Chateau de la Ruche: February garden notes
From my notebook on nature and the garden – February 2025
Colour comes back in February, not at first, in the beginning it’s just more of the same sludgy greys, browns and greens that have been hanging around since the end of November. But as the month wears on the fogs start to lift, a bright green burr begins to appear on some of the fields, there’s a shimmer of white in the woods where the snowdrops gather, and in the sunniest parts of the garden the first tentative celandines start to show their yellow faces.
The rain is still drumming down, weeks and weeks of relentless pouring, turning puddles into streams, filling ditches to the brim and raising the level of the lake to uncharted heights. Only one of my waterlilies is visible above the water now and I spend a lot of time wondering if the others will survive?
I hope they’re just biding their time beneath the surface, ready to stretch upwards again towards the light when the water level drops.
Every conversation we have with anyone starts with “Oh la la, la pluie! Tu as vu les fossés?” – Oh my goodness the rain! Have you seen the ditches? No one has a solution, we all just shake our heads and declare it a catastrophe. I slosh my way across the garden and through the woods, water lying in patches on the lawn, running between the trees in the avenues, searching for somewhere to go. Each time there’s a storm there are earthworms everywhere, crawling along the drive and over the paths, as if they’ve been washed out of the soil.
I stare out at the rain, desperate to get into the garden. I snatch brief moments here and there to tackle the roses, pruning away dead wood and old leaves. I try as much as possible to avoid kneeling on the cold damp earth, which is why I’m so happy (and secretly amazed) when Aurelién arrives to help in the garden and do it for me.
After almost a year of searching I finally have a gardener to help me once a month. He makes swift work of the weeds in the shrub bed under the trees and tackles the overly exuberant apple mint between the roses. It’s thrown out runners in every direction, threatening to take over everything, even inching its way down the banks of the lake, a good vase filler it might be, but it’s a virulent beast.
I’m keeping a close eye on the tiny plants in the new gîte hedge, checking regularly for signs of life. By the end of the month, I see buds beginning to swell, the tiniest signals that they’ve survived the winter in their swaddle of straw and are ready to start turning themselves into a hedge. Now all we need is some sunshine to give them a little encouragement.
As February draws to a close, it arrives, clear and bright, that pure, sharp sunlight of almost-spring. With its warmth, it coaxes out the hellebores in the front border to add a splash of purple to the colour palette, teases out the tete-a-tetes and bigger swathes of celandines to brighten up our days.
Garden work can start in earnest now, the raspberry bed and one of the lake banks cleared with the help of Mum, Dad and Gary, the roses almost finished, the first seeds sown in the greenhouse – sweet peas, snapdragons, ranunculus and scabious.
At last, there are the glorious, wintery sunrises that I’ve missed, the sky streaked red, pink and orange, frost sparkling on the grass, my breath coming in plumes of smoke as I walk. The birds start to gather, groups flying past in the sky, the dawn chorus getting louder and earlier every day. The buzzards suddenly appear again, sitting malevolently on fence posts and telegraph wires, all beady eyes and big yellow beaks, watching and waiting for their prey to break cover. There’s a sudden feeling of movement, of energy, as if a switch has been flipped and life can start again.
It’s not quite time to give up on winter yet, though. The icy winds still sweep across the fields, and the clear nights come with a frosty snap. I drape my frost cloth over every plant in the greenhouse every night, just to be safe, lifting it up every morning so the very first anemones can start to flower—my first crop of the year is almost ready to cut.
My garden job list for March
Sow more hardy/half-hardy annuals – snapdragons, phlox, ammi, larkspur, scabious, violas.
Build two new cutting garden beds to house the peonies that I got for Christmas.
Create a new sweet-pea fence at the back of the old raspberry bed
Deadhead the hydrangeas and thin out the crowns, cutting back old wood (they’ve been struggling the last few years so I’m hoping this will help.
Pot up the dahlias to give them a head start in the greenhouse
Feed and mulch all the roses
Weed, prep, and mulch all the cutting garden beds
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Image credits: All photos copyright the author, Rebecca Jones
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