February in the Gardens
By Molly Hibbert
It's still that finger-numbing sort of cold but the first flowers are out, and when the sun shines it almost feels mediterranean. Tiny purple crocus tommasinianus, winter aconites and clumps of white snowdrops litter the lawn. The barn owls are busy; they swoop over the surrounding fields in the early morning, searching for breakfast - or is it tea? Robins too are even bolder than usual, hopping close, waiting not-so-patiently for an unlucky, unearthed worm.
February, that funny in-between time. Christmas has long passed and there’s no festivities to look forward to. Spring is still at least two months away - even to the most optimistic. But it’s the gardener’s moment to get organised, and there is a lot of pleasure in that. The Virginia creeper growing up the side of the Farmhouse has been cut back. The fruit bushes, canes and vines have been painstakingly trimmed and mulched, and everywhere in between has been liberally covered in wood chips (hopefully, at least some of the weeds will be deterred). Grace, one of the brilliant kitchen gardeners, is taking cuttings of sage and rosemary, carefully replanting them and waiting for them to take root. And, we have now started to sow hardy spring vegetables: radishes, mustard leaves (loved by the Ox Barn kitchen) and spinach. There’s hardy annuals too; come summer, there will be ami… everywhere.
We are late to sow sweet peas (but for those who haven’t yet, it’s still not too late). The tentative plan is to set up eight wigwams in the cutting garden, making a bold fragrant centrepiece. We have ordered some old favourites: the deep red wine coloured, long-flowering Beaujolais, and Jilly, an ivory variety with tall stems, good for picking. We have ordered some new seeds too, a frilly fuschia variety named Judith Wilkinson. Judith Wilkinson the British poet? Or someone else entirely? Who the flower is named for remains a mystery. Judith, wherever you are, you must be pretty great to be named after such a bloom. In a gardener’s eyes, this is the highest sort of honour.
