Diary Of A Wild Country Garden

I do hope your Year of 2016 has started well for you. I am looking forward to a year of more flowers and more vegetables and being outside.  At this time of year, I long for Spring and yet know that I need to appreciate January for what it is in the life cycle of nature.  The short hours of daylight always start to get to me around now. However, I  know that each day we get a little more daylight and that gives me hope. We have had so far had such a very mild winter. It has however been extremely wet and rainy and on our heavy clay soil it has been like a wet soggy swamp! My wellies easily get stuck in it and walking in the grass just makes it a mud bath!   Before all the rains came we did get quite a bit of trimming and cutting back we needed to do in the Autumn so I was pleased that is all done now. Every time I went out our resident Robin would join me and several blackbirds roamed around the grass.  Today and I suspect for days to come I am not ventu...

While it has to be said that Winter is not my favourite time of year there is a special magic about it that I find I love... The flowers are largely gone and many of the trees have lost their leaves and it can all look a little bleak. However, if you look closer you start to notice the tree bark on its trunk and branches. Usually, we do not notice it so much, the leaves and blossoms take centre stage most of the year and the bark plays only a supporting role.  However, now if we take the time to look, we see the beautiful intricate contours on its trunk, the different colours and the often lacey pattern the bare branches make against a clear winter sky.  The winter berries shine out red and glistening in a winter frost, providing a beautiful and powerful splash of colour just when we most need it most.  Of course the holly berries are wonderful and the cotoneaster, if they have not all already been eaten by the birds!  In some trees such as the Magnolia y...