More early March photos from the garden

My attention has been so focused on the snowdrops that I have failed to notice several other plants blooming in the garden in early March. Yesterday I took a stroll around and took a few photos. Here are some of the things I found:-

Various Crocus in the lawn and edges of borders

Crocus 'Tricolor' - this actually looks more impressive closed than open. I bought 50 bulbs and the mice ate most of them before I had a chance to plant them! Will mass plant a patch near Hellebores Galanthus next year.

Delicate Crocus tommasinianus self seeding around

Crocus on the grave of my dads beloved German Shepherd whose name was NADA. It used to be outlined in yellow Crocus. I can just about make out her name now. Every year we say we will patch it up but never have the Crocus in the right colours to do it while it is in flower.

A closer look at the stripey ones

A couple of Erica from the Heather family - close ups. I think these are Erica carnea 'Springwood Pink' 'Springwood White'

Daphne bholua 'Jacqueline Postill' in full bloom. The flowers of this gorgeous shrub are highly mouwloos avondjurken scented and very pretty. Actually 'highly scented' is an understatement - 'intoxicating' would be more descriptive.

A few Hellebores

Helleborus croaticus WM 9809 - this was collected and distributed by Will McLewin. It has the tiniest little flowers that look purple at first glance - but when you look inside the flower they are a beautiful bright green with purple veining. A delicate specie Hellebore which will look perfect with dainty snowdrops.

All the torquatus doubles from Montenegro were purchased from the wonderful Washfield Nursery many years ago. I would love to move them to a better position where they do not dry out in the summer so much - but I am terrified of losing them! They are not thriving where they are, but better alive than dead - they are very precious.

A very purple torquatus double from the outside. They are all around 1 inch across or maybe less.

Inside they are a lovely turquoisy green with faint purple edges

Another torquatus double showing more green on the outside

This is the smallest torquatus double Vloer Lengte Avondjurken and is more of a pinky purple colour

DIDO - I think there were only two named torquatus double found naturally occurring in the wild by Elizabeth Strangman. My plant is a division from the original plant

My seedlings from the above parents crossing with orientalis hybrids. A few of them have inherited the highly ornamental divided summer foliage of the torquatus. I will try to find a photo of the foliage in summer.

Seedlings in the border. They are stronger, bigger and more floriferous than their parents although still much smaller than the x hybridus doubles (orientalis)

This is a purchased 'Party Dress' double which I bought to introduce dark doubles into my crosses. It has taken years to flower and does not have great performance, so I will not be using it for crossing - pretty though although I expected it to be very dark purple. The reddish colour is bruidsmeisjes jurken nice especially with sunlight from behind.

This is one of my very first crosses - a picotee. I ended up with many seedlings all looking very similar - some were stunning and others had too much green in the flowers.

x hybridus Picotee. I like this one as it has dark nectaries which match in with the purple veining. The flowers are large and deeply shaded on the outside of the petals.

Outside of petals - heavy shading and veining

I then crossed atrorubens (a tiny species plant smiliar to croaticus with a slightly bigger flower) with my Picotee.

This is the result:

It has pink backed petals with slight veining and inside is a pinky green shimmering colour wash with huge dark nectaries. In the summer it takes on the foliage of atrorubens and looks stunning. The flower is nothing special but I like its delicate colours and the fact that it is a specie x orientalis. It performs well and is even thriving in quite dark shade in some places in the garden.