With our Scottish Govt now giving it’s soon-to-be-traditional Xmas message, ‘stay at home if you can’, when I’m not fixed to my home-office screen, there’s always the garden. In this weekend that sits closest to the shortest day, it can be hard to find the motivation to get into the garden, with long shadows even at midday. I managed, and for my #SixonSaturday this week I’m embracing mostly the greens that fight on through the dark.
First, a recent cold morning made me notice a few beads of frost clinging to an intriguing moss-and-lichen combination. The more you look the more intricate the scene nestling in the top of the garden wall.
Having battled on for about 9 solid months, nasturtium flowers have finally been chilled out of existence, but the seeds remain, gleaming green in the sunshine, soon to be harvested for sowing in, I hope, a few short weeks.
Except for the very harshest winters, rosemary grows (and sometimes flowers), right through the year. I think it benefits from being in a shallow, dry, bed, there’s not too much sogginess. Some fresh tips of this one will be used to season next weekend’s big roast (goose, if the mail-order fresh-from-farm delivery works out….fingers crossed).
Sometimes, plants show extraordinary resilience. This is campanula, growing a good 2m, tucked into a niche in a vertical wall, and still delivering a few flowers despite the damp and the dark.
A few years ago I received a tree-heather as a gift. At the time it looked like a rather boring little shrub. In the depths of the dark days, I do now find the bright lime stems give a cheery glow.
At 56.3 deg north, I do find my environment SO DARK at this time of year. The upside is that you can have a long lie-in, then still get up in time for sunrise over the garden. This was about 9am, Friday 17th December: this is what we mean by the ‘dark midwinter’.
That’s it for me this week. This time next week is you-know-what….Stay safe, keep yourself and others safe by wearing a mask, and don’t forget to follow the crowd on twitter and via the web from links to the originator of #SixonSaturday, the Propagator himself.