My Garden Journal 2023 for December

I seems appropriate to publish this post on the first day of the new year, 2024 when I will be preparing for creating the first pages of my garden journal January 2024.

2023 was not an easy gardening year with the weather making things so difficult. Let us hope that 2024 is going to be a good one!

It is hard to believe that we are already looking at the entries for the last month of 2023, a difficult year for gardens and gardeners alike, trying to cope with unusual weather events and mixed up seasons.

Looking below at the first double page spread you may notice that the final page for November is included. This is because my first words for December refer to the yellow grasses.

I wrote,“These grasses remained bright yellow into December, which arrived bringing with it cold, wet days with the occasional blue sky days with frosts cold enough to blacken our dahlias.

“Colourful berries decorated many of our trees and shrubs, and an occasional herbaceous plant.“Colourful berries decorated many of our trees and shrubs, and an occasional herbaceous plant.“

Alongside this introduction to December I shared a set of eight photos featuring some of our berries.

On the next two pages I featured winter bedding plants and opposite that I considered our garden after rain. I noted that,“The winter bedding plants that we plant in pots look bright and colourful until frosts hit. Then they collapse and lose some of their structure. Some become almost colourless, especially the white flowered ones. Our fatsias do just the same.”

I then shared four photos of collapsed bedding plants.

“Amazingly they are revived by rising temperatures when they return to their colourful selves.”

At the top of the next page I wrote,“I love to wander around the garden just after a shower has stopped, usually with my camera to hand. Plants are so good at catching water droplets. At this time of year water droplets hang onto berries and seed heads. One thing to avoid is touching a branch as you compose your photo. The slightest touch and the droplets will drop!”

Six photos of water droplets on plants follow on.

If we look over onto the next double page spread we can see succulents featured on the left page, where I noted that,“Most of our succulents are in the greenhouse now enjoying avoiding the winter cold and wet. Any recent purchases have been potted up into terracotta pots to create foliage displays.” On the opposite page we considered our garden after a storm. I noted that,“We grow three different hamamelis shrubs here in our Avocet garden to give scented flowers in winter. Two are well in flower now but we need to wait for the third one H. ‘Diane’ to catch up. H. x intermedia ‘Jelena’ flowers earliest followed by H.x intermedia ‘Harry’ so both look and smell good now.”

Eight photographs of our newly acquired succulents.

Now we can look at the hamamelis that are currently flowering their hearts out in our garden. Four photos of “Jelena” and four of “Harry”.

Firstly “Jelena”.

And now four photos of H. ‘Harry’.

So that is it for my Garden Journal 2023, but of course tomorrow I will be considering my entries for the first days of January 2024!