Ah at last - the snow has gone. It took me two days to shovel my way to freedom and boy was I glad to see another human face. As I walked up to the village, after three days of increasing cabin fever I felt like I was on the set of one of those disaster films where you awake to find you are the only person left on the planet. Drama Queen - me? Surely not.
Anyway up. Now the snow has melted you can see what has become of your garden plants. Survived better than you expected? See, plants are tougher than they look. They certainly fare better than most of us. I forgot to strap up two cabbage palms, (Cordyline australis) - they hate snow sitting in their crevices look sorely sorry (sound like anyone you know?). Their leave are flattened, pasted to their stems forlornly hang-dog. One of them is a definite goner, with a mushy stem from freezing and thawing. The other will take a few months to brighten up but will be fine. See - it pays to dash around with the fleece. However, I was saving my energy for my snow escape and I knew this would be the likely consequence of my neglect. If I am to be honest, I really did not like the bronze one anyway, it's a sort of lack-lustre-dull-neither-here-no-there colour. I prefer the red and green cordylines so divine intervention has killed it off for me. Anyway, planted out a few new Hellebores, which I squeezed like sponges as I took them out of their pots, before planting. Very very wet. Still they will be happy in their new home. I always have a little chat with my plants, just to see how they like things and to reassure them how much they are going to like it in my garden. It's soothing. Whether they reciprocate I cannot tell, but they grow happily for me so they must appreciate my efforts.
Roll on spring.
