The Good, the Bad and the Ugly — Plant Edition, February.

OK, let’s start with the bad and the ugly, to cheer you all up.

Nothing like someone else’s rotten luck to do that. Look at this:

Isn’t that great? Those berries! What a feast for the eyes and the birds.

It was such a fertile droughty year that the birds didn’t scoff them overnight as they usually do.

Hm. And two months later?

The observant amongst you will have noticed that the ivy has all vanished. However, this holly standard’s ivy was already dead, and I showed your this one, out of the three, for dramatic effect. The other two are also dying. Apart, so far, from their ivy. They have holly blight.

Interesting. Were all those berries (they all berried madly) a desperate attempt to reproduce themselves? We do know that plants will do that if they know they are dying.

Or was it the weather that produced the fecundity? Followed by the rapid demise. We had great crops of apples and of other berries. Including this holly, which is still full of berry, this minute, and so far, unblighted:

Whatever it was, it was no doubt our fault. It always is, isn’t it? And it is very sad, because they really have to go, and Charles grew them from tiny.

We all know how healthy and happy making gardening is, don’t we? It would be worse if we weren’t also preoccupied by our rotting roof.

That was the UGLY.

The good? Scent. Lots of scented shrubs.  While they are still with us they are a great pleasure.

Here’s one:

Mahonia japonica. I planted it many years ago. Robin Lane Fox, who was (and is) an Influencer before such things existed and corrupted the concept, says “It grows anywhere, but if you treat it well, its leaves wear a finer bloom. I think it likes to be damp and shaded from the direct noon sun”. Ours is, of course, unshaded but currently well damp. It has rained in Britain every day this year so far.

Mahonia has two downsides. You can’t easily pick a nicely scented bit and bring it indoors. You have to cut a whole big prickly piece. Or not bother.

But downside two – it won’t stop raining and you get soaked having a sniff.

Here’s another scented shrub, currently having a flower.

I’ll be honest here – I pinched that photo from a nursery site, offering lonicera fragrantissima for sale. This is mine:

And this:

No doubt my fault. You can’t be a lazy gardener and pay no price at all. That’s the Bad.

However, I have several of these and they are wonderful!

Sarcococcas. Ask Ben which ones they are. They give, almost always, a waft of scent as you pass. And they are dead easy to cut and bring indoors, for those of us who can take a whopping great cloud of scent: (some people, eg Ben, find it overwhelming)

Truth to tell, there are other good things around which we can enjoy in this poor time of year:

Scilla mischtschenkoana ‘Tubergeniana’

Sweet?

Snowdrops in a pot:

These are a treat. Dug up and stuck in a pot last winter. Left in the nursery all summer to grow weeds and moss. Cleaned up as they came into flower – and joy! Snowdrops at eye level. By the front door, to enjoy as we come and go. Dug up from here:

Cyclamen:

Also by the front door and they have been flowering for many many weeks.

Whereas these, planted out, are just begining: Cyclamen coum.

One day they will spread as much as they are supposed to. Though I may not be around to see it.

There’s a hellebore, nameless and pure:

How would you make that leafless, should you feel the need? Bit of a faff.

These – usually out on the day of our anniversary, 15th February, but this year they were three weeks early:

And, of course, daffodils. A joy.

Sometimes it stops raining and frosts instead:

And sometimes, even, the sun comes out:

But those photographs were not taken this year!