My Garden Journal 2021 – December

I shall begin a look at my Garden Journal 2021 for December by reflecting on the week in which November ended and December got started. Storm Arwen had left us with work to do!

On the first page I noted, “December began as we cleared up Storm Arwen’s mess and destruction.”

This first page features photos of some of the tasks we undertook in the early part of the month.

A group of six photos showed some of the damage caused by Storm Arwen. Beneath them I noted that, “Grasses, fences and half of our Liquidamber tree have been broken by Storm Arwen.”

I also included two photos showing a couple of usual seasonal work, planting a new climbing rose to replace Rosa ‘Falstaff’ and Ian our gardener pruning the blackberry plant. I wrote, “Normal garden tasks happen alongside the necessary repair work after sorting Arwen’s damage.”

On the opposite page I featured some of our clematis in their winter coats and I wrote, “On clear mornings the low winter light highlights seed heads of some of our large selection of clematis growing throughout our garden.’

I also noted that, “Evergreen winter flowering clematis still show leaves and buds ready for flowering in January and February.”

I followed on with two pages about grasses, firstly deciduous and secondly evergreens. I wrote, “The most effective light-catching plants in our garden are the many grasses we grow particularly the deciduous ones, which all add new layers of soft colours to the borders.”

And so onto the next page where we change to evergreen grasses especially the carex family.

Ten of my photos of such grasses featured on the page.

Three photos followed on illustrating that not all evergreen grasses are members of the carex family.

Stipa tenuissima, Uncinia rubra and Nasella.

From grasses I looked back at roses, one particular rose called Rosa ‘Bengal Beauty’, a beautifully simple, single flowered shrub. I wrote, “We have Rosa ‘Bengal Beauty’ growing alongside our drive so we can appreciate the softness of its winter petal colours and the beauty of its long pink stamens.” Below I added a water colour painting of the buds at different stages.

On the opposite page I featured more gentle colours of our winter garden, this time the dried flowering stems of a couple of herbaceous perennials. I wrote, “In that same border I found the gentle, soft tones of biscuit, ginger, brown with hints of green, forming equally beautiful dried flower stems of perennials.”

Below I featured a couple of sketches using Japanese Brush Pens, featuring a Libertia and Japanese anemone.

For the final page of my December report for 2021 I featured another Japanese Brush Pen drawing, this time a more colourful sketch of the winter foliage and berries of one of our many Hypericum inodorum shrubs.