Garden Flowers

Although we have had a little rain, our flowers are doing well. The photo shows the flowers on one of our patios. They need regular watering!

Cambridge Market

These flowers were on sale in Cambridge Market on Wednesday. Next door was a stall selling sweets. 

Kings Flowers

At this time of year the flowers on the Cambridge Backs look splendid. The ones in the photo were on the approach to Kings earlier today.

Boots and Flowers

Our local Montessori school has found a great way to use odd boots and make the place inviting too.  These were hanging outside the school earlier.

Wild Flowers

This collage (done by my wife) shows some of the spring flowers seen on recent walks. Although today is quite dull, you do feel winter has moved on into spring at last. The fields are bright yellow with rape and I have (at last) seen a swallow.

Hollyhocks

Whilst we are getting the garden ready for winter (impatiens up) our hollyhocks are still flowering, so these won't be cut back just yet.

Summer started well, but ended up average here in the UK.

Summer colour

This is a photo of the impatiens in our front garden. We bought these by mistake! We meant to get begonias. Luckily, they look good.

Slowly our sun baked lawn with brown patches is returning to green, but we need more rain. I do not, as a rule, water grass knowing it usually recovers.

So far, our sweet peas have disappointed with not a single flower.

Heathers in UK gardens

Heathers are usually associated with moorland.

At this time of the year, heathers are in flower in UK gardens. This show was in a nearby garden on our small Close. 

Sadly, they do not look so good all year around. They look very good at the moment and make good ground cover.

Aconites

This winter seems much colder than last. We have yet to see a daffodil out and the snowdrops are later. Yesterday I saw the first aconites out, in a garden not far from us (see picture).

We are seeing more birds from Scandinavia like fieldfares, redwings, starlings and waxwings. The latter I have still not seen.

Each winter we see some of these birds, but usually they come as it is very cold in Scandinavia. Seeing lots here often suggests a cold winter here.

As yet, no snow here.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aconitum .

Begonias

Today we planted our remaining begonias against the house wall in the back garden. As they grow and get established they should look good.  Unlike many  bedding plants they need very little attention and they usually last until the first frosts in late October. They don't need dead-heading either.When these finish we will plant winter flowering primroses. This is not until late October though.

Another success this spring are our clematis. One has just come into flower and looks a picture. We thought this one had died and very nearly dug it up! We are hoping that 2 clematis plants will grow and cover our brick archway into the back garden. Both are growing well and this should happen.

A few bare patches in the front lawn have been reseeded. It will take 2-3 weeks for the seeds to germinate and grow, but hopefully the few mossy patches will soon be grass again.

Longer days

Already the evenings are about 30 minutes lighter than they were and the rate of increase speeds up as we get further through the month. I noticed that quite a lot of daffodils are in bloom in Cambridge. Well before the end of January is very early indeed.

By mid February, when we do our walk at nearby Landwade, we expect to see all manner of winter flowers in bloom.

See http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/cambridge .

Our Garden

Front lawn

"Our" windmill next door

Because of my recent stroke I have been unable to do much in the garden this year, so far.  Cutting the grass exhausts me.

Most of the flower beds have been seen to by my wife and they are looking good considering everything. Our sons have been good and cut the front and rear grass lawns most weeks.

I am hoping that my sickness, dizziness and profound tiredness will soon be better so I can do my fair share again. It is not nice to be beholden to others to do jobs I'd have willingly done in the past.