Bizarre December

After a couple of sharp frosts last month, the weather has turned strangely mild - some days have been sunny with temperatures up to 16 degrees but mostly it's rather wet. The trees are bare but the grass keeps growing and the garden doesn't really seem to know what season it is.

The cotoneaster is still holding its autumnal gold leaves but elsewhere seems nearer to Spring ...








the winter jasmine feels like its almost finished flowering

I don't have daffodils or snowdrops in flower, as I've seen reported from elsewhere but the bergenias and polyanthus are definitely out

and this alpine strawberry seems to think it's summer - I doubt the fruit will ripen though, there's not enough sunshine!

Winter Solstice

 For midwinter, today was a mild day. I spent some time this morning pottering about to and from the shed, planting daffodil and tulip bulbs and anemone corms that I bought amazingly cheaply this week. Some I've planted into pots for hopefully some early Spring flowers in the house, the others are out in the garden.

Looking around, I was surprised how much colour is still around - the house walls are covered in jasmine and cotoneaster.

More polyanthus are coming into flower

 Unfortunately, the birds seem fond of this pink one and have nibbled most of it away.

 And there are still summer 'leftovers' - an oriental poppy with two buds, orange welsh poppies in flower and the black hollyhock is still going strong.

As I'm typing this up, late at night, I can hear birds twittering in the pyracantha at the front of the house, sounding as if they're nesting already. Surely that's not possible?

December in the garden

 Most of the garden is looking ragged and bare with only the honesty seed pods to lighten it but a bit of looking around turned up a surprising number of flowers.

 winter jasmine growing up the walls

 rosemary underneath it

the black hollyhock is determinedly flowering













and next spring's polyanthus coming into flower

 kaffir lilies looking straggly but colourful still

 and a lone welsh poppy.
One of the oriental poppies has a bud but I don't think it will manage to flower at this time of year.

 the garage wall is covered with cotoneaster berries

the front wall with pyracantha









and the rowan in the front garden has masses of berries

Garden in December

 December has come in with clear nights and the first hard frosts.

cotoneaster

 Colour is now mainly down to berries - till the birds eat them.

pyracantha

A few flowers are still there though - early polyanthus

winter jasmine in full bloom

 and the odd kaffir lily

The frosts have killed the rampant nasturtiums and it's now possible to see the small winter vegetables that were growing through them - cavolo nero kale with some late flowering bedraggled candytuft -

and a short row of leeks

The greenhouse is double and triple layered with fleece, bubble wrap and plastic sheeting but with the cold night time temperatures of this last week I don't think the pepper plants will survive even under all these layers.

Hardier things are ok though - winter lettuce in the propagator, winter hardy spring onions to be planted out into the greenhouse floor soon and brassicas to maybe go outside when the weather warms again.

Surprise find

We were a bit worried about the roots of a cotoneaster growing against the garage wall. They were starting to lift the slab path and could have been heading for the foundations! As there are other cotoneasters already growing there, we decided to chop this one down - and in doing so discovered this bird nest (fortunately empty at this time of year). I thought we'd had blackbirds nesting there but hadn't been sure as when spotted on his way back to the nest with grass or twigs, the blackbird would fly off in a different direction.
Now the leaves have fallen we've discovered more nests in the silver birch and rowan which we weren't aware of. Obviously the birds are clever at putting me off the scent!

berries

pyracantha

cotoneaster

do lots of berries mean another cold winter?