Whilst travelling around London yesterday visiting some of our current garden projects, imagine our amazement when we saw gardens with plants in full bloom that has no business being around at this time of the year.
Our journey took much longer than it should as we just had to stop and take photographs just to make sure our eyes hadn’t deceived us, especially as they were alongside the discarded Christmas Trees that were waiting to be collected for recycling!
You may remember that around this time last year it was particularly cold and we were experiencing a period of heavy snow, so we could hardly see the gardens, let alone any of the plants!
The best of the bunch that we saw were:
Kniphofia (Red Hot Poker)
This perennial with its tall spikes of soft yellow flowers with scarlet tips normally flowers from July to September.
Choisya ternata (Mexican Orange Blossom)
This rounded evergreen with divided, green leaves and star-shaped scented white flowers normally blooms in June and July
Hebe
This rounded evergreen with reddish stems, spear-shaped leaves and long lavender flower racemes should be flowering in July and August.
Pink Rose
both this and the yellow one below should be blooming from Summer through to Autumn so they both seem to be lingering in this mild weather.
Yellow Rose
Usually we are beginning to see the first shoot of spring bulbs peeping through the cold soil but all of these confused bloomers gave a wonderful splash of colour across the gardens, which was quite unexpected at this time of year, but utterly delightful.
By Toni Jux
