It’s January, my vague promises to blog more last year didn’t last much beyond early summer and here I am back again.

It’s been a cold and snowy start to the year but now it’s mild again (the new climate normal).

This might be the earliest that I’ve  seen eranthis out. There are plenty of other signs of spring in the air too.

The snowdrops are not quite there yet, but on their way..

And the first of the hopefully many flowers on the witch hazel has appeared.

This one is supposed to be scented, but I can never detect any scent from it. It’s definitely my favourite of the 2 we have in the garden, the other is earlier and has lots of sulphur yellow flowers which are a nice presage of the yellow euphorbia below. This whole flowerbed has a yellow theme, starting with these in early January.

Since it is so mild, the viburnum bodnantense – which definitely is scented is also on its way. It flowers throughout the winter, but only when mild. I occasionally cut the branches for a vase indoors. They don’t last long but I love the spare branches with clusters of beautiful pink – and scented!- flowers. There is an appealing zen to them.

The catkins on our corkscrew hazel clearly find it a little too early, though our neighbours have a magnificent red variety where the female flowers are already well out. It’s also a prolific fruiter but I think the squirrels get most of them. I certainly frequently see the reds harvesting in both gardens..

We have a lot of evergreens in our garden, so it’s not too bare. The different shades are well appreciated at this time of year. I love these glossy evergreen ferns too.

This one is under an apple tree and while the decaying apples look a little messy, many of the birds love them, especially in the frost so we leave them where they fall for wildlife.

The Skimmia flower buds are almost at their pre-opening peak. We have several varieties, these white ones were planted to hide an ugly cold frame in the neighbours garden, but they give an attractive background too at this time of year

I think the red ones are my favourite though, both the  male, which has a very Christmassy look…

And the female, which has smaller flowers but beautiful glossy red berries more or less year round, hidden in the foliage. The females are much harder to find and more expensive than the male plants, but are well worth the effort and expense to get hold of.

We have moved what has become a large plant to our front door and very cheerful and welcoming it is too. The previous Skimmia we had in the same position had simply grown too large…

We planted some willow and Cornus last summer for exactly this time of year. Their stems are bare but brightly coloured, though still rather small. I hope they will be larger and more bushy next year. This is Cornus Sanguinea, midwinter fire, with a green willow up front. It’s hard to get the vibrancy to come out in a photo, but close up I think you get an idea.

Finally, it’s been so wet this year we have a fine crop of different fungi all over the garden, including my perennial favourites the puffball…