My Garden Journal December 2022

This is my final visit to my garden journal for 2022, and we shall look at what is happening here in our garden in the last month of the year.

My first page I looked at how the strange weather this autumn and early winter has upset and confused some plants. I wrote, “Even the most optimistic of gardeners know that December means that winter is here. However this year many plants aren’t so sure.”

I shared eight photos as illustrations.

On the next two pages I shared photos photos taken as I took a tour of the garden and wrote, “These two pages take us on a journey around the garden searching for long views and interesting plant communities to give an opportunity to see different interesting spots.”

Onto the next two pages and the first shows flowers found in a December wander around our Avocet garden. I wrote, “Take a wander around the garden. It is amazing how much colour here is provided by flowers.”

On the opposite page after a look at colour in the garden I shared a sketch of seed heads using very fine drawing pens which I entitled,

“The delicate dried stems and old seed pods.“

Over onto the next pair of pages and on the left I considered birches and opposite more seed heads and dried stems.

Concerning the birches I noted that, “My favourite tree family is Betula, the birches. They are interesting and impressive all year with pleated shiny bright green spring foliage alongside golden hanging catkins. Airy canopies with rustling foliage through the summer are supported on colourful trunks with peeling bark, and then buttercup yellow autumn colours catch low autumn rays. This foliage falls to reveal a filigree of open branch work.”

I then featured my favourite of all the birches Betula albosinensis septentrionalis, in nine photos.

On the opposite page I returned to look at different seed heads and stems, but this time for my sketches I used very fine fibre pens in grey tones.

I finished off my December entries with a double page spread featuring some of our December tasks and finally winter foliage.

Concerning the month’s tasks I wrote, “Throughout December we completely re-developed our ‘Secret Garden’, removing all the plants around the borders and enlarging the central bark chip area. The borders were made much narrower and log roll edging re-fitted. We replaced bark as a surface and moved over to golden flint chippings. It will become a social area with a large scaffold board table and benches.”

On the opposite page my final entry for 2022 is all about foliage in winter, about which I wrote, “Foliage comes to the fore during winter as there far fewer flowers performing.With foliage we can observe so much variety in shape, texture, pattern and colour.”