Yesterday we spent a few hours in the garden and it was absolutely lovely; a bit muddy and cold but lovely.
Andy was busy pruning the burning bush hedge – a chore I can no longer participate in because of my self-confessed ‘pruning issues’. The thought of growing a hedge for screening purposes and then pruning it down each year to keep it small doesn’t make sense in my head; although I can say when the hedge grows back in and looks nice in the summer I’m happy with his pruning.
I kept myself busy in other areas: starting some perennial seeds, deadheading cat mint, sedum, lavender and raking soggy leaves out of the gardens. While working in the south-side garden I stumbled upon snowdrops that were pushing through. I had suspected they may be coming but they were hidden by the leaves. If you purchased snowdrops at our plant sale last year make sure to go out and look for them now!
Finding snowdrops made me take a closer look at the hellebore – YES their winter-blooming buds are coming too! Time for a bit of maintenance. Gardeners choose to do different things with last year’s hellebore foliage (the evergreen leaves become dull and often show signs of wind and weather damage). Left alone, the leaves will eventually die back and disappear; I choose to cut off all old leaves (taking the stems down to about 2″) so the emerging flowers and new, shiny-green leaves can be appreciated. In our garden this task happens as soon as new growth is seen, usually in January, but some others cut them back in October/November too.
Looks like we’re in for a cold, and possibly snowy, week so I’m glad we had the opportunity to garden a bit yesterday. With a sore back and cramped pruning hand I’ll need the week to recover! 
