Winter

The first week of winter.

Friday 5th December, 2014.

Another month gone and only one left until the end of this year.  The days are getting colder and shorter which cuts down on the hours when gardening is reasonably comfortable but we are still waiting for the first frost. 

November ended on a fairly dry note and the total rainfall for the month (according to my rain gauge) came to 283mm (11.14ins) just a little less than the 297mm (11.69ins)  recorded in October.  

It has been a wet autumn but also a warm one.  Almost every month this year has seen above average temperatures. 

According to the UK Met Office 2014 is likely to be the warmest year on record, unless we have an exceptionally cold December. 

     "For the UK, temperatures so far this year suggest the country is on course for a new record - judged by data stretching back to 1910.

     And there may also be a new high in the longer-running Central England Temperature record - which started in 1659."

But winter is on its way at last.  Today feels distinctly wintry.  Hail, with sleet or snow on the hills, is forecast for later this afternoon so I did some philadelphus pruning after we got back from shopping in Ramsey.  I started work on the fuchsia and holly hedge on the south side of our garden on Wednesday but didn't want to continue with that today because there were sunny spells and it is a job which is best kept for a cloudy day.   The sun is very low in the sky now that there are less than three weeks until the winter solstice and you look straight into the sun when working on that hedge in winter.

I was glad to have an excuse to do some thorn-free gardening after tackling the little hawthorn up by the "waterfall" and then braving the holly.  The holly has spiny leaves but no real thorns like the hawthorn which is truly vicious and does its best to shred me.  Some years ago, I had a very silly idea.  I thought it would be amusing to trim the hawthorn into a traditional Manx shape.  The old cottages sometimes had a "drine" with a flat top outside the door.  They were used for spreading laundry to dry in the sun.  My thorn tree has ended up looking rather like a ridiculous little toadstool.

I am not sure why beech trees lose their leaves by the end of November while the leaves stay on beech hedges for most of winter.  Our rather eccentric hedge down by the road was planted by one of the previous owners and is a combination of holly and beech with some forsythia and a couple of elms.  Reducing the height of this hedge was one of my first projects in spring.  When I started the beech twigs were bare and by the time I finished, in the beginning of May, the hedge was a combination of dark and pale greens.  Now it has dark green and copper stripes.

 

Even though winter is starting, there are still a few late flowers on the shrubs which are supposed to flower in summer.  I found the last blossom on Cornelia, one of the shrub roses . . . 

. . . and there were a handful of weather-beaten flowers on the hypericum, as well as this one which was almost perfect.

There are buds on the Pieris but the flowers won't open until early spring.  I recently heard that Pieris japonica is sometimes called Lily of the Valley shrub . . . an appropriate name although the delicate little flowers are completely upstaged by the gaudy colours of the new leaves.

Most of the leaves are off the cotoneaster horizontalis but there are still berries on this one near the wooden steps up to the top of the garden.  It is growing under overhanging holly and is more verticalis than horizontalis.  There are also berries on the holly above and the skimmia growing on the bank below the cotoneaster.  

Good food for the blackbirds apart from the skimmia berries which look equally appetising but are ignored by all the feathered friends - and even the pheasants.  

By the way, we have had a blissfully pheasant-free garden for the past ten days.  No wallabies either, thank goodness!  We met one of the other local residents during a walk in the plantation and he asked whether we had seen any wallabies in our garden.  I haven't seen any in the glen since coming across one in the plantation near our top fence in spring but he said that they have been spotted in the area again.  We walked up to the usual top corner of the plantation.  It was a dull overcast day but the dead bracken fronds were a lovely copper colour.

There was some bird excitement a week ago when I noticed a treecreeper searching for insects on the trunk of the Manx palm (cordyline).  We seldom see treecreepers in the garden so it was a rare treat.  I grabbed my camera and quickly snapped a couple of shots through the far from pristine window.  This is the best.  Not a great photo but better than I expected.

Another half moon with wispy pink clouds - one day I will get a photo of the full moon.

And finally, the last leaf on the big white flowering cherry.

PS I thought it was the last leaf but when I looked from a different angle I saw two more!