‘Have you got any crocus showing yet?’….said a friend with a garden in a different part of the UK. Hmm, rather hard to tell this week as we had over 30cm of snow, and -9 degC one night (but see last week’s Six). Here’s a very snowy #SixonSaturday from my garden this week. First up, here’s the garden table, almost full with overwintering plants. There’s probably a few crocus in those half-barrels at the back.

I’ve been working hard to keep the garden birds alive. 3 large seed feeders have been topped up twice a day, nuts too. But still, on our 3rd day of ‘big snow’, there are FAR fewer tits in the garden…..I hope they found somewhere warmer? Two of the bigger feeders are on the garden apple trees, hiding behind icicles.

We’ve also taken care to try and keep a bit of open water available. One corner of the pond has a kettle of hot water poured on it a few times each day (the benefits of working from home). A blackbird cowers at the other end of the pond here, it doesn’t seem impressed. Hard to believe from this scene that there are sometimes frogspawn here by mid-February.

I’m not sure everything will come through this cold snap in top form. Hard to tell as yet (still more than 20cm snow on the ground), but a wallflower has already given up on at least one if it’s flowering stems.

This one’s not quite in the garden. On my ‘walk before work’ on Wednesday, it was -9.5 deg C at 8am (goodness knows how cold it was earlier). Every surface was covered in ice. I was fascinated by a string of wooden fence posts, each one with fern-like ice crystals growing from spaces in the wood. A stunning sight.

Finally for this most unusual of weeks: I don’t think I was too hasty to get chillies started in January. Luckily for them, there are plenty of cosy warm windowsills with radiators nearby. This little group are providing the only thing (apart from ice) that’s been growing around here this week.

That’s my six for this week. Very much worse weather than the sleety and snowy weather I noted last week! But much more fun than sleet. Being snowed-in in a lockdown doesn’t feel much different than usual! Don’t forget to follow #SixonSaturday on Twitter, and take a look at other sixer’s contributions via the great Propagator himself.