Winter Garden Perfume

Dutch Hyacinths

My garden has slipped into a highly scented place with Winter flowers coming into full bloom

Back in May I planted out the first Dutch Hyacinths we have had in the garden since moving here

A big brown paper bag of 100 bulbs picked up from Dave of Van Dieman Bulbs at the 

Launceston Horticulture Society Show in April before we closed for the Season.

The bulbs hadn't been forced (like those you would have seen at AgFest),

so are flowering naturally now

Fire King Wallflower

 Last year I grew hundreds of biennial wallflowers

we sold only a few so the rest went into my garden in May

After a few setbacks from the rabbits they are now big shrubs cover in perfumed scarlet flowers

and are one of the first flowers for Late Winter

Ruby Gem Wallflower

 I have a few special perennial wallflowers (the yellow one below)

which are now big enough to pick and bring into the house for vases

A scent so strong you only need the smallest quantity in a big vase mixed with 

Daffodils, Bluebells and Snowdrops and the very first cherry blossom pinched from town

where it is warmer and a bit further advanced into the Spring Season

 

Yellow Wallflower

Ragged Robins

Lychnis flos-cuculi "White Robin"

Winter doesn't offer to much colour in our garden yet

It is such a new garden the Winter flowering plants and Autumn colours

are too small to make in imprint on the landscape at the farm

A little surprise popped up in one of the stock beds.

Planted to harvest seed from we weren't expecting flowers until Spring

but this little white version of the English wildflower species

 of Ragged Robin (Cuckoo Flower)

sent forth a froth of white shaggy blossoms

A -4oC Frost did not damage the blossoms or foliage !

So I'm not sure if our strange warm weather patches through Autumn 

triggered the flowering

or this is just a feature of this plant

either way I'm happy for any flowers in Winter, even white ones !

The advantage now is that these blossoms will produce seed that

will have been through a severe frost

making the next generation of plants assuredly tough !