Not giving up

Last autumn I planted up some tubs with evergreen plants--ferns, grasses, ivy and also winter flowering pansies, to give me some colour throughout the winter. The effect was good, but I always find with winter flowering pansies that they slow down as the winter progresses.  Then come spring they  tend to look a bit straggly and dead looking, so usually get thrown out in favour of the next season's pansies. I'm so glad, I didn't get rid of these because over the last couple of weeks they have perked up and are now happily flowering away. They are a joy to see and are often admired by anyone coming to the front door.

                                                                                              

That got me thinking about how easily I give up on plants especially at this time of year. Some plants take a long time to emerge from their winter rest and I suppose I can be a bit impatient.  There must be quite a few plants  which over the years I have dug up and thrown on the compost heap.  Their lifeless looking twiggy stalks deceiving me into thinking they had died over the winter. Then there are the ones which just disappear, leaving me thinking, 'I'm sure I planted something there last year'.

Fortunately for me, some plants are hard to get rid of and will keep coming back. I planted a couple of Hostas last year in the shady border and I thought I'd move them this year as I'm dong a bit of rearranging in that border. When I went to look there was no sign of them. I kept searching the border for signs of life and finally  decided they must have died, when the other day I spotted the new growth poking its way up through the soil. Then there was the Achillea which disappeared for a couple of years. I'd given it up for dead but it reappeared last year. Its now growing fast and furiously. And recently I spotted a tiny purple leaved Euphorbia growing where there used to be a big clump of them. I thought I'd lost that too, its been missing for a few years.  I'm going to nurture it with care.

At the moment I'm carefully watching some of my grasses which I cut back several weeks ago and are still not showing any new growth. I think I'd better wait and give them a chance, just as I did with the pansies.