Winter wonders - Page 3

I had a lovely morning's walk round my garden on this very mild January day complete with camera.  The buds are fattening nicely on my rhododendrons -

My evergreen ferns are looking great in my planters and in my fernery -

And what would the winter garden be without the Yucca gloriosa

Or without the bamboo -

Or the heucheras

And the witch hazel.

Loads of catkins on the hazelnut trees.

In my slate scree, Arum italicum.

...happymarion, my large compliment to you and on your Garden. The arum i.look wonderful and I hope you have a great Sunday. Best regards and many luck to you. ThaiGer.

Thank you, ThaiGer.  Compliments from my peer group are much appreciated.  Especially in the depths of winter when i long for my snowdrops to appear.

Hello, one more time. Not so nice and thorny, our mahonia. But change the colour from hot season to rainy season too.

My friend has just reported from a winter walk in Surrey and found these snowdrops near Godstone.growing wild.

Lovely sunny 9th of January and my white heather is in full bloom at the front gate.

While at the Bristol Botanic Garden today I noticed the first flower on the wintersweet - Chimonantthus praecox, although the Daphne bhuola is covered in flowers.  Many perennial were very advanced and great fat buds on many of the magnolias especially Magnolia cylindricus.  The weather is now turning colder so there could be a lot of frost damage on blossom.

Not a very pleasant day for exploring the winter garden but my whole house is sweetly perfumed by a Xmas present of lilies from a shop.  Here they are blocking the pictures on my fridge door that keep me motivated right through the winter as I contemplate what is coming to enjoy.

Beautifull Lillies happymarion, I can almost smell them (the cake looks nice too). It has been a dreadful day here in Bournemouth, it hasn't stopped raining. I managed to sow some Alstoemeria seeds yesterday. This is a first for me, never grown them before. Others have said how difficult they are to grow, but I'm always up for a challenge. They are in my heated propagator so fingers crossed and watch this space. 

Leftover Xmas cake, Donutmrs!  I have just put three ice-cream 2litre carton boxes filledwith delicious soup made from leftover turkey in the freezer but the cake was well laced with brandy so will keep till I demolish it or visitors do, thiough they may be few and far between if the weather deteriorates any more.  As for alstromerias, I believe they need an acid soil which we do not have in Bristol so i would need to grow them in pots.  I did have some in a red and white bouquet for a present for Xmas and had to compost them just yesterday so, even in winter they last a long time as cut flowers.  They come from Chike so we should be growing them when we start our Northern Chile garden at the Bristol Bot. garden.

I have some Alstoemerias in pots and they only stopped flowering a few weeks ago, they flower their socks off all through the summer. We are still making our way through the Christmas cake, I put Brandy into mine so it should last a while.