Just a Few Winter Pleasures

Winter evergreens and tracery at the end of the garden

I was going to write about the foxes this week  but while I was attempting to prune my roses with frozen fingers on a wet and soggy day, I caught sight of an unremarkable  kale plant with little diamonds of raindrops clinging to its leaves making it a thing of beauty. 

The kale is really healthy still and I often pick a leaf or two to add to other vegetables when cooking but I've never up to now thought of it as particularly attractive. Next to it was a single dill plant whose feathery leaves had turned into jewellery droplets of cut glass. 

Diamonds and crystals on winter veg

Once I'd discovered these winter pleasures, I began to stop fussing about the sogginess of the ground and look at the garden with different eyes. From the comfort of  my central heating, I can look out through the glass doors to see how much fresh greenery there is even in the depths of winter: the golden privets pruned into big mop heads,  the tree fern, the potted oleander, the grass and the huge holly tree from next-door all in different shades of green. 

But there's more than green. There is the Clematis alpina which I think is called 'Ruby' growing up a viburnum in the front garden. It's not supposed to flower until April, but there it is. And the rosemary (an unusual one that smells a bit of ginger) is covered with its pale blue flowers. What is it? Early? Late? I don't know, but it's a nice surprise and scattered leaves go well with oven-cooked vegetables while a small bunch looks pretty in a little vase on the kitchen table. The Viburnums V.farreri and V. x bodnantense both still have plenty of clusters of rose pink flowers on 7ft tall shrubs and there's one bright red pelargonium flowering bravely by the kitchen door. 

Ginger rosemary with its pale blue flowers

                    

Then if I glance upwards, right at the back of the garden there's the black and white tracery  of twigs and branches making patterns of the surrounding dormant trees - a sight hidden later in the year  by their own leaves and the summer vegetation. 

When I draw the muslin curtains to keep out the winter sun (that does happen from time to time) I see the shadowy outline of the olive tree in it's big pot. 

Meanwhile, I have been keeping a jigsaw puzzle on the go to work at while I'm waiting for the potatoes to cook or a delivery to arrive. No hurry - the last one took me two weeks . The present one,  appropriately called 'Wheelbarrows and Wellies' is an unusual and interesting design, produced by Gibson whose pieces fit together well - as hardened jigsawers will know, that is very important. 

Since my anxious moan last week. I have been offered and given my first Covid 19 vaccine, in highly organised and efficient conditions - next one in 12 weeks. A step in the right direction I think. 

Oh -and the first snowdrops I was looking for last week, although finding it hard to persuade themselves to come out of the ground have begun to appear, reluctantly and with hardly any stalk so far, but they will gain confidence and  the others will follow. Nice to know!