'Tis the season

Thanks to all of you who have logged-on to Recklessgardener this year. We have seen our hits more than double and that is most gratifying and gives us encouragement to continue on. So Merry Christmas to everyone and a very Happy and peaceful New Year to you all.

We can perhaps take a little rest from the cutting, digging and planting for a few days while we enjoy our turkey - or vegetarian option - and have a wee dram or too. It is the season of hellebores, holly and Christmas box, aka sarococca. A time when we see the first peeping of bulbs coming through the top of the pots and what joy it is to be able to go out and cut your own holly from your holly tree rather than fight for the straggly strands which are on offer in the shops.

Not so the mistletoe - despite several attempts to get mistletoe to graft onto one of the apple trees, no luck. Gertrude Jekyll commented, in one of her articles, that perhaps "there is no other plant that so much impresses us with a feeling of mystery." Quite so, there is something rather mystical about the plant and it is apparently the only parasitical shrub growing wild in England, although one of you will no doubt email me and tell me this is not so. So please note the "apparently".

At the moment there is a white dusting of frost over everything, an effect which always makes the garden magical, which helps my camellias blend in with their white sheeting of fleece to keep them from frost. Normally, they look like white ghosts sitting there in their coats, but today, they are hardly noticeable.

So please do continue to log-in for another year and support us and every good wish for 2008.

amid the howling gales

The weather this week has been somewhat inclement. My carefully wrapped camelias are now looking like bedraggled waifs cast aside in a Victorian drama. The winds and driving rain have continued unabated the whole week, leaving little or no time to stroll around the garden to see what is happening.

I was reading a wine column yesterday - the writer said something to the effect that drinking a happy wine was akin to leaving the crowded city and suddenly finding yourself walking through a wooded glade. Hm... well - the weather certainly has made me seek out a couple of happy wines but in the circumstances I was glad not to be walking through the wooded glade.

Back to the camelias - the reason I wrap them in fleece is because a couple of years ago all my lovely buds were ruined by frost, not so last year, I wrapped the lot up and low and behold what a wonderful present I received just around Christmas time - a couple of trees bursting with flowers, which went on flowering until April would you believe. Never known it, but that is what happened, so I am hoping for a repeat performance this year.

The garden looks very untidy, there are still lots of leaves swirling around and weeds still fighting for supremacy. You are supposed to be particularly picky about weeds during winter because if you leave them now you really pay the price in the spring. So, husband was dispatched to deal with them - bravely in the cirumstances with a howling gale blowing around his ears. My logic is that we have a lovely green bin collection every two weeks and it would be a shame if we didn't have something to put in it and disappoint the bin men!

It is the season of carol concerts, turkey dinners and office parties. Go safe and go well, and don't forget to deal with those weeds.