GARDENER'S WORD

It might still be winter and the weather has made sure we remember that with days upon end of miserable weather here on the Pennine Mountains, but today we had sunshine.  Glorious blue sky and sunshine with scarcely a cloud until mid afternoon.  Outside there was a little bit of a chill in the air but inside the garden room the temperature climbed above 20 degrees celsius.  I sat and began to read Alistair MacLean's 'Night Without End' (which I first read as a teenager and remembered enjoying it, hence buying a copy recently to reread).  Alfie, the resident Ragdoll Cat , snoozed on the wicker chair and in the garden lots of birds and squirrels 'free-jocked' (ate for nothing) on the seed and fatballs which I put out for them during winter.  For those of you who live in a sunny climate, you possibly won't appreciate the joy a sunny day can bring after days of rain, snow, wind, and cloud.    Thrushes confronting each other above the fa...

Although most things, if not all things, in my garden on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire go dormant during the winter months, the evergreens still retain their greenery.  I love ferns and have quite a few, and I would say that most of them are deciduous, like the Wood Fern, Thelypteris decursive pinnata .  My  Dryopteris filix-mas 'Euchinensis' also dies back, although I don't remove the dead growth but, instead, leave it to protect the crown of the plant until spring when the new fronds begin to unfurl. I do that with a lot of my garden plants.    Polypodium vulgare is evergreen and also my Buckler Fern (Dryopteris atrata) which have retained their green fronds. Evergreen fern in winter, Jan 2018 The Holly Fern, Cyrtomium fortunei , which I grow in a container, is quite evergreen each year although I give it a bit of protection by placing the pot against the east facing house wall and right next to the outside drain whe...

Snow is still with us here, high on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire.  It arrived about a week or go and despite it showing signs of melting now and then, another lot comes along.  It's been a dreary winter so far.  If it isn't raining, or blowing a gale, it is freezing, or snowing.  Sometimes winter holds surprises, for example some (not all) of the bacopas in my four hanging baskets (on an east facing wall) are still green and strong.  I thought bacopas were supposed to be tender.  Some, and I'm not sure if they are Bacopa Scopia Double Ballerina Snowball  or Bacopa Scopia Great White , or a mixture of both intertwined, are full of healthy green leaves.  They've survived sub zero temperatures, blasting gales, and snowfall.  They should be long dead and gone, shouldn't they?  Bacopa Scopia - outdoors winter survivor - Jan 2018 I had left the hanging baskets in place (through laziness), expecting everything within them...

Now and then I like to get out my camera, iPhone or Canon EOS 6D, and take a photo or two when it snows.  Across from where I live is quite beautiful when it snows, and sometimes in my garden and neighbouring gardens too.  I thought I would share a few here, taken over a few years, that maybe I have not shared in this blog before.  Neighbouring garden in a snowy winter Neighbouring gardens in a snowy winter A West Yorkshire snowy winter scene A West Yorkshire snowy winter scene at night A West Yorkshire snowy winter scene during the day Snowy trees Snow on roses during winter

At one time I had a photography blog, just my amateur stuff, but I took a few photos over time of snow and ice with my Canon EOS 6D camera and thought I would share some of them here as they were, after all, taken in my garden during the winter months. These are some I took of ice.  Above: Ice surrounding a clear plastic washing line with a (rusting) metal core.  Ice on black metal Ice on black metal Ice on vegetation Icicles Ice on vegetation Ice on vegetation

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted. I've been kind of hibernating.  It has been freezing, and or snowing, or raining, or blowing a gale,or all the lot at once, and I have fed the birds and otherwise kept myself indoors.  It's movie and book time.  The garden Room (I call it simply the 'Room') has been too cool or cold for me.  Outside right now is white with snow with more forecast to come.  One thing I did notice the other day when opening the front door for the postman is that one of the little alpines at the front of my home is in flower: Lithodora diffusa, 'Heavenly Blue' .  It is dotted with pretty little blue flowers.  How lovely.  I mean, even the snowdrops haven't made an appearance yet.  The below photo was taken during summer 2017, but believe me when I say there are plenty of flowers on it still.  Lithodora Diffusa  aka Lithospermum diffusum And my cat Alfie is refusing to go out even though I s...

Happy New Year to everyone reading this.  2018 began with a supermoon lighting up my garden last night, and everything else!  I would have missed it except that I was in the kitchen, the lights were off and the blinds down, and yet the work surfaces were flooded with light coming under the bottom of the blinds.  Now, I don't have an outside light so I wondered where it was coming from and there it was, the moon, Earth's faithful companion, big and bold and bright.  I took photos but I'm afraid my lack of photography skills didn't do it justice.  Supermoon (Wolfmoon), 1st January 2018, 9.51pm Supermoon (Wolfmoon), 1st January 2018, 9.51pm December 3, 2017 was blessed with a supermoon too.   I missed that but got a good shot of the supermoon, glorious in a blue morning sky, on 8 December, 2017 . We've had some pretty harsh weather lately although nothing compared with what other countries have faced.  We've had some very short bouts ...