'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.