The sunshine helped and beckoned me onwards, step by difficult step. The frost was glistening and fraught with slippery potential. But when I arrived, the sight that met me was worth it because inside the unheated greenhouse was sheer loveliness. The collection of mixed pelargonium I bought from Jim at our local garden club last season, for 50 pence a plant, was still in magnificent, full flower - in January!
How they survive such cold nights, I don’t know. I can only suppose that the stone flags warm up in the daytime and give off just enough heat to see them through the cold nights. However, even if I had expected them to just keep ticking along; I would never have expected them to maintain their display. Perhaps I have weakened the plants for next season by omitting to nip off the flower buds until next spring, but the flowers do feed my soul. It is almost as if they are willing me on: ‘Call yourself a gardener? Come on, this is only a setback. Believe you can get back to work and you will.....look at us!’
The rest of the pots which are over-wintering in the wind-free shelter of the greenhouse are doing fine too. The hardy fuchsias and strawberry plantlets are even sprouting new growth! The parsley looks lush, the cuttings are growing away and some small clumps of chives are showing off fresh, green shoots.
Of course, the truth is we are enjoying a mild winter, despite the horrendous rains. We have had some cold frosts but we have not experienced prolonged sub-zero temperatures and the white stuff. If we were facing a winter like last year or the year before, I doubt even the hardiest of plants in the greenhouse would look quite so perky. A fair few of them would look positively dead.
I will keep my fingers crossed and who knows, I may be tidying up the pelargoniums myself next spring, putting them in fresh compost and looking forward to a new, exciting growing season. If anyone has some compost suitable for an injured foot, do let me know.
