cold.

What survived and what did not? 

Geraniums and petunias and their soft-leaved like are not expected to survive, and don’t, except for some geraniums in a sheltered position, well off the ground and after a mild winter. 

But there are many surprises.

Our lemon tree, overwintered in the shed/summerhouse usually survives and keeps its leaves. But not during this 2022-2023 winter. Most leaves fell and it looked very dead when returned to its outside place on a plinth of Roman occhioloni. Then, one day, well into the spring, tiny dark leaves shot out from a branch bud. Others followed, very slowly. It had survived, but by how much?

Not far from it, a Japanese maple in a pot that was becoming established and going well, lost not only all its leaves but left a completely dead mini tree. Then, almost as my back was turned it burst out all over into its full bronzy leaf.

Our Bolivian begonia corm, usually kept on a kitchen window plank each year, became too large, so took its chance in the shed with the lemon tree. The cold spell in winter reduced the corm to pulp. 

Our two pieris bushes thrived in the winter weather, giving early leaf colour to the garden.

But dominating the garden with its red petals flowering with their yellow lemon centres is the Camellia bush. It foretells of many colours soon to decorate the garden. 

Ferns, playing dead, spring to life on either side of an apple tree in a pot. 

In that tree I “planted” misteloe berries. One that took now sports a diameter almost as great as its apple tree host. It is a Christmas splash of green for a bare winter garden. 

Our two bay trees, one pruned into a ball and the other like an umbrella, happily saw the winter out. 

A rosemary bush only just survived and may have to be replaced, unlike a fuchsia, which died right back but sprouted fresh leaves from its base. It sits in a pot next to a buddlia which can withstand the cold. 

Vines, winter pruned, are quick to come into leaf to give body to our wall-to-wall arbour. But a thick, probably 40 year old arch branch, which was ailing, died and will become somebody’s fire logs when I can deal with it.

The agapanthus plays dead each winter and bursts out with its verdant shoots each spring - a most pleasing sight of a return to life.

Morning glories sow themselves each year, as did some sweet peas this time around. Or had I planted some seeds last autumn?

Both successes and sadnesses defined our garden’s bird life after a freezing winter period. Few birds survived it, but great tits brought up an early family in a much-favoured bird box on our house. The young now fill our garden with new and vigorous activity when they pass through in a gang every so often. Hopefully, nature will compensate for bird losses. It generally does. 

Of our two edible crops, new potato leaves in buckets should poke through soon, and runner bean plants, started in pots, will soon be planted beneath a bamboo frame. We eat the beans when about four inches long and leave the rest for dishes and for next year’s seeds. 

It is a time to prune away dead wood. But one has to be careful. Dead-looking branches may still be alive. 

So it’s about the most exciting time of the year.