This is my January happy place – –  And I didn’t have to go on an extravagant vacation to find it!

Under a leafless Garry oak blooms a winter meadow. I’ve never seen anything like it.

• Yellow winter aconite (Eranthis),
• Purple Cyclamen coum,
• White snowdrops (Galanthus)

All flowering in the crisp sunshine.  Isn’t it grand?  I’m in awe of the expanse & fullness of the planting.

All of these winter gems grow in my garden. Each is planted in its own patch, and certainly not in a magic carpet like this.

Plans to copy this at home start percolating in my mind. (I’m not too proud.  After all, isn’t imitation the highest praise?)

In Victoria, all three of these perennials are winter ephemeral.  In other zones, they’d be called spring ephemeral.  They pop up at this time of year, put on a show, then go dormant – – disappearing under the soil until next year.  By summer, this will be a barren patch shaded by the oak…. unless other perennials spring up to cover the same space?

Managing an overlapped planting must be quite the skill.  Even digging around the borders to put in summer annuals could disturb or destroy the sleeping plants.

Weeding in our garden the other day, I found some snowdrops that were really out of place.  In shifting them to a more suitable spot, I learned they grow well even when planted quite deeply.  Perhaps that’s the answer?

Planting the ephemerals deeply would undoubtedly lower the risk of disturbance whenever I put a spade in the soil…

I’ve mistakenly covered over some sleeping cyclamen, and they still found their way to light when the time was right… I don’t know about Eranthis, though.

Very soon, the Hellebores will add to this show.  Several are spotted through this bed.  Their blooms will carry the colour through the spring.  The leaves will help fill space through the rest of the seasons…

By summer, the oak will shade the south-facing bed from the hot sunshine.  What other perennials will emerge to carry the show?

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P.S. Here are some other meadow faves:

• Meadow Blooms 1 – Crocus
• Meadow Blooms 1.2 – Summit Park Crocus
• Meadow Blooms 2 – Chionodoxa
• Meadow Blooms 3 – English daisy
• Meadow Blooms 4 – Fawn Lily
• Meadow Blooms 5 – Camas
• Meadow Blooms 6 – Snowdrops
• Meadow Blooms 7 – Wild Violets
• Meadow Blooms 8 – January Meadow
• Meadow Blooms 9 – Daffodil Meadow
• Meadow Blooms 10 – July Meadow
• Meadow Blooms 11- Winter Aconite