Beautiful Blog Award - and my cat

Nadezda at Northern Garden nominated me for an award just before Christmas. I have waited to find a suitable post to write about it, but between posts about spring weather and snow and other things, this one has been put on the back burner until now.

The roses in my garden

Ok, a funny title for a post in January, I admit that but, there is a reason behind it! Hoover Boo at Piece of Eden is making a series of posts about all the roses in his (or her? not sure if it is a man or perhaps a woman) garden, he’s got so many that after 5 posts he has only got to the letter K. I thought this was an excellent idea and would like to present the roses in my garden too. I usually read what the producers have said before purchasing a rose, but I don’t always agree with the information, once I have the rose in my own garden. Does the rose actually smell strongly or just faintly? Is it actually red as they said? Or is it more pink or purple? By getting information from people who grow the roses themselves I think we perhaps get more reliable information.

Snow in London!

We got our forecasted snow yesterday, here in East London we got around 2 inches, other parts of the South East got up to 6 inches and other parts of the country got a lot more – from 10 to 12 inches. The usual chaos followed with over 3000 schools closed, trains delayed and cancelled, planes delayed and cancelled and many people sitting in cues for hours in their cars on  impassable roads waiting for gritting to be done. Everything is just as it always is here in Britain with a tiny bit of snow: chaos!

Where are the birds?

Over the last 2 years I have visited and become friends with many bloggers around the world, and many of them take photos of birds in their gardens and surroundings. I must admit I don’t know much about birds – very little in fact. But I have often admired the wonderful photos of feeding birds in other people’s gardens and wished I could take similar photos. So, one of my plans for 2013 was to do something about that.

January in London

It’s that time again, the 15th of the month, when we gardeners show off our gardens – and all our beautiful flowers. So you’d probably think you could run quickly past a garden from London then, not much in flower at this time of year you might think, but hang on, I’ve got flowers, lots of flowers, come and have a look!

Hellebore babies!

It’s that time of the year, when I go around looking for signs of hellebores emerging from the ground. I have seen some for a while, actually – I saw the first shoots long before Christmas, but at this time of year they are painfully slow to come up. This week I have tidied up around the hellebores and taken care of my first hellebore babies!

It’s spring! uhm...January!

I know this is the time for looking back at the ups and downs in the garden for 2012. I had many ups and downs in 2012, in the garden and otherwise. I am going to run very quickly through 2012 and just say that overall it was a pretty s**t year. The weather was s**t here in Britain most of the time, the wettest on record, and I spent most of it in hospital or recovering at home from various medical issues. That was 2012, and 2013 can only be better in every way! But let's move swiftly on to 2013 :-)