Month: November 2016

I don’t know how many times over the last few years I have highlighted my one and only Mahonia ‘Winter Sun’ at this time of year. It’s planted in a good spot, down at the back wall. And the blossoms light up so well, especially on a dull winters’ day. The garden doesn’t get much sun throughout the winter. But my back wall faces east so it takes full advantage of any light available in the morning time.

I usually only take a photo of it from a distance. But look what I have been missing all these years. So pretty up close. The bees were very busy feeding on it, but they took off when I switched my camera on.

Compared with other regular journal writers gardens, my garden isn’t the most floriferous so in flower at the moment are a few Hellebores and a couple of Roses but there is still plenty to admire.

The first photo is a flower bud on my Chimonanthus praecox ‘luteus’. It has a load of buds ready for opening in January and is a wonderful winter flowering shrub. Plenty more to come about it when it flowers.

The second photo is of catkins in their early stage on my Corylus avellana ‘contorta’, an attractive feature at this time of year.

Lastly is a bud on the species Rhododendron, R.platypodum. This is probably a foliage bud as it is probably too young to flower. This is critically endangered in the wild so i am pleased to be doing my bit to keep it. The short leaf stalk is a feature of this rare Rhodo.

It’s been making a great show all summer and in spite of being attacked by small snails, (I took to picking them off and stamping on them!) and bad weather of one sort and another it’s still putting out some nice flowers even though it’s a bit bedraggled at this stage.

I’m hopeless at choosing favourites of anything, but I decided to narrow it down and choose one spring, one summer and one (early) autumn. From spring, the one that jumped out was the unfolding whitebeam leaves against the blue sky; from summer, the pond (our perennial favourite view from the kitchen window); and in autumn, the front shrub border, which has really come into its own this year with the fabulous show of berries. I suppose we’ll always choose photos taken in rare sunshine, but it does strike me that for an awful summer we did have a lot of sunny weather!

it was such a fabulous day here yesterday, so I decided early to take myself off to Johnstown garden centre for a little look around. Well actually they sent me an email on their new additions and I was going to order online and thought……..no I’ll visit Ooops 

And of course I wasnt disappointed  I wanted a few more Hellebores and one in particular was H. Winterbells , but by the time I had found that I found lots more, some were in their ‘Gold Collection’ which are nice big plants, a little expensive but hey it’s Christmas 😉 

Also picked up a couple of Clematis. C. ‘Winter Beauty’ is an evergreen and it flowers from now until about February. Also C.’Taiga’ and a red one called C. ‘Royal Velours’

Then in for a quick cuppa and home. A really enjoyable morning. I’m hoping today I can maybe plant them out and see them flourish over the next few months 🙂 

What a beautiful day, bright sunshine and blue skies. I spent a short time in the garden as I had a couple of little jobs that I wanted to get done.

I have tried to put a bit of shape on to my oldest acer that had got very wide and was in the way of steps and was a danger to the little grandchildren who love to do a circuit of the garden chasing each other. I took a branch off another one too as it was a stray one nearer the ground than the others and now I think makes a nicer tree shape as it is an upright one. However Im hoping I havnt harmed the tree as it did bleed sap, wil have to wait and see.

I took these couple of photos as I thought the yucca and agave both added to the summer feel of the day!

i put these in a journal in mid-October. The Roses are coming along nicely, and there is actually another tiny bud starting; the Rudbeckia did open but has succumbed to the hard frosts since; i brought in the Gazania as it was looking sad one day, though I think it was lack of water rather than cold was wrong with it, but it has opened now too. So not too bad really!