coronilla glauca, again

I know I keep going on about the Coronilla, but just look at it!  

This will flower, as it has for the past two months, until May and even then the odd intermittent bloom will appear.  It wafts great clouds of 'lily' scent around - fantastic!  

This one I grew from seed and at three years old is five foot high and four across.  Easy peasy if well drained and not in a wind tunnel.

To fill the gap that needs yellow and winter/spring flowering go for this and leave the Forsythia to be 'enjoyed' in someone else's garden.

Though come to think of it I like forsythia too.

jack frost squashed it

 

Despite expecting a garden full of frosted mush the ice and snow has done surprisingly little harm.  A week of sub-zero night-time temperatures and earth as 'hard as i-yon' has only really finished off the remainder of last years softer leaves that were hanging on.  These had the  general look of 'too long in the drawer' lettuce, not fully alive, not yet quite departed.  They won't be missed and there's now a winter dormant tidyness that's usually missing here.

The cold itself seems to have had little effect on supposedly tender plants, even the Echiums that were floppy and drooped now are up and ready to grow.   The blanket of snow is supposed to insulate the plants but there was hard frost for days after the snow had melted so why there isn't more damage I don't know. 

The biggest problem has been the very weight of the snow on everything.  Some plants simply could not hold the weight  Not surprisingly all the Coronilla, full of scented blossom, are now face down in the mud but these always seem to go over at the first gust of wind.  The scented Pelargonium shrublets have grown woody over the years and seem surprisingly tough but they are frustratingly brittle and now a three year old Copthorne has had its 'legs' broken.  The big clumps of Stinking Hellebore (it doesn't) have been pushed apart, exposing smooth green 'canes' laying flat on the ground, but the big soft green flower heads have already started to turned up to the light - business as usual it seems.  Shame they're over the path and will get walked on if left, I must remember to tie them up.