December is here.....

....in my garden....and it's cold.

Photo from Telegraph a couple of days ago.
Not my garden!

Fig tree in foreground, salads behind and above it.

Yes, here's December.   So far I have been too busy with unexpected inside chores to go out into the garden other than for essential forays to empty compost, cut salad leaves or feed the birds twice a day.   I don't remember when a year went by quite as fast as this one.   I seem to be sitting with a list of things I haven't yet done, it is not a good feeling.

As far as the garden jobs to-do list there are two or three pressing ones.

First of all it's time to make festive containers at my front door, maybe I will get something planted up on Sunday.  Then, G and I want to have a go at making our own front door wreaths too this year.   Maybe there will be time to do that too.

The second job I must do this month is dig over and tidy up the veg patch.   I would like it to be more or less ready for when I want to start again in spring.   Talking of vegetables...I am enjoying fresh salad leaves from the greenhouse.   I think I will plant up a few more pots with salad leaves and winter lettuce.

It has been fun seeing birds visit my bird feeders every day.   There is nothing too unusual in the types of bird that visit....starlings, probably a few more than usual maybe some migrants from Europe swelling their numbers, sparrows, they are here all year, a pair of robins adding a touch of festive cheer to the scene...tits, and I think I saw a little wren too the other day.   Collared doves are regulars. Blackbirds come too as do the magpies and jackdaws.   The garden is not sheltered or wooded enough to get many other varieties except fleetingly occasionally.

With the colder weather I have brought inside all my tender plants.   Many are in the greenhouse.   I bought a couple of metres of bubble wrap in case the temperatures really do drop severely.   If we have warning of that  I will add a

Mandevilla

Hibiscus giving an unusual out-of-season bloom

layer of the bubble wrap to the plants in the greenhouse.  Other plants I have brought right inside my home.   Here are a couple of them swanking in their new winter residence.

Then there are are the other houseplants, some of which are looking rather good at the moment.  When it is so grey and gloomy it is lovely to have some living colour inside the house.

African violet has been blooming since the summer.

The Christmas Cactus

There is still a bit of interest outside too.   The purple sage was looking lovely the other day when there was a bit of frost.

Purple sage.

But, the leaves have fallen off the silver birches and the hazel, winter is truly here.   Temperatures are in the single figures Celsius and a sprinkle of snow is forecast over the higher hills a little north of here.  Winter is really here.   There are things going on in the garden, lots of which are invisible to the eye right now.   Bulbs will be showing signs of growth...some of mine have poked their spear tipped leaves above ground already but others are still buried deep.  We are heading towards the shortest daylight day now, 21 December, and after that we will be looking forward to longer daylight hours again.

Pity the poor Swedes near Stockholm who had just 5 hours of sunlight last month!   No wonder D has had to get special daylight bulbs under which he grows his indoor plants.  I think I'd go and sit under those lights too if I lived there.

Keep busy, keep warm and chat to you again soon.