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| Sunset in West Yorkshire, 1 December 2017 |
Meanwhile, the cold weather has turned the soil in the garden rock hard, and the plants in the hanging baskets have been nipped by the frost and are finally on their way out after giving me a wonderful display for months on end. When the plants are dead, I will clear them out and put the baskets in the shed for the winter. Otherwise, that's pretty much it for me; winter is a time to hibernate.
Speaking of hibernation, I was pleased to see squirrels visiting my garden recently. They've been quite absent over the summer months and I watched one quite ingeniously find a way to dangle upside-down from the bird feeding station while it raided sunflower seeds. It was welcome. I even discovered a squirrel on my window bottom while I was at the kitchen sink. Momentarily I thought it was a cat, but in a flash it was gone and I saw it bound along the top of the fence and away. I wonder why it came so close to the window as I have nothing there, so close to the house, for it to eat.
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| Sunset in West Yorkshire, 1 December 2017 |
Inside the garden room, I have been protecting the pelargoniums, the baby bay tree, and the Jade plant with fleece and bubble wrap. I don't want them to die and I really have no more space in my home for plants. I noted that the temperature in the room had dropped to a low of 0.2 degrees celsius on Wednesday night and I know that outside will have been a fair bit colder than that. Eccentrically, I have draped a bath towel over the fleece and bubble wrap during the dark hours to further protect the plants and, dare I admit (of course I dare), I even put among the plants a fleecy-covered hotwater bottle wrapped in a thick hand towel. The plan was that the bottle will slowly release heat for several hours and prevent the leaves on the plants freezing; none of them is hardy. The plants are still fine, I am pleased to say, but this is only the beginning of wintery weather and who knows what is yet to come? Watch this space.