The frost has thawed. Robins, tits and blackbirds are singing and scrapping over food and territory. It sounds pretty to me but it’s a battle for them.

Since this is a garden blog and not a bird song podcast, here’s some pictures of six things that caught my eye in the back garden this mid January morning in Somerset.

1. Twisted hazel and no apple tree. Obviously, you can’t see the missing apple tree, but you can see its stump, to the left of the base of the hazel, and we’ve been thinking about what will grow here this year.

At the base of the hazel are some funky mushrooms, a sculpture that was a gift from my parents. There are ferns, bergenia (aka elephants ear) and bulbs coming up too – hopefully including some snowdrops. The hellebore is looking great, and the elephants ear has a few buds starting to open.

With the apple tree gone there’s more space and light in this border, and we can rethink and rearrange the planting in spring.

My third ‘thing’ this week is the pond. Lovely husband has been busy pruning the elder tree, and the hypercium, (aka St Johns Wort, a shrub with yellow flowers). This is a delightfully cosy den in the summertime.

My next thing is the ash nursery, which is coming into bud. There’s a huge ash tree nearby, which gives us lots of seedlings. I sometimes pot them up and pass them on to friends. The black buds make ash saplings easy to spot, and with Ash dieback causing so many of these trees to be cut back, it seems good to have a few of these saplings around.

In the greenhouse, the pansy seedlings have made it through the darkest days of winter. Most of them seem to be doing ok so far…

In the ‘lasagne’ bulb planters, I think the pansies are struggling to flower in such a shady spot. There’s one brave little bloom, facing what little light it can get from the north east, but the rest of them are not showing their faces. Maybe they’ll pick up as the days get a little longer.

The last of my so called six is a view of the rose patch, which is pretty much dormant but full of potential. Over the last few weeks my lovely husband has removed two huge clumps of ornamental grasses that seemed too big for the space, opening up more potential. Below is the view in December…

… and this is the same spot in January.

This area has more space for roses now that the grass blobs are gone. I have a cutting that’s ready to plant out. 🙂

So that’s my six (ish) for this week. You can see more selections at garden ruminations.

This Saturday is the best of the weather this weekend, so I’ll try to get out and make the most of it.

Have a lovely week,

J xx