January 2004
Although all these photos were taken in January 2004, you will quickly see that they were taken on 2 very different days! The earlier day was so cold it makes me shiver just to look at the photos whereas the photos from later in the month show lovely winter sun - always a welcome sight.
I don't seem to have any photos from the early Winter months of 2005 but will endeavour to get out early 2006 and get some more current photos (not least of the snowdrop bed)
Apologies if some of the photos look a bit fuzzy - I blame the cold weather!
The gravel garden is just outside our patio doors and as good a place to start as any other. We try to keep the birds fed and watered all year round but particularly in winter.
As you can see, the water round here gets a bit hard at times. It's very tempting to stay inside until it's time to go to work but one of us inevitably braves the cold and breaks the ice for their drinking water.
At the same time, we give them some food - if only we could work out how to get rid of the pigeons so the other birds can have a turn. We do have some globe feeders etc. for the smaller birds in the garden as well now but the pigeons still seem to get more than their fair share.
Wandering along the crunchy gravel path, the garden seems very bare at this time of year with lots of the trees and shrubs having lost their leaves.
I'm not sure I'd want to sit on this seat right now - might be a bit too chilly!
The green from the honeysuckle crawling over the shed adds a bit of colour and life to the far end of the garden and the filters keep the pond from completely freezing over. The fish should be hibernating at the bottom of the pond at this time of year but it depends on the weather!
The frosting on the seed heads and bare branches is wonderful. The hebe struggles through the winter with its lovely pink flowers adding a bit of colour at that end of the garden.
Back up the other side of the garden and the pampas continues to be its majestic self adding some interest etc.
The big fir tree is one of our favourite things in the garden. You can rely on it to add shape, form, structure etc to the garden whatever the time of year. It ruins the grass around it and the bed underneath it. One day we'll think of something better to go with that area.
In the meantime, we'll plant things in and hope they grow. This time it was cyclamen to add some colour.
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As I mentioned at the start, towards the end of January we had a lovely sunny day and the photos look completely different! You could almost believe that Spring was on the way.
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A last gaze across the grass to the pampas, choisya etc. and it's time to go in and get warm.