Happy New Year! It’s turned a lot colder since last weeks Six on Saturday with several overnight frosts that have lasted well in to the next day. Sadly, there has also been yet more rain. This all means that I haven’t been able to do any work outside as even the gravel paths are waterlogged. I did manage an hour in the glasshouse the other day putting the last few bulbs into small pots. I’ll plant these out in the main border when I can get back on to it. In the meantime, here are six easily photographable things from my garden.
- The temperature in the glasshouse has been at or below freezing for the last five nights and it went down to -2.7 degrees on New Years Eve night. I have a 50W tube heater underneath the longest bench and the plants are covered either with fleece or with a Celotex lid. The minimum temperature under cover was +3.2 degrees so I’m fairly happy with that. In the morning the inside of the glass was covered with beautiful ice feathers.
- In the spring I planted up a container for the top of a water butt that is visible from the kitchen window. I replanted it with Primroses and Ophiopogan, underplanted with bulbs for the winter. The Crocuses are visible now.
- The resilience of plants never fails to amaze me. Back in November I bought a new Hellebore for a winter patio pot. I’ll replace one of the self-sown Hellebores in the ground with it in the spring. With each hard frost this last week it has collapsed
then, as the temperature has crept up to between a balmy two and four degrees in the daytime, the flowering stems have risen again.
I need the soil in the borders to drain so that I can cut all of the leaves off the other Hellebores as the flowering stems are beginning to slowly rise. Sadly, H. niger doesn’t seem to be going to flower this year. I bought it as a flowering plant last winter so maybe it just needs a year off to gather strength.
- The Green Man is, at last, starting to green up and silently looks over the garden.
Even if it’s too cold (or hot!) to garden there’s plenty of inspiration to be had at https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/
Enjoy the rest of the weekend and stay safe.
Six on Saturday 
I’m glad to see that your protection has been beneficial inside the greenhouse to protect your tender plants. We also had -3° outside but thanks to my plastic bubbles it was +1° in the greenhouse.
Very pretty frosty photos and this hellebore is really cute. Happy New Year to you !
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Bonne Annee (sorry, I can’t put an accent on the e!) Fred. My inexpensive frost protection methods are working so far. Fingers crossed it doesn’t get much colder.
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Lovely pictures of frosted plants and glass. We haven’t had very severe frost but there was plenty of ice on the paths and roads when we went for a walk this morning. I think your Green man is a bit too realistic for me…..rather spooky! 😱 Happy New Year.
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His eyes look weirder in the photo than in real life.
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Lovely frosty pics. I particularly like ophiopogon in the frost. The white edge making a great contrast.
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Great frosty photos. The feathered frosty glass is lovely.
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