February flowers

 I'm a bit later than usual with this month's flowers post. I missed out on Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day! Oh well. Here it is, and you can see the main colour theme is pink pink pink! With a bit of white to harmonise and a splash of red to spice things up.

This is the driveway garden. It's a hot, dry spot that was formerly planted with hebes and shrubs. Most of them were out of control and would attack you as you got out of the car. They were too big and constantly needed pruning. And, I hate hebes. So I began to dig them up and replace them with camellias. They are fairy blush, with delicate little leaves and flowers and I anticipate no bad behaviour from them. I've underplanted them with sprawling carnations and petunias.

It's really difficult to photograph this planting effectively - it looks much better in person! I absolutely love the softness created by the pastel colours and the cloudlike plant structure, and the pops of red stop it from being boring. The carnations are such giving souls too, flowering from spring to autumn - I pick them for vases all the time, and you can never see where I've been!

I'm planning to continue this planting all down the rest of the drive. I took some cuttings from the camellias in spring and I'm crossing fingers and toes that they took. The carnations are really easy to take cuttings from when it cools down more, just break bits off and stick them in the ground - it's how I got most of these!