End of Month Review December 2022

or maybe I should call this 'After the Frost'....

After a long dry summer and a mild mild autumn, winter arrived with a bang in December.  We had temperatures of -7 some nights.  My heating packed up, I froze, the house froze and the garden froze.  I sat wrapped in blankets muttering ‘poor Tom’s a cold’ and was grateful my house has a working fireplace. 

When the thaw came the damage was clear.  The white Morning Glory (Ipomoea alba) by the front door is an annual and so promptly upped and died when the frost hit it.  I can hear the Gertrude Jekyll rose breathing a sigh of relief that it can see light again.  Maybe the ipomoea was a little too vigorous once it got going.  I don't call it posh bind weed for nothing!

The self-sown cerinthe have turned to mush, but there are still some green leaves waving gamely at me so hopefully some will get through to next year.

The fuschias are looking a bit crispy.

I have a few (five) Euphorbia mellifera in the garden, I grew them from seed from the Hardy Plant Society seed list a few years ago.  This is the one I relocated from the Veg Garden a few months ago, it is looking like it has suffered quite a bit from the frost.  I wonder if it is because it is in a more exposed part of the garden and/or if it has just not established enough yet.  Either way I will keep my fingers crossed that it will survive.

I am more anxious about my Amicia zygomeris, it looks very cold so I am hopeful it will recover.

Regular readers will know how much I worry for my Edgeworthia chrysantha in a usual winter.  We have not really hit full winter yet and it has already been set back by the frost.  Please keep all fingers and toes crossed in the hope that it pulls through.

and of course, as you would expect, I am worried for my tree ferns as well.  I have protected them and they are quite tough, but I worry.

and I might (did) forget to bring this cactus (name unknown, grown from a mixed seed collection), indoors when I moved everything else.  How is it possible to overlook something quite large and spikey?  It looks ok so far and I think it is wet that tends to keep them rather than the temperature.  Time will tell!

I've lost the name of this plant, it might not matter, it might be dead.

There is, at the same time, hope.  The garden never sleeps, it never stops.  The Hamamelis Arnold Promise is starting to open its shred-like flowers.

The Daphne 'Jaqueline Postill' is budding up.

The snowdrops are racing to see who will open first.

and the winter flowering cherry is starting to blossom.  Such things are sheer joy.

and the pond is pretty much full.

Happy New Year to you all.  I wonder what 2023 will bring.  May your gardens florish and lets hope for more good news than we appear to have had in the last year.

Take care and be kind.

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