Iceberg roses flowering, December 4th.
December has been a slow month what with one thing and another. In my bigger gardens there is always something that needs doing, and I still have roses to prune and cutting back to finish, but some of my smaller gardens are all done for the winter giving me a few gaps in the week. These iceberg roses are almost looking better than in the summer when they suffer with black spot and greenfly and I can’t keep up with the weeds. I suppose that they can also be appreciated more at this time of year when there is less other showy stuff going on.
One of my winter jobs is to re-design this bed a bit. My absolutely favourite job so I’m saving it for now, hope they stop flowering otherwise I will feel really guilty cutting off the blooms.
Life has it’s ups and downs, as we all know, and I have been making sure that I take time to enjoy the small things of beauty as I garden. It may not be original but it is important for me and that is the main thing. I am keeping a record on my instagram account cjbee827 if anyone is interested.
Here’s a funny one but this does make me happy! Lots of goodness for the soil. And lots of winter work to keep me busy and warm. Some of it is moved now but I was held up when it was frosty as you can’t mulch frozen ground.
And shifting muck brings the birds to join in the fun. Always a friendly robin or two but this time a real treat a wren that I manage to photograph.
A change of garden for a one off tidy up and a huge hebe covered in flowers
Snow in the woodland
Mid December, snow! The ground was really too frozen and covered with snow to do anything productive and the country lanes too icy to risk so I had to have a day off. First time I’ve been snowed off in about 4 years but not great timing.
This was one of my small things of beauty, an amazing moss covered branch on a really old mulberry tree.
Echinacea and fennel seedheads still giving structure in the main beds, there’s rudbeckia and a few echinops thistle heads too. They will stay as long as they are still adding something, in my opinion!
Ivy berries, what a great design! Ivy is such a good plant for wildlife if you have space in the garden. With late season flowers for bees and other insects and berries for birds. It is an integral part of most of the hedges round here providing good evergreen cover for nesting and protection from predators. There is a lot of folklore attached to ivy but that’s maybe a blog in itself.
Pelagonium flowering – December 19th
December 19th was my last day of gardening before a break for Christmas, and I found this self seeded pelagonium still flowering at the base of a south facing wall.
I have quite a few days off now, which has given me time to write a blog post but I’m desperate to get out and tidy my own garden. Now the shortest day is past I shall be continuing looking for more small treasures in the garden while hoping for signs of spring. Meanwhile here’s a hellebore, Helleborus# niger, the Christmas rose.
#autocorrect changed it to Boris 😁
muddygardenerblog 