Diary Of A Wild Country Garden

So happy today as I stepped outside to go shopping I saw the very first snowdrop of the year in our front garden!!  I try to embrace every season but I do find Winter the hardest one to love! Snowdrops however always fill my heart with joy. I know now that nature is waking up and spring is not too far away. I don't see so many people growing Snowdrops in their gardens these days and I do not understand why. Snowdrops are undemanding plants and once planted out you can mostly forget about them. They happily multiply each year to give you a beautiful display, then once flowering is over they die down and that's it for another year until you suddenly find one on a cold January day to warm your heart.    I divide our snowdrops every few years simply so that I can distribute more around the garden. It also prevents them from getting too congested. Dividing them is easy, simply dig up a clump while they still have their leaves.  Separate gently teasing apart with your...

One of the wonderful parts of having a garden is that even in the depths of winter you can look out the window and see nature.  Even on a freezing cold and windy day like today when, even a a keen gardener, I know I will probably do more harm than good tramping across wet grass and muddy borders, I can look out and see our lovely garden and all the wildlife that visit.  For me now the garden and the wildlife are intrinsically bound together. What happens with one affects the other so now I always try to keep both in mind with everything I do.  I love birds and get so much pleasure from seeing all the different ones, hearing them singing away so beautifully, having them nest in our garden and all their lovely antics all year I always want to help them through the often difficult winter months. So at this time of year I sort out all the bird feeders and go to the shops or the farmer's markets and stock up on the bird feed. I usually get a variety of b...