Garden Blog

Winter is a fluid season; when it begins and ends is arguable. With climate change all the more so, as warm spells follow cold spells adding to the confusion. We had a heavy fall of snow on 11 and 12 December. It stuck around for a week, on days that hovered around zero, then the temperature shot up to springlike …

It’s been very cold the last few days, no rain, with temperatures close to zero and a few degrees below overnight. There’s ice on the pond and on the trays we have left out for birds. Meteorological winter began on 1st December; we were spoilt with warmer days in November. Now we are at seasonal temperatures. They are calling the …

Leaves are falling. The few left in the cherry tree are yellow and red. A fierce wind will clear the branches. The sycamore is two-thirds gone, its yellow leaves continually swept off the paths. Its helicopter seeds are scattered, like invading forces threatening to overwhelm us by sheer numbers. Our birch still has its leaves. The small leaves are less …

We have had a lot of rain recently. October had over 100 mm, twice the usual rainfall. November too is giving us daily showers. All our water barrels are brimming, which is ironic, as when you have lots of water, you don’t need it. But Thames Water informs us the hosepipe ban is still on. Because it was so dry …

We had our festival, Welcome To Winter, today. A warm, sunny day, on the verge of Halloween. Halloween is short for All Hallows Eve, which is the day before All Saints Day. Traditions associated with Halloween go back to pagan times, and were taken up by Christianity. It was said the recently dead couldn’t go to heaven until All Saints …

It’s a bright sunny morning. Warm in the sun but a little chilly in the shade. The ground is scattered with helicopters from the sycamore, its leaves beginning to yellow. Around the garden are half a dozen artists, painting or using pastels, to portray aspects of our garden. I admire their hardiness as well as their images. The marigolds are …

These are the chilly days as the nights grow longer and autumn deepens. Day temperatures are in the mid-teens, and at night below 10 degrees. I see no animal life in the pond except snails. They are cold-blooded, and dormant. This is the advantage of cold-blooded creatures, by dropping into dormancy they need little food. They will maintain their barely-alive …

It is Autumn, or nearly so. Meteorological autumn began on 1 September, so we are well into that. But astronomical autumn starts in a few days’ time. The Greenwich Observatory give the date as Friday 23 September. That day will have equal day and night, 12 hours apiece. After the equinox, the nights win out until the Winter Solstice on …

On Friday, we tidied up the hundreds of pots filling the back stage in order to make it usable for functions other than storage. This threw up the problem of what to do with the pots. We have far too many. Pots come to us in various ways. We buy plants in pots, plant them out and we have a …

Forest Gate had 12 hours of rain yesterday, from fierce downpour to drizzle, almost filling the metre cube that collects water from our pergola. It has the largest roof area and we take advantage of that in water collection. Other barrels filled but to a lesser extent, as they are supplied by smaller roofs. The drought is not yet over, …