A New Year and the weather is still up and down.
Now 17 days in we have had higher than normal temperatures double figures for nine of the days and reaching 12..4 degrees. Then yesterday it only reached 4 degrees during the day and dropped to -5.8 last night. So the garden is all white again.
The snow in early December stayed, along with below freezing temperatures, for more than 7 days. It was quite a relief when the white went. It will be a couple of months before I will discover how many plants I have lost but the biggest and saddest loss for me is the aeonium. I have built up a collection, from just one cutting, over the last 10 years. Adding a few more unusual varieties in the last couple of years. Apart from a few pots (all I can fit in the house) the rest, about 30 pots, have previously survived all winter in a small bubble wrapped greenhouse. But when I got to the green house this year, after the thaw, the aeoniums had drooped and softened to a mush. They are a succulent so the stems had just frozen, and being full of water they collapsed and rotted. Apart from the 4 "special" ones, I am now left with just 6, 4 of which are the cuttings from last year. The lovely tall older ones are all lost.
On a brighter note, it is January and the start of snowdrops. Mrs McNamara is out now with many others, the green shoots pushing through the soil and the white tips forming.
Rhubarb is coming through too, so time to cover some with the forcing pots to get early bright pink stems, delicious.
