I don’t believe it, look what I woke up to, fantastic blue sky and yes, sunshine!!! So far, the sunniest day of the year!
At last, we have a day that isn’t going to be as wet as it has been lately, so will squelch around and see what I can find that has decided to flower in spite of our weather. I know we have some snowdrops by the front door that were out for Christmas so will start there, the first one was Faringdon Double.
Not really ! I started preparing this post by looking through all my photos for this year and re-reading some of my posts. There seem to be so many photos of plants looking absolutely sodden and covered with raindrops, so lets start with the weather!!
One frosty morning, a few days ago, I made the most of the dry weather and photographed some foliage which looks so much better with a light dusting of frost, as though someone has passed by sprinkling icing sugar everywhere! Just as well that I did, we have had another spell of non stop rain and gales with more flooding everywhere. There are only a few photos this time, the first one is the hydrangea under the kitchen window, looking very different from its summer green.
The cards have all been written, the parcels wrapped and all now safely posted, so now, in between cooking for the freezer, my mind can come back to things ‘horticultural’. Following on from visiting two wonderful gardens has made me look at the many different colours and textures of bark that we have in the garden here. I will save the obvious till last and start with the common myrtle, Myrtus communis which has flaking cinnamon coloured bark on top of white.
As I mentioned in my previous post, after visiting Wisley we headed south and found a super pub near to Romsey for a bite to eat before visiting the Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum where I knew they had a 3 acre Winter Garden. Their literature says that they think it is the largest winter garden in Europe. By the time we got there, 2pm, the frost had all gone and the sun was starting to get lower in the sky so the garden didn’t have the same sparkle that the previous one did. In spite of that, there were plenty of evergreens, textured bark and coloured stems to admire. The first hedge that we saw was of Rubus cockburnianus with its ghostly white stems.
We had to make a sudden journey last week to the furthest SE corner of the UK , unfortunately to attend the funeral of an aunt who lived in Kent. Where she lived in Margate is right on the corner of the British Isles and when we looked out to sea, I’m not sure if we were looking at the English Chanel or the North Sea, whatever it was, the wind was coming straight from Russia and it was freezing! We woke up the next day to a lovely sunrise and made the decision to call in at a couple of gardens on the way home.
During the 2nd World War, a baby was born. This was in the days pre central heating and pre plastic, when babies were bathed in a tin bath in front of the fire. Looking at it now, I can’t believe that I used to fit in there! What does one do with an obsolete tin bath that has been hanging around various garages for all that time – fill it with tulips of course!! First of all though, drainage holes are needed.
During the month of November I have been so focused on all the lovely colours of the leaves around us, that the poor flowers have taken a back seat. At this time of year there are still some plants hanging in there, determined to carry on flowering despite all the odds. Then we have the group of flowers that should be flowering in the winter and also we have a few flowers that have decided to flower early. We’ll start with the ones that are just about surviving, this is Meconopsis cambrica, the Welsh poppy.
I have to admit that last weekend, when we heard the weather forecast for this coming week, I thought I had better get out into the garden and photograph the leaves before they all blew away, just as well I did. We have had such gales ,floods and torrential rain for the past couple of days, that most of the trees are now looking rather bare, just the huge oaks hanging on to their leaves. This is the view last Sunday from the side of the house, looking through to the back, it looks totally different now.
Yes, another tree post, I think November is the month for trees with their wonderful changing colours. Autumn has arrived later this year than usual in this SW corner of the UK, but it was well worth the wait. The colours of the trees and shrubs in the fields and roadsides are stunning, they seem so much brighter than usual, is this a result of all the rain that we enjoyed this summer?! Our village is on heavy clay and has oak trees as the main trees but just over the hill, 3 miles away, the next village has soil that is acid sand and the main trees are beech which turn such a wonderful golden colour before they are blown away. Last Saturday was a brilliantly sunny day so we decided to make the most of the opportunity and grab some photos.
