Sunday, December 09, 2007

a little colour

this mahonia is flowering all on its own. lat year there was sllightly more colour at this time
but it had been much milder than this year.


13 comments:

Wildside said...

Nice.

clairesgarden said...

Wildside, its a bit lonely though.

peppylady (Dora) said...

Nothing blooming around here now.

David (Snappy) said...

I have never seen a mahonia in flower.Mum used to kills her off regularly.It was the sickest mahonia ever :)
Maybe you can buy some winter flowering bedding plants to keep it company.

tlchang said...

Mahonia has edible properties, does it not? (you can eat the berries I believe? How about the flowers? I'm all into edible blooms where ever possible).

Gary said...

Lovely photos. We don't have any flowers that make it through the winter, although there are many berries, mostly white and red.

Jim said...

What a beautiful set of photos.

Do you know the specific name for that particular Mahonia?

We have several Mahonia repens, also known as Oregon Grape or Creeping Barberry, growing in our yard, but of course they are never blooming during our hard winters.

They are very hardy and drought tolerant though, and the foliage is beautiful in winter, often turning bright red.

clairesgarden said...

Dora, its a sad time of year with very little colour, roll on spring!
David, its allways been a dependable one, i ignore it, maybe thats the best thing.
tara, the berries are edible, but very bitter. have heard they make an ok jam, that would be with lots of sugar.
Gary, I should imagine any plants find it hard to survive the low temperatures and months of snow, there were lots of flowers ou tin May when I was there.
Jim, think its Mahonia x media 'Charity'. it should grow quite tall and not spread too much, this one is about 6ft and has one main stem with two smaller stems from the base. it was about 2ft when it was planted about 4 years ago and took a couple of years to put on any growth then it shot up. it lurks quietly until making me remember its there with its lovely show of flowers, i have tried the berries off it but very bitter.

Kerri said...

Poor lonely Mahonia. I'm sure you give it lots of appreciative compliments though :) I would..it's beautiful. Fancy getting such beauty at this time of year. We have WHITE, with mostly greyish, leafless trees, plus a few evergreens interspersed!
I looked at last year's post and enjoyed reliving the bits of colour you had then. Gosh, time flies, doesn't it?

Unknown said...

What a lovely sunny burst of colour; a nice relief from the grey of late fall/early winter. Is it normal for Mahonia to flower at this time of year in your garden? It flowers in May around here (when it doesn't have winterkill issues.)

Wildside said...

Hmm... Mine aren't blooming this time of year. I think these come along a few months later -- like Feb. or March? I'll have to keep an eye out this year and pay more attention.

Wildside said...

Or make that this coming year!

kate said...

Claire,

These are lovely flowers to see at this time of year ... amid the frost, a bit of sunshine.