Winter is now upon us and we've had our first frost - on the night of 27th November! Not severe, but enough to blacken the leaves of Gunnera manicata and some of the fuchsia flowers!

The good news is that there are still quite a number of plants in flower, not spectacularly maybe, but in flower nevertheless. As usual, several rhododendrons are determined to flower again and our old faithfuls, Rh. 'Nobleanum' and Rh dauricum are blooming away! Hydrangea 'Ayesha' continues to grow and open new flowers and still deserves my personal 'Best Hydrangea Cultivar' award!  

Winter is a good time to see evergreen ferns which stand out well now that the deciduous species have died down. Blechnum chilense is a tough, hard-fronded fern from Chile which can almost become a weed here, but is not difficult to control. In the wild it colonises road banks for miles and is quite a dramatic sight. Although evergreen it's always cut to the ground in early spring to enable the beautiful new coppery fronds to be seen to best advantage. Lophosoria quadripinnata is also from Chile, but is very different in character. A native of shady woodlands, it can grow to a huge size and in the woodland garden here the fronds are more than 10ft in height, though it doesn't form a trunk. The undersides of the fronds are pale blue in colour. A wonderful plant!

Many plants have been flowering out of their usual season this winter. It's normal for a number of rhododendrons to flower either in autumn or in very early spring, but other shrubs such as Leycesteria crocothyrsos, from Assam, and Pittosporum tobira, a native of China and Japan, have been putting on new growth and flowering again. The flowering of the pittosporum last summer was quite a surprise - seen frequently around the Mediterranean it would appear to need a warmer climate than ours. Another experiment has been the planting of a group of the insectivorous Sarracenia purpurea around one of our ponds. These plants hail from Eastern North America so it will be interesting to see how they do!

So there's always something to see - even in winter! This is the time when all the invisible work is done, the path work, the fencing, tree surgery and much more - so do come along and see what's happening!

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