Happy Christmas

Christmas morning is here, all the preparations are complete, I am sitting with a glass of champagne about to open presents.  I would like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and a peaceful year in 2015.  Thank you my blogging friends for all your advice, plant identifications, and encouragement throughout the year.  You are all very special people sharing your gardens, thoughts and ideas.  You have helped make the past year a very happy one. The solstice has past so for us in the northern hemisphere, we are looking forward already to spring as gardeners are prone to do, for those of you in the southern hemisphere I am sure you are enjoying all that summer has to offer.  I wish you all a joyous Christmas.

GBFD – A frosty morning

Welcome to GBFD where I encourage you to value the foliage in your garden, and at this time of year maybe it is the foliage that is doing most of the work to make your garden beautiful.

Branches silhouetted against a Turneresque sky

In a London street

Having just left Tate Modern after seeing the wonderful Turner exhibition I saw this wonderful sky and wanted to share it with you.

posted from my iPad so please excuse any differences in quality. Have a lovely week.  Tomorrow is GBFD if you have time to join in I would love to see what foliage you have in your garden in December.

Is Linnaeus turning in his grave?

A couple of weeks ago I innocently put the up-dated name of Jacobaea maritima In my post about the slope on Thursday. Kris of Late to the Garden Party commented that she hadn’t realised that the name had been changed and that it was becoming more and more difficult to keep up with all the name changes that are occurring and that she was considering returning to using common names so that everyone would know which plant was being described. I hadn’t known the name had changed either but has looked it up to check the spelling, it was then I saw that its name has changed completely.

Rain soaked foliage of Seneccio

That was how I captioned the image but no, I was wrong it should now be Jacobaea maritima.

The Slope on Thursday 11th December

At the end of last week there was rain, quite heavy rain but this week has been sunny with blue skies, but it has also been cold, very cold, nearly but not quite touching zero during the night.  Today, though, has been sunny and pleasantly warm, the north wind dropped and it was a lovely day to be outside, hence this post is a bit late.

Wordless Wednesday – A winter Iris and An Iris in winter

In a vase on Monday – Now for the Greens

I hope I will be forgiven for making this vase a day early as I wanted to take an arrangement as a small gift for our hostess for Sunday lunch.

The basket actually belongs to the hostess herself, she brought it filled with fresh eggs from her chickens and delicious homemade orange pickle which I must remember to ask for the recipe; it was perfect with the gammon joint I served that day.  So I felt it should be returned with something from my garden.

The Slope on Thursday Is it the first week in December?

Again this week the weather has been weird.  Monday was not cold and there was some sun during the day but as soon as it was dark, the heavens opened with thunder, heavy rain and both sheet and forked lightening.  This was followed on Tuesday by the perfect day, very warm, very possibly 20°C, sun and no wind all day.  That evening I turned the heating off, it had only been on a few days as it was.  Then came Wednesday!  I was woken by the sound of the wind blowing, howling, it was throwing our very heavy outside chairs to the ground.  A lot more leaves have come down whether they were ready or not.  Plus there was more rain until about 4pm when the sun came out, so I rushed to take some photographs as the forecast for today  was much the same as yesterday , but in fact it has been grey, mild and as I write now at 4pm is foggy in the distance.

In a vase on Monday – still some surprises

It is the first of December but if you walked around my garden today you would be forgiven for thinking that it was spring.  The temperatures in the last week have risen considerable to those of only a few weeks ago.  Last night the minimum temperature was 15°C, and that was the daytime high a couple of weeks ago, during the day we are back to the low 20’s°C.  So what can I find to put in a vase this Monday from my garden for Cathy?