GBBD 15/12/2011 – Some Winter Treats

As I seem to be leaving home for work every day in the dark and returning in the dark opportunities to take photographs for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day have been non-existence even more so that I hadn’t noticed that it was coming up to the 15th so the photos are a little limited.

I know many people have been commenting on how strange the seasons are this year and it is true that the mild winter has meant that there are plants still flowering which should have been over a good couple of months ago.  However I don’t think what is flowering in my garden is too unusual for this time of year.  The winter jasmine above is flowering its socks off and is planted just outside my living room windows so even on the coldest and greyest winter days I have something cheery to look at.  I am amazed it is flowering so well as it had quite a drastic cut back only a couple  of months ago.

One of the few flowers that really shouldn’t be flowering at the moment is Salvia confertiflora.  It just seems to be going from strength to strength with new fresh shoots some of which I have taken as cuttings.  I did toy with digging up the plant to overwinter but it is rather large now so I will apply a thick mulch around the base and cross my fingers.  I also have geraniums and chicory in flower but sadly no photos so you will have to just take my word for it.
My favourites at the moment are the Cyclamen hederifolium which featured on the blog a few posts back and the Mahonia which was the star of my Wordless Wednesday post yesterday.

Finally I thought I would share this seed-head which caught my eye from across the garden glistening in the winter sunshine.

I believe it is the seed-head of a form of Honesty but the seeds have a more oblong shape and I wonder if this is a perennial form that has blown in rather than the biennial ones I have elsewhere in the garden.

Looking back I realize that I didn’t do a GBBD post last December presumably because we had thick snow and there was nothing to see – what a difference a year makes!

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