I’ve started to think about what I’d like to grow this year. Naturally I’ll be growing plants for our bees and butterflies and I also like to grow flowers specifically for cutting.
I love to have fresh flowers indoors and of course I love to receive flowers as a gift…
It’s was a frosty morning here in Lancashire, North West England. Despite the cold I was tempted outside to have a look at the garden and of course to take some pictures of frosted plants. As expected there were lots of frosted seedheads and the duck pond was completely frozen over. At the edge of the pond a some of the plants were lit up by the early morning sunshine.
It was a frosty start this morning in our Lancashire garden with wildlife tumbling in from the fields for their breakfast as usual. I nipped out in my dressing gown and wellies to take a few photos of these wild ducks. They pop in every morning for a light snack of corn followed by the all you can eat buffet in the borders consisting mainly of fat black slugs and juicy pale snails.
It’s Friday so it’s Looking Good in the Garden. We are right in the middle of a storm. It’s been blowing a gale overnight and now even thought the sun is shining there’s a roaring above my garden studio as the wind whips through the bare branches of the oak trees. But Snowdrops are out in full force in our Bluebell Wood nodding their tiny heads in the high speed gusts.
Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ is beautiful when it’s in flower with creamy white blooms… and still gorgeous when the flowers dry in autumn. Usually these dried flower heads last all winter. Many gardeners tidy up their Hydrangeas in autumn pruning the shrub to remove faded flowers… but it’s such a shame to chop these heads off I think.
In the UK there’s not much in flower at this time of year. Mid-winter is the time that most of us rely on colourful stems, bark and berries for colour in our gardens. Evergreen shrubs with interesting leaves are good too. They are hardy and reliable and for most of the year can be left alone to get on with providing a permanent framework for your star flowering plants.
We had our first frost yesterday morning and I enjoyed a few moments in the garden inspecting the changes. It’s much later than usual.
In previous years our first frost has always been during the first week of October.
It’s late winter and we’ve had sun, snow and rain today in North West England. Spring is only three weeks away so it’s time for me to get on with tidying the garden. We’ve had some lovely dried flowers and seed heads in the garden all winter.
It’s quite unusual for us to have snow or even a hard frost in this mild part of North west England. Occasionally we do have a cold snap and the garden takes on a magical look. It is beautiful for us to look at but when the pond freezes over it’s not much much fun for our resident Moorhens.
Hundreds of geese flew over our garden this morning. They fly in from countries in the far north and east to spend winters in our warm estuaries here on the west coast of northern England. It’s an amazing sight to see them fly in V formations. The sound of them honking and calling to each other reminds me that cold weather on the way.