We've overwintered well...

Over the past couple of weeks, the work of uncovering everything on the balcony and cleaning up has gone on. And I've been happily surprised how well everything has overwintered. I've lost one spider plant, and that's all.

The weather has stayed much the same since I last posted. With the exception of a few days when we had torrential rain, it's been a matter of warm sunny days but nights well below freezing. Down to -8°C according to Google, though I have to say I've not been out at 4am to check. So the fleece stays on - but the daytime temperatures, which have stayed up between 10°-15°C, have meant that everything is clearly coming back into growth.

When I attacked the back balcony, the first job was to sort out the chrysanthemums. I cut back all the dead flowers and shoots from last year...

... and there were the new shoots coming through. After last year's chrysanthemum experiment I shall certainly be leaving most of them on the old plants, even if I do take cuttings later on.

The sedum has come through well too, and the flower shoots are already forming. Usually it blooms in April, but it seems so far on that I wonder if it will be early this year.

Every other container I uncovered seemed to have wallflowers in it - which won't be a surprise if you were around last year when I rather exaggerated the number of seeds that I put in. They were mixed though - some yellow-brown ones that I'd collected from past plants, and some red ones from a packet. Needless to say I didn't label them or keep them separate. We'll see when they bloom...

Then there was the garlic. You may remember that I planted it in January. You may - but I didn't. I'd completely forgotten about it, and when I uncovered it, it had that look on its face that said : We know you drowned our predecessors last year, and we know that this year you promised not to overwater us - but come on ... we're not camels. Sorry lads.

But it was when I started on the office balcony that I got the best surprise : the pelargoniums are already coming into bloom. Not bad for February.

Now - I feel a bit guilty posting this pic just after Jan of Mud, Gorse and Pines has recently posted about the sorry state of hers... but Jan, I'm not gloating, really... promise... I'm not...

The balcony is back...

In the last few days, temperatures have suddenly shot up. Walking home on Friday afternoon, I suddenly found myself unzipping my jacket and ripping off my woolly scarf because it was so warm. Don't know what the temperature was, but forecasts have been predicting anything up to 14°C (57°C) for Milan this weekend.

And on the way to the supermarket yesterday, I noticed that the new grass was coming through, and lawns were looking green again. Didn't even have to pretend to myself this year - it was clearly time time to uncover the balcony...

So this morning saw several hours of hard work out on the front. The fleece came off the containers huddled against the balcony wall and the dead stuff got thrown away. There was surprisingly little that hadn't made it, I was pleased to see. Most containers seemed more or less unscathed - like this one with the plants that surprised me by coming through last autumn (I'm more and more inclined to believe they're Montbretia), and a couple of Honesty.

Next, the railings and container holders, as well as the drip trays and the containers themselves, all got washed down - as did the tables. And then the fun started ...

For the past ten days or so, I've been "collecting". A visit to the garden centre last Sunday saw me coming home with a couple of bags of primroses and pansies, and when I was at the supermarket yesterday, and saw them putting out stuff that had just come off the lorry - well I couldn't resist.

So in they went, together with some other plants that had been keeping warm under the fleece since the autumn - like the cyclament I blogged about then.


But I wasn't the only one who'd decided that spring is just around the corner and it's time to wake up and start work again. While I was potting up the new plants, I had a visitor...

The first bee of the year - obviously pleased that he'd found somewhere where there were a few flowers. And very welcome he was too. May he be the first of many.



By the time I came in to make lunch, the sun had hit the balcony and the thermometer was showing 18°C (64°F). I'd stripped off the heavy Norwegian style sweater I use for winter gardening (I can't bear gardening in a jacket) and winter seemed only a memory.

But no - I'm not that naive. It's still only the first week in February, and a quick look at the forecasts for the next few days show that though daytime temperatures are staying up around 14°, at night it's going as low as -2°(28°F). So (if sadly) I left the tenderer plants, like my plumbago, close to the house, and wrapped them up again in fleece. The primula and pansies should have no problems, but there are a few biennials that I'm more worried about. Like the plants in the first container above. I think they're daisies, but have to admit that I can't really remember. But it's easy enough just to pop the fleece on at night and off again in the morning, using bulldog clips to hold it.

So there we are. The winter may not be over. But for the moment it looks as if we might be heading for an early spring. Or have I spoken too soon...