Icy nights

 

Hellebores - already in flower

After a mostly mild autumn and early winter, the post-Christmas weather has been fairly chilly, especially overnight, and sometimes icy.  There has been little snow yet, though some is forecast for the next couple of days.  Nevertheless, at least some plants are ahead of themselves, with a few snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii) and hellebores already in flower.

The New Year’s Day flower count wasn’t much up on previous years, however: twelve in all, including the winter shrub stalwarts (rosemary, winter jasmine, winter honeysuckle, and Viburnum tinus – but not the Mahonia ‘Winter Sun’, which has been and gone some time ago); the aforementioned snowdrops and hellebores; the Vinca major which is still resisting my attempts to pull it out of the front wall; and isolated flowers on the variegated lamium (dead-nettle), Geum ‘Mrs Bradshaw’ (one bloom, frankly rather past its best), the miniature strawberries and various patches of meadow grass; as well as some unidentified salad leaf seedlings (mustards?) in the cold frame that I haven’t got round to eating yet.

The dahlias were dusted down, dried off and wrapped up, and put in the garage for protection from the frost, before the temperatures dropped.  Those other plants of questionable hardiness are tucked up in the greenhouse, and the rest left to take their chances outdoors.

The colder weather has brought back a few of the Scandi-avians, who haven’t been much in evidence through recent weeks; a fieldfare has been enjoying the fallen apples.  Bullfinches have dropped in to enjoy the flowers on the winter honeysuckle (there are plenty of them this year).  A song thrush has been down a few times, and the marsh tit continues to come to the fatballs along with the more usual tits; I hope both of those stay around for the Big Garden Birdwatch later this month.