WINTER WIND-DOWN

It's a few weeks since I last posted on this gardening blog.  It seems to have done little else for days on end but either rain, blow a gale, or blow a gale and rain.  We even had snow the other day but it lasted a brief time, thankfully.  The temperature, considering we are now into the last month of 2015, is relatively mild which is no doubt the reason why my clematis, Dr Ruppel, is still in full flower in December.  December!  I kid you not! There are still raspberries on the Polka raspberry canes but I am leaving them for the birds and squirrels.  The birds give me so much joy and very shortly I will be making my annual Christmas fat-cakes for them.  I've never seen so many goldfinches at one time gathering around the seed-feeder.  I do wish I could get better photographs to show you but I have to take them through glass from indoors and it's not the ideal situation even for my camera, which is a far better camera than I am a photographer. 

Goldfinches and sparrow, December 2015

There is little that needs to be done now in the garden apart from the odd clearing of leaves.  At least, there is little that I intended to do now.   I am no winter gardener, I can assure you.  The more tender plants are secure in the two mini-greenhouses at the top of the garden where they will get what winter sun there is and, hopefully, keep above freezing inside.  By the way, someone once wrote that those mini-greenhouses are not stable.  Well, that depends.  Mine are loaded with heavy pots which anchor them down nicely against the fence, and then I tie them against the fence with strong twine.  Believe me, come hail or storm, they don't shift.  Touch wood. 



A lot of the perennials are still lush and colourful, including the penstemons.  In fact, very few plants have died back as it hasn't yet been cold enough, although the tuberous begonias are doing so.  So have the two small dahlias that I have in pots.  I've shoved those pots into the mini-greenhouses. Surprisingly, both survived in pots last winter with no protection at all.  I used to grow the dahlia called Fascination, a beautiful dahlia, but lazily didn't protect the two plants one year and the tubers went rotten.  To be honest, they hadn't flowered well that summer and so they are no great loss.  I know.  I'm quite ruthless with plants that don't perform well.  Hey, this is a garden, not a nursery for sick plants.



Lastly, I've turned off the outside tap at the connection under the kitchen sink.  I've written that in bold to catch your eye in case you have forgotten that job which can cause such grief if you don't remember.