Talkback: Frost on flowers

Just to take up the bee comment, I saw my first bee of the year about four weeks ago! So glad we have a Prunus autumnalis for it to feed on.

You are getting very poetical in your blog. But I don't know what ephemeral means? can you help? Im very impressed with your photographs do you take them yourself?

In reply to the first comment, I say my first bee on the 3rd of Feb which is about four weeks ago too! I was really surprised as it bumbled its way past my face (literally - I had to take a step back to see what it was!). And now the forecast is for snow next week where I am (NW Kent)!

I enjoyed the hard frost on flowers,it is beautiful and I took some photos.I am amazed that my darling snowdrops spring back unharmed after being bent double for a week with the freeze.i took the best photos of two spiders webs trailing over a Thuja.They looked like the finest lace with white haw frost glistening in the high,bright sunshine,mwhoar.

I found a queen bee indoors on the weekend. She was really weak, must have been there for a few days. I took her outside and placed her in an open crocus flower in a clump in my mum's south-facing border. Ten minutes later I popped back to check on her. She had moved round to another crocus flower; she lifted her head out of the flower and looked me straight in the eye, her tongue still out, covered in sticky nectar, her back coated in pollen. I watched her take a big drink and then crawl under a leaf, where I presume (hope) she continued to hibernate.

Just watched Carol Klein planting Cannas, and she said that they won't take any frost? I was a bit surprised at that as mine have been in a pot, in the middle of the garden for the last 5 years, thoroughly frosted most years, and they STILL give me a lovely (if late) show of flowers each year.