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What a Good Start for 2012

This week we went to the National Botanic Garden of Wales for the first time since before Christmas.  I hadn’t really expected there to be all that much to see, in spite of the fact that we saw some catkins before we even got to the Garden, but being one of life’s ever-hopefuls I had a look anyway.  Surprisingly, the snowdrops are out, as are some of the witch hazels, vibernum, pulmonaria, a few daffodils, jasmine, hellebore and the winter aconites are also starting to flower.  There are probably others as well but I didn’t really go looking and was just walking up from the Water Discovery Centre (Aqualab) through the Double Walled Garden.   Perhaps most surprising of all, there was a patch of celandine in bloom. It has been very mild so I suppose we can’t blame the plants for being a bit confused especially after last year.  It always makes me feel more cheerful to see the spring flowers starting to come out.  I know it’s early days yet and anything might happen with our weather but at least the days are getting longer and nothing can change that.

Before Christmas I was given a job to do that was right up my street.  I was asked to go to the Great Glass House and count how many plant species were flowering.  They couldn’t have given me a better job if they tried.   I went off with my camera and took photos of everything with significant numbers of flowers, not just one or two left at the end of their season.  When I downloaded the pictures I was surprised to find that there were over 60 different species.  Of course, there was more than one specimen of some plants but I counted that as one.  It’s amazing isn’t it?  Even then, when I went back later, I saw one that I had missed but since I didn’t have my camera with me it wasn’t counted in the total.

The gardeners have been busy planting and there we saw a patch of primula belarina that looked beautiful.  It’s called ‘Nectarine’ and is a variety that I hadn’t seen before and in general I don’t like ‘doubles’ but this one was particularly nice.

It had been a fairly miserable day with misty rain falling but as the time went on the sun came out and there was a lovely sunset.  It sometimes happens like that doesn’t it and we are fooled into thinking that it had been quite a nice day after all.  It made me think, once again, that there is so much to see at this lovely garden even in the depths of winter.  Fresh new growth all around, the snowdrops and daffodils with their promise of a delightful spectacle for the next few weeks, what more could anyone want.  AND for January, at least, you can see it all free of charge.  What a good start for the New Year.

Pam Murden