Snow | Davids Garden Diary

The snow and ice which blanketed the Cotswolds last Sunday is still here but only for a few more days according to the forecast. It has created beautiful wintry scenes but has also brought traffic to a standstill on side roads like ours. Fortunately, the Amazon deliveries have been getting through!

It is truly amazing that anything survives in temperatures of -7 degrees and I am waiting with baited breath to survey the damage. Some losses may not be evident until next year so I will keep my fingers crossed.

My major concern is for my National Collection of Tradescantias which is currently covered by a 4″ duvet of frozen snow. They are reputedly hardy to minus 10 degrees and I hope there is some truth in the theory that the snow actually helps to insulate them from the harshest night time temperatures.

This illustrates the reason to leave seed heads for the birds over winter. The Agastache, Rudbeckia and Echinacea have been a great source of food for Goldfinches and Tits over the last week. They are hard wired to do this, seemingly preferring the natural resources to the many birdfeeders I have around the garden. The Rowan and Pyracantha berries have been stripped by Blackbirds, Redwings and Fieldfares as well as the odd Wood Pigeon, and I have seen more Thrushes in the last week than at any other time of the year.

Funny how everything becomes black and white in the snow! These roses should have been pruned by now but are a thing of beauty on a cold frosty day.

David looks very fetching in his white hat!

Have a great weekend

Hopefully back here on Christmas Eve!

David

Garrya elliptica catkins in the snow

After 3 bitterly cold days, it warmed slightly and the snow arrived. Not much, 10cm or so, but enough to keep us indoors. Most low lying shrubs and emerging bulbs are now sleeping under a warm blanket but tall shrubs like the Garrya elliptica ‘James Roof’ look even more stunning when the long catkins are covered in snow.

Eranthis hyemale, the Winter aconite

These little aconites are reliable early winter stalwarts, emerging before everything else and gradually spreading to all parts of the garden. I must have disturbed them during the renovation because they are appearing in the strangest places. I think this one must have been in the root ball of the primula I transplanted last year.

The woodland path!

Just outside our bungalow, the one you can see in the distance in this photo, there is a lovely woodland path which winds it’s way up the hill on to Charlton Kings Common and then into the old stone quarry and beyond. Most of the year it is an enjoyable, dry and interesting walk but in recent winters, and particularly this one, it has turned into a stream bringing flood water and debris down from the hill and depositing it on to the road. More worrying is the fact that the first storm drain it reaches is the one outside our drive, 200 metres from the end of the path. By the time it reaches that, it is more of a raging torrent than a stream. So far it has not caused any significant damage but ……….. we’ll see!

Echinacea seed heads stripped by the birds

I only saw the finches a couple of times but it seems they made a meal of the Echinacea purpurea seed heads I left in the front border. We also had some strong winds which must have blown more away to be eaten by the Wrens, Dunnocks and Pied Wagtails which are always scratching around looking for stray seeds. Who knows, some may even germinate and give me some free plants.

Frosted Echinacea

This image is not one of mine but I thought it was nice to end this piece. I guess this must have been taken in a place which suffers very early frost because all my Echinaceas lost their petals weeks before our first cold snap in October. It reminds me of crystallised fruit dusted with icing sugar!