December brought frosty nights and a little snow and an enormous flock of wood pigeons to feed on the oil seed rape in the field to the west of Cherry Barn. A group of Roe deer has also been feeding on the rape and some have visited our garden, damaging shrubs. The manure pile in the field to the east has been growing steadily. Ells Lane was very icy over the Christmas period. Winter really arrived in early January, with a heavy snowfall leaving a covering of about 15cm (6 inches) of lying snow and overnight temperatures of -5C or lower.

In the garden, all the delphiniums had died down and their top-growth was cleared away before the snow arrived. As usual, the two plants of Delphinium californicum, had large tufts of fresh leaves by Christmas and the current conditions will be a very severe test of the hardiness of this species.

It is now time to think about sowing seeds from wild delphiniums that need a period of cold before germination. We also look through seed catalogues to see if there are any interesting items. In the Chiltern Seeds Catalogue, we noticed that they again list Delphinium beesianum. The plants we grew from that item last year produced corymbs of fascinating hooded flowers on very dwarf plants seen in the right hand picture above. They seem to be of Delphinium brunonianum or another similar species and are certainly worth growing as rock garden plants.

Soon it will also be time to sow seeds for more of our own delphinium hybrids in the hope of obtaining more beautiful flowers like the dusky pink seedling in the picture above.

OUR BOOK

"Delphiniums" by David and Shirley Bassett

ISBN (13digit) 9780713490022

was published in the UK in November 2006 by Batsford, an imprint of Anova Books Company Ltd.

It can be ordered direct from the publisher at their website: www.anovabooks.com

In North America the book is published by Timber Press and can be ordered from their website: www.timberpress.com

Alternatively, try other booksellers, eg Amazon