January usually feels such a long month so it always seems such a relief when February arrives. This year being a leap year means that February gets an extra day which means it lasts 29 days rather than the usual 28.
As February arrived I wrote, “February arrived bringing with it more rain and wind, making gardening difficult and on some days impossible. However the garden took little notice and looked interesting. Early bulbs and shrubs gave us lots of colour.”
I also noted that, “A few winter aconites remain in flower from January but other new bulbs have joined them – crocus, cyclamen, fritillary, muscari, iris and last to join in the family of daffodils.”
I then shared photos illustrating these flowering bulbs.
On the page opposite I considered shrubs that flower in the winter, when I wrote, “Throughout the winter months, a few shrubs give us flowers attracting moths and early bees. The number of pollinators we notice in the garden increases day by day.”
Onto the next double page spread I considered work we did during February and a sketch of a leaf skeleton. I began by writing, “We had very few dry days during February so we had to take advantage of any that came. We spent long days enjoying being in the garden and we loved every minute.”
My sketch was created in fine fibre tip pens. Beneath it I wrote, “Leaf skeleton found when tidying the borders of dead leaves and weed seedlings.”
The final two pages in my entries for February were all about our garden wildlife. Concerning this element I noted that,“Once past the middle of the month light values improve. We feel better and many aspects of wildlife step up a gear. Many birds change their calls to song, notably Song Thrush, Dunnock, Blue Tit snd Great Tit. This reminded us to replace old damaged wren pouches and bird nest boxes. We cleared out old nests from last year from nest boxes and repaired those that needed it.”
As a link to the opposite I wrote, “Sparrow terraces are loved by wasps as much as by sparrows themselves. Two wasp nests took over one space in two of the terraces.”
And so to the opposite page where I continued to write about wasps and nest boxes. “The two wasp nests belonged to two different types of wasp and this showed up when we removed the nests. Our common wasps, Vespula vulgaris, built their usual spherical nests, built of their own spittle mixed with fine strips of wood from our fences and sheds. The other type of wasp, a much smaller type, built their nest to fill one section of the sparrow terrace, so it ended up as a cuboid . These wasps were small and calm.”
Next I wrote that, “Our wildlife pond is like a cauldron of mating, very noisy frogs. these two below spent time on our door mat.”
That is it for February, another wet, windy and frustrating month for gardeners. Soon we will move into March and I hope I don’t have to complain about the weather yet again early in that month as well.
greenbenchramblings 
One reply on “My Garden Journal 2024 February”
So much life through our dark wet winter when we need it more than ever.