Better than ever

Nice double cream hellebore

The Lone Pine.

The snow is gone. The front of the garden is marked by this lone pine sentinel - if the sign of the lone pine means anything to you, leave a comment. This one was a Christmas tree for the lounge in the late 1980s, bought with roots (though these were unlovingly hacked out of the ground). This one survived and is now 30 foot.

Fieldfares

A flock of more than 60 fieldfares descended to eat apples this morning. A sign that they are feeling the cold. This photo is taken through glass, otherwise they would have flown.

Iris

This little iris has just come into flower.

pulmonaria, 'Lungwort'

Once though to cure lung disease, hence its medicinal name 'Lungwort', here are two tatty but still flowering pulmonarias. Some varieties have red or white flowers.

Winter honeysuckle

Winter honeysuckle, lonicera purpusii, well covered with fragrant white flowers. Look carefully and a bumble bee is feeding in one of them.

Vibernum

Just noticed the viburnum in flower - pity you can't smell it too.

The Spring Garden

The spring garden is beginning to show some colour. Nice sunny day this morning.

Primulas

Always good to have some colour in winter...

Cyclamens today

Ivy leaved cyclamen, striking leaves and dainty flowers.

Foliage

Where flowers are sparse, I will go for foliage. Phormium at the front, coprosma behind..

Native Primroses

Very frosty again; but here is one of our stalwarts, the native or 'true' primrose primula vera. This seems around the garden, seems to die back, in scorching summers but still comes back the following winter.

Fieldfares and redwings

The frost has brought a lot of birds to the apples, mostly blackbirds but a few fieldfares (bottom picture) and a single redwing (top two pictures, seen with blackbird below. The red is particularly clear in the middle picture. Click on the pictures to enlarge.
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Cool but rosy

Still a sharp frost, finishing off the fuchsia flowers, but still there are roses.