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| Home-made Christmas wreath hanging on the gate |
Looking back, it’s been a soggy old year, with a lot of wet, much wind and only a few, all-too-brief, warm spells. There have been successes in the garden, such as the new flower bed by the patio (although some editing is needed there), and some good crops in the veg plot (including eating apples, the store of which is only now running out); but some less successful things too, such as the salad and bean crops succumbing to slug damage (and autumn plantings succumbing to the mice), and the failure of seed-collecting because of the wet.
Time now to look forward. There’s the old herb bed, nearly all cleared and offering opportunities for more planting. The tulip bulbs are mostly planted to provide colour next spring – and, for the record (since I usually forget): the biggest patio pot contains ‘Prinses Irene’, ‘Doll’s Minuet’ and ‘Havran’, while the slightly smaller one has ‘Lady van Eyck’, ‘Mystic van Eyck’ and ‘Paul Scherer’. Both have several forget-me-not plants, moved from the veg plot edges, bedded in on top, both as complementary planting and to discourage the squirrel from digging up the bulbs. Other tulip bulbs (‘World Friendship’ and ‘Pieter de Leur’) are still to be planted, while I decide whether to put them in more pots or in the ground. All I need to allow me to get on with things is some better weather; December has been mild, apart from a couple of light grass frosts overnight, but damp, and nearly all the past week has been foggy as well. The forecast is for a very wet and windy New Year, followed by colder days and frosty nights.
And two promising signs for 2025: Lefty, our elderly lame woodpigeon, who has been coming daily for his breakfast on the patio, has been tolerating the company of another pigeon; we assume it’s a female and that he’s contemplating mating next year. And the first snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii) are already out. Happy New Year!
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| December snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii) |
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