Ribes laurifolium

I said I would return to the subject of Ribes laurifolium.  This is an evergreen ornamental currant, which is just coming into bloom now, so it is ahead of kinds of currant in the garden.  The flowers are individually small, five petalled and faintly fleshy in appearance, held in racemes (a raceme is a simple elongated inflorescence with stalked flowers.  Now you know).  They are a pale creamy greenish yellow, paler than primroses, and they are very pretty in a lush but restrained way.  Bees love them, and looking at the spray I picked for my desk so that I could examine it as I typed I see the base of each flower glistens with what is presumably nectar.  I have never detected any scent, pleasant or otherwise.

It makes a spreading bush, wider than tall.  Mine after some years is about a metre across, and less than that in height.  The leaves are leathery, mid green with toothed edges, about 10cm long, ovate (the broadest part of the leaf is towards the stalk end).  They are not very exciting but make a perfectly pleasant background for other things later in the year.  Gardens where everything is exciting all the time are not very restful anyway.  It will bear a lot of shade.  Mine is between two conifers on the north side of a hedge and never sees direct sunlight.  It is in part of the garden where the water table is high for most of the year, and I don't honestly know how it would do given dry shade.  In this shady corner it makes an open shrub, though healthy.  Some of the ones pictured on the internet are bushier, and I wonder if they're growing in more light.  I've found it good natured and reliable, the main problem being that muntjac like to have a nibble if they can.  A friend who is a good and skilful gardener had no joy with it at all, though she did plant it on her dog's grave.  Maybe it doesn't like rich living, or maybe it is temperamental and I've been lucky.

There were a couple of honey bees out foraging yesterday afternoon when it was warm and sunny, on the dwarf iris and the snowdrops.  They didn't succeed in recruiting many other foragers, though.  Consensus in the hives must have been that it was still too cold and too early.