The garden of St Ethelwold’s House is open on most days and you would not expect there to be a lot of flowers on the last day of January.

The winter aconite has the unusual tactic of producing little ruffs of leaves and popping up yellow flowers in winter.  They may attract some insects who are out during the almost dead of winter. Winter aconite is one of the earliest flowers, and the plant’s spread mostly by tubers underground.

The one flower you might expect are the Snowdrops. They spread via bulb division. However, they may still be visited by insects on a warmer day.

There were also winter flowering irises against a south facing wall.

There were also some primroses but they looked in a bad mood, and did not want their picture taken.

Chelsea Flower Show – The results
21st September 2021 by The British Florists Association

Fabulous Flowers got a Silver-Gilt award in the Floral Installation category. You can see their fabulous installation as the first and best picture at https://www.britishfloristassociation.org/for-the-industry/chelsea-flower-show-the-results/.

The picture above is the Abingdon shop on Saturday.

When the town council discussed the arrangements for the 2021 Summer floral displays they resolved that the colour scheme should be vibrant throughout the town. Here are some of those floral displays:

* Roysse Court

* Market Place

* Broad Street and Old Station Yard

* St Helen’s Wharf in sunshine

* St Helen’s Wharf in shade

Along South Quay in Abingdon the brambles have been replaced by wild flowers.

There are blue cornflowers next to red poppies,

mauve mallows in white clouds,

yellow and green.

Somebody must have cleared the verge and bombed the area with wild flowers to create this explosion.