Monday was a reasonable day, Tuesday it rained heavily from half way through the night until about 2pm, Wednesday was gloriously sunny all day followed by a cold night and today, Thursday, it’s grey and tomorrow it is forecast to be grey in the morning with rain in the afternoon. So nothing to become bored with! Everyone keeps telling me that much colder temperatures are predicted to arrive soon. Some very cold weather is always good. The roses need pruning and it would be an easier job if they had lost their foliage before I begin. Last year I resorted to pruning off some of the leaves; but the fact that some leaves were persistent meant that there was black spot on several of the plants this year and that’s something I haven’t had before, I suppose the wet spring also aggravated the problem.
Nothing much is happening on the slope; the only flowers now are the prostrate rosemary, the Solanum jasminoides and Teucrium.
The Slope usual view
Looking up from the gate
Prostrate rosemary covers the tuffo wall
Flowers on the rosemary and Solanum
Looking across the slope everything looks like its waiting for spring
Euphorbia with nodding heads
Euphorbia close up, isn’t the pink stem and back of leaves nice?
What’s the weather like this week with you? Hearing about your weather really makes me feel we’re having a conversation.
Creating my own garden of the Hesperides 
Hi Christina. It seems we are having very similar weather to you at the moment, but we had some sleet and snow a couple of nights ago which soon disappeared. Temperatures have been between -1 at night and +5 or 6 in the day, and mostly it’s grey with the odd half day of sunshine if the fog disperses. I wonder if we will get a cold snap still. I’d be quite happy for an early spring instead! Your Euphorbia are looking lovely after all the rain you’ve had. In fact the whole slope seems very green for January. Is it always so green in winter?
Hi Cathy, yes, I’d say that winter is probably the greenest month here, not just inthe garden but in the wider countryside too. Our temperatures are a little higher than yours during the day rising to the mid teens on days that are sunny but remaining below 10°C on the grey days.
OMG, that last photo is really marvelous, I wish you didn’t post the real look of the wide angle shot, because it revealed the truth, haha! I agree with you, we gardeners are indeed strange folks. We are so excited with something that we alone (probably) can appreciate.
Our weather now is the most wonderful throughout the year. This is the time that we get a slight cold courtesy or spillover from Siberia and North China where winter is also very deep. When you at the temperate zones are into your spring then we will again have our dry season, which is so hot and humid, that i abhor because my plants almost die, and some really do! Thanks for visiting my sites.
It’s good to see the truth Andrea. Just one plant looking good doesn’t make a garden!
Hello Christina and a belated Happy New Year to you too! Well, here in Perthshire Scotland, our weather is pretty much the same as you and my plants like sedums are thinking its spring too. It is probably a good time to do a few jobs but everything is so wet to work with for now. My phone app tells me it is 4 deg C here just now as I type this. We’ve sun a blue sky so that’s a plus.
I love seeing images of your slope, it is getting well filled out now – the grasses are looking great. I love that planting of rosemary too – I’d love to have space for planting to that scale.
Thanks Shirley, our temperatures are a little higher than yours and a lot more daylight hours I imagine.
I like your Euphorbia very much. This winter we have set heat records, cold records and rainfall records all within a short time of each other. Recently lots of days of heavy rain here has saturated the ground. A cold front is moving in to bring a few sunny days but lows will be below freezing. It’s winter though, right? I have noticed cold damage on some of the 2-year old gardenias from our very cold spell several weeks back when temperatures were in the teens(F.).
I do hope your gardenias will recover. I had always thought they couldn’t take temperatures below zero Celsius which is one reson I didn’t consider that they could be grown here. I’m sure our cold will arrive.
That clump of prostrate rosemary is lovely, Christina – it really helps having space for such a big clump. A wet finish to a pleasant and mild day here, although I think the rain has stopped now.
Rosemary is so happy here I have lots. There are really too many plants in that same raised bed but I love the way it seems to cling to the wall as it flows to the ground; in the same way the ‘stream’ of rosemary flows down the slope.
After all the rain we’re seeing a few glimpses of sunshine at last. But the ground is still so saturated I can’t get out on it. Frustrating because there is so much to do.
Your slope looks so lush!
This is the time when everything is lush.
Is it my imagination or can I smell the rosemary from here?
That would be nice wouldn’t it. Smells, perfumes are so evocative.
I love the garden photos; you have designed it with such wonderful texture and contrast.
Thanks Charlie, I’m glad you like the design although in some ways this is the least ‘designed’ part of the garden.
We are enveloped in fog that persisted throughout the day. Normally it would burn off by early afternoon. I love the way it softens views and cloaks them in mystery. Your view needs no flowers to be attractive. I am working on achieving that same result.
Texture and form are everything and any flowers just the icing on the cake.
This post is great because you give us the long shots, the mid-range, and the macros all in one post. Those Euphorbias are fascinating, and stunning in the macro! And that patch of Rosemary–wow! I can only use my imagination right now to think about gardening because my landscape is covered with snow. But it’s good because we’ve been so very cold–good thing the snow is there to protect the perennial plants! Lovely views you have there on the slope!
I must think about giving long, mid and macro vieews of other parts of the garden, as in truth that is how one looks at a garden in reality.
The bank of Rosemary, reminded me of visiting Pompeii last year, it just does not grow like that here. We have had lots of rain and the nearby fields are flooded where the streams have burst their banks. Its still mild and I am hoping we do have some colder weather, I like the “proper” marking of a season, although the UK never copes with snow and we grind to a standstill.
If it snows a lot in this part of Italy the same thing happens. Because it doesn’t happen every year, they are never ready for it.
Interesting to see the dampness in your Mediterranean clime, after spending several days in San Diego, California’s *bone dry* Med. clime, due to a severe drought! Little fragrance there, though some of the same plants were in bloom, too…but none of the flourishing your plants show.
Now, I know where to escape our SW US drought, if only virtually!
It is often wet in winter here. In fact it isn’t a truly Mediterranean climate here even though I’m only 30 miles to the Med from where I live. You’re very welcome to visit virtually whenever you like.
Your winter looks as green as our springs! I love the rosemary and the closeup of the euphorbia is great. Here we have snow again this morning, a few new inches on the ground to be shoveled. It looks nice but green looks nicer 🙂
Yes, I agree green is nicer than white! Winter is our greenest time.
Beautiful!
The euphoria certainly has character. They look like some kind of comical extra terrestrials come down for an invasion. Up close, fascinatingly beautiful!
You do have a vivid imagination, I like it!
The weather is very different here. In the middle of a snowstorm with 12″ predicted. Then three days of weather in single digits in F. At least the plants will be protected by the snow this time.
At least the cold temperatures will kill some harmful pests.
Our weather has been bizarre, to say the least. We’ve gone from 54 F to almost 0 in a week! I love your euphorbia. It looks just like the euphorbia seedlings given to me by a friend. She didn’t know their name, either, but said they were robust growers. Your slope looks great even in the winter. 🙂
My Euphorbia seeds itself around very happily from the intitial plants that I grew from seed I have plenty to place where I want. They are not very long lived so I’m happy to have new plants eady when I want them.