Garden Bears' World - In the Garden at Christmas

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Garden Bears' World blog post with me, Endon Bear, and two little apprentice gardeners, Dudley and Waverley.  

On one of the warmer, sunny days after Christmas, little Dudley was looking at the penstemon cuttings Polar is trying to root on the kitchen windowsill.  He thought it was amazing that the tips of shoots could make roots and grow into new plants.

"Let's see what else is growing out in the garden," I said to him.  "Although it's winter, there are plenty of flowers and plants to see."

Waverley wanted to come too, so we started in the lean-to greenhouse, where it was very warm.  In fact, it was almost too warm for the Auricula plants, which are Alpines, so like cooler conditions.

It was rather too warm for small bears wearing Christmas jumpers too, so we went outdoors to see what we could find in the flower beds.

We all thought this Heuchera looked very pretty.  There was a lovely vanilla smell on the breeze, so I set the cubs the task of finding which plant it was coming from.

Because bears, even small cubs, have a very good sense of smell, it didn't take Waverley long to work out that it was the Christmas Box, Sarcococca humilis, we could smell.

"There's a ladybird hiding here too!" he said - and he was right!  We were careful not to disturb it, as ladybirds are our garden friends.  Polar moves any she finds moving about during the winter into one of the greenhouses.

The cubs wanted to see if there were any frogs in the ponds, especially Dudley, who had heard all about the garden from Waverley, but hadn't been out to play in it before.

They were sad not to see any, but I explained they would be hibernating, right in the deepest part of the ponds, which wouldn't freeze even if we had very low temperatures.

Nearby, there is another fragrant winter plant, our Witch-hazel or Hamamelis, which has lovely yellow flowers and stems which are easy for small bears to climb, so we all had fun scrambling around smelling the flowers and enjoying the sunshine.  

After that, I showed the little bears where we grow our salad crops in the winter, down in the polycarbonate greenhouse.  There was lettuce, mizuna and land cress, as well as some young chard plants, ready for planting out in early spring, although we might take a few baby leaves to go in the salad too.

The cubs little noses were soon twitching again, as the herb plot is close to the greenhouse.  There is lavendar, thymne, sage and parsley in this bed, and some unusual perennial vegetables called Babbington Leeks, which regrow every year and produce leeky-garlicky leaves to use in soups and casseroles from early spring until they die down in the summer.

There are plenty of other things ready to eat in the veg garden right now, like red cabbage, kale and purple-sprouting broccoli, and we still have lots of our own onions and potatoes in the veg store and beans and mashed pumpkin in the freezer.

There will be more flowers soon, when the spring bulbs and hellebores start to flower.  Polar has planted some miniature irises and crocus in pots to stand on the patio table, although they are in an old recycling box, protected from squirrel digging, for now.

Waverley and Dudley did enjoy their day in the garden and said they would love to help grow things, but they must be careful not to get too dirty, as they are not batheable bears.  Perhaps Polar can make them some wellies?