Six on Saturday: Forward and Back

Working through winter tasks in the garden when time and weather align favourably, there are plenty of opportunities to look forward and back, usually simultaneously, such as with crab apple Malus ‘Evereste’. This sad, mushy state was pretty normal for M ‘Golden Hornet’, but the blackbirds have usually taken all the peachy crabs from ‘Evereste’ well before now, leaving me looking forward to the pretty spring blossom or at least to when I am able to remove the offending fruit. Even the red Christmas lights do little to enhance their ugliness.

I notice from my 5 year garden diary that this time last year I began cutting back epimedium foliage and hellebore leaves; I had neglected the former for a number of years but now find that it does make a difference, not only highlighting the native snowdrops pushing their way through in the woodland edge border, but highlighting any epimedium blooms that emerge too. I am sure I only ever planted a single epimedium, but it has spread to form an extensive carpet! The hellebore foliage can probably wait a little longer, although the earliest to flower, H Spring Promise ‘Anja Oudolf’, is already in bud although she is very much an exception.

Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ is currently in full bloom but a wet day will quickly turn the bobbles from pink to brown, competing with the mushy crab apples for ugliness, so I will enjoy them as they are and hope for a dry week or two.

My named snowdrops have been in their new woodland location for nearly two complete seasons now, so any losses from the move will have been identified by now, but instead I have the issue of an unlabelled clump. I recall some uncertainty last year and suspect a variety I thought had been lost was in fact just overlooked,