Green Girl Gardener

Happy new year all! I’m still trying to decide on new year’s resolutions but one is definitely going to be to pay more attention to my blog …. starting now!

It was a bit of a challenge to find any inspiring garden related things to take photos of this week, but I think I’ve managed it. My first two points are entirely to demonstrate how cold it is. I hate winter and everything it embodies!

Point one is our frozen bird bath! I think you can tell it’s frozen, or is it just that I know it was? Hubby is going out there religiously every day with a bottle full of hot water and defrosting it so we don’t get robin (Cousins) and jay (ne Torvil) ice skating on there (too tenuous? Sorry!)

Next up is this perfectly formed Tupperware ice cube in the strawberry patch. Hubby fills a little takeaway tub with water every day for the wildlife in our garden – we have passing hedgehogs, foxes and many cats as well as the birds – and he normally waters the strawberry plants with it when he changes it. At the moment, however, given the minus temperatures, we’re just a couple of tots of rum short of a strawberry daiquiri!

Phew, that was strong! So, to sober us up, a reminder of summer past and winter present (did I mention I hate winter?) Here’s a deceased Agapanthus flower. Much as I’d rather it was still luscious and alive and sun-baked, I did think it was attractive enough to be photo-worthy.

Moving in to something far more colourful, here’s some beautiful Cyclamen cheering up the garden. I can see these from the kitchen window and they do look cheery.

Penultimate point for this week is a promise of better things to come. I’ve been struggling with the cyclical nature of life this week as I always do at new year (the best way I can describe it is that, for me, life’s like a game of snakes and ladders and I make really good progress all year but then at midnight on new year’s day I land on that really long snake at number ninety nine and slide all the way back down to number one and have to start again!) However, the circle of life is also represented in these daffodils starting their ascent back into the world, bringing with them their beauty, heady scent and, most importantly, hope. You can see a hint of them pushing through the Cyclamen too. I’ll try to remember this when January threatens to bury me with its cold and dark gloom!

I’ll finish this week with my Curly Red (Leucothoe axillaris) which has lived up to its name for the first time. It’s currently back in its pot because it didn’t fare so well when I planted it out. I might put it in a nice permanent pot when I can bear to spend long enough outside! There’s so much that needs doing outside (see the weeds in the backgrounds of most of these photos), but I’m definitely a fair weather gardener.

Hope everyone returning to work next week (even if it is just in your spare bedroom like me) does so with minimal ‘ugh’ and that 2021 brings everyone lots of Six on Saturdays (check out the Propagator), good health and a vaccine so we can start building a new normal.