The holly and the ivy

This is the season of evergreens - nothing else is doing much in the garden at the moment.  There are still a few flowers on the chrysanthemums, but they are sprawling on the ground mostly, and viburnum 'Dawn' and its evergreen relations are in flower - oh, and there's one single flower on the winter honeysuckle, at last.  At the front the winter jasmine is doing its thing.  Otherwise the interest is from the evergreens (and evergreys), and the red stems of the dogwood.  The Christmas greenery has started to make its way indoors; this week's photo offering is the decorated mantlepiece, using ivy (mostly) and a little holly, all from the garden.  The neighbours' efforts to eradicate the coloured-leaved ivy from the boundary wall means that there's less variegated stuff than usual, but enough to make a good contrast. (I don't blame the neighbours, by the way; ivy looks lovely but it does terrible things to old drystone walls.)

This weekend's work included weeding around the chrysanthemums, the aster and the helianthemum to allow me to plant the small red tulips (T. linifolia) that were the most recent bargain acquisition.  I hope I remember where I've put them.  I've also started to reclaim the path leading off the patio, where the rose has encroached on one side and a self-sown honeysuckle had taken root on the other.  The resulting digging was tidings of great joy to the robin, who took every opportunity to check for worms when I wasn't too close.  He's becoming quite trusting, and even a little cheeky - flying on to one of the pots near the window when he sees me and thinks I might bring out food.

I did put out quite a lot of food during last week, when we had several severe frosts; the robin was waiting most mornings when I opened the curtains.  The blackbirds, sparrows and starlings also came.  By the end of the week the weather had turned milder, with a little more rain and wind, though the weekend was mostly dry; this week has started clear and chilly, with sunny days, but rain on the way again.  Probably a wet Christmas rather than a white one.

Other wildlife hasn't been very visible.  The marsh tit was around at the weekend (and probably during the week too), and a nuthatch was whistling to itself (or maybe to another nuthatch, though I couldn't see one) as it looked for food in the trees on Sunday.  Mr Mole hasn't been doing much in the garden; he seems to be intermittently active down by the compost heaps at the moment, and as long as he stays down there that's fine by me.