Snow in 2006
Welcome to winter! It's nearly the shortest day of 2006, and the head gardener is complaining - she's so bored with the common garden tasks like winter weeding and mulching.
I know - how about a really short sharp snow storm? Say over a foot of settled snow, and lots of trees damaged - that should liven things up!
Rusty in the Snow
Snow in June
Brrr... Last year the snow came late, this year it's early. Some things stay the same, some things change... But of one thing I'm certain - the weather systems are much fiercer and more extreme than they used to be. Aargh! The good old days!
Four days later, and it seems none of the snow has melted. Huge areas of the garden are in mess mode. The tree damage - particularly those large Australian Gum and Wattle trees - is obvious. What's not obvious, as yet, is the general garden damage beneath.
The Hazelnut Orchard
Every day I've done a bit of snow shovelling. Hello, Jester flax! Guess you're not laughing now! Hello, Beverly Hills Hebe - not quite the classy winter ambience you were promised! And my beautiful big Phormium Tenaxes - flaxes which should be tall, upright, with strong spikes reaching for the sky - you look ridiculously out of proportion, squashed into low fountain shapes.
Apologies for Rudeness re English Weather
This will teach me a lesson - while recently in London, pre-summer, I made a lot of rude colonial jokes about their cold, rainy days. I'm sorry, weather masters and/or mistresses! I promise I will never ever again cast aspersions on the grey gardening skies of England. Please give me my garden back! I'm apologising!
The Back Lawn
Well, I'd better keep on quietly sawing and piling up the fallen canopy for next year's firewood. And when the snow eventually melts, and the damage to the garden's under-story is visible, I might just throw the biggest, most concentrated hissy fit in the history of the Moosey garden. I will even consider calling in the bulldozers, throwing out all evergreens and all Australians - sorry, neighbour - and starting again...
Flaxes in the Snow
Day Twelve After the Snow
Humph. Slowly, with much sulky sawing, the trees are being cleared. The rubbish is being busily burnt. Any plant which isn't a conifer - consider yourself lucky, this time! Make the most of your survival, grow strong, and please fill in the gaps!