No More Snow, Please

Old man, Mr Big Nose loves the snow.

Most mornings, Big Nose & myself walk along the school route.  See that young fella there with his head down, the one whose expression says he'd rather be in bed?

He'd be yet another anonymous school lad if it weren't for snow mornings.  The merest of white dustings & suddenly, he's cheery, chatty, not able to stand still.

Before emigrating, I battled mountain snow for years, & fervantly hate all snow now.  No clue why this boy chooses to share his snow glee with me, of all the dog walkers he sees.

Snow.  Bane of my existence.

1.  Snow will be tolerated on the holly.

It does look nice w/that dark green foliage.

2.  But look at my poor foxglove.

Long-suffering foxglove.

3.  The bergenia managed a brave face.

O, the indignity of it all.

4.  And I suppose the fatsia seed heads are actually improved.

Looking more alien than usual.

5.  But the snow brought it's no-good friend.  

Ice!

Confined to the glass top of the patio table.

The glass top has since been brought inside.

There'll be no sitting outside today.

Not exactly the hot seat.

6.  The witch hazel only lightly dusted.   

Snow witch.

Not that it worries about snow.  Actually, there's barely any snow on the witch hazel, but it's having such a great blossoming, it deserved to be featured here again.

Love at first sight.

So there are my Six.  Rather than end on a snow note, I leave you with something I love.  You may remember a few weeks back, I told the story of my crooked cherry tree.  The sight of it in full bloom, growing through a shrub, well how could you not give your heart to something like that.

As always, I remind you to visit  The Propagator who'll have his own Six, plus hosts links to a vast array of Sixes in his comment section.

New Year, New Growth

Wildlife water bowl.

It's been another wet week.  All this rain gave me plenty of opportunity to see posts about what's growing in other gardens.  Between showers, I compared notes to my own space.

While the freesia are still asleep & the clematis has no noticeable new growth, there are a few things happening out there.




1.  I admit, I've been worried about my witch hazel.  When it dropped its leaves early last year, I told myself the move had changed its signals.  Then all these great photos of yellow & orange & red squigglies appeared in my Twitter feed, convincing me my tree had died.

But hello!

Witch hazel tutu blooms.

2.  The leucojum has had its first blossom.

Leucojum not yet fully open.

3.  I've been keeping an eye on the sweet peas, self seeded & . . .

Self seeded sweet pea next to the toadflax.

. . . 2017 survivor.

Old man pea.

4.  The greatest joy of week, proof positive the daffs have survived Brer Fox.  (You can read about our Neighbour From Hell saga here & here.)

The Brer Fox repellant worked!

5.  The kerria surprised me with a blossom in the middle of its many wands.  The smudged yellowgreen bits below the horizontal stem are leaf knobs getting ready to open.  This is the kerria overshadowed by the elder tree, which I've been pruning back, so hopefully there'll be more vertical & less horizontal this year.

Oh kerria, you yellow face delights us.

6.  Mlle DoodleFace pointed out a new hole under the fence, this one too small for Brer Fox.  I keep filling it in & it keeps getting opened again, sometimes by Mlle DoodleFace herself.

The new rat-sized hole.

Mizzy BunnyButt (who tends all things rodent) sent a memo about some big heavy stone to be lodged in there quite soon.  (As you can see in this photo, there were no blossoms on the witch hazel earlier this week, so WOW, eh?)

Mizzy BB inspects.

All these new things in our new year.

So once again, thanks for stopping to see my Six on Saturday.  Please be sure to visit The Propagator for his SoS plus links to many other garden peeks.

Tuckered Mlle DoodleFace.