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One of the reasons we visited Attingham Park for a wander in the woodland was to search for lichen and mosses as I had recently read books on the subjects which made me want to experience them for myself.

This walk proved an excellent place to do just that. Early on into our walk we came across a huge specimen tree covered not in mosses or lichen but in our native Ivy, Hedera helix, a brilliant shelter, food source and breeding place for all sorts of wildlife. Not long after we found a tree coated near its base in moss. But it also displayed covering by an orange-brown lichen above the moss.

Birds sometimes hunt underneath lichen to feed on the insects and invertebrates found there. The pieces they have broken off in the process gave us a chance to have a closer look. The left hand photo shows a verdigris coloured species whereas the second photo is of a beautiful bluish coloured specimen accompanied by an even tinier green lichen or perhaps moss.

The photo below shows mosses and lichen growing on the rotting stump of a felled tree.

Early on in our walk we came across two neighbouring trees which between them were home to all these lichen and mosses below. It showed the huge variety of their colours, textures and shapes. Looking close up at a tree trunk can give so many surprises.

Looking down by our feet there were just as many lichen and mosses to be seen and enjoying growing on fallen boughs and rotting tree stumps.

While scrutinising tree trunks for lichen and moss growing on them it was inevitable that we would also spot some winter fungi too. The black fungi were growing on Sycamore leaves and we believe they relate to a fungal disease seen on most Sycamore trees by the end of the growing season.

As we left the Deer Park section of our walk we crossed over the River Tern via a stone built bridge and noticed the hand of Mother Nature had used lichen to create beautiful patterns over its complete surface.

Early in January we went to our favourite woodland for a wander – Attingham Park. It was extremely cold so we wrapped up well and started our walk with a takeaway coffee in hands. I have been reading a book about about Shinrin Yoku so it seemed a good time to put it into practice. It is the art of walking in woodland or forests and immersing yourself in its character using all your senses.

As we walked the pathway taking us to the entrance buildings and courtyard we passed shrubs displaying berries and frosted twigs.

As we began our walk there were quite a few other walkers many taking dogs for a walk, but as we got a little further from the entrance it quietened right down. This allowed us to get much more from the walk.

We were surprised to see willow sculptures decorating an area beneath beech, sweet chestnut and oak trees, depicting insects commonly found here. The floor was deep in leaves from these trees, the carpet of leaves home to many insects and invertebrates. Hence it was a lively area scattered with blackbirds and song thrushes busily tossing leaves about in search of food. They were joined by a few robins, redwings and mistle thrush. While watching them at work a sparrow hawk shot through the boughs and landed above the boundary fence, rested awhile and then quietly flew off over the meadows.

The management policy here is to leave dead trees standing for the benefit of wildlife but as they fall they are left down for the same reason, creating great habitats for a mixture of wildlife.

Droplets of melted frost hung delicately from fine twigs but at ground level frost still covered fallen leaves. The strange pattern on the tree trunk in the last photo in this block was a real mystery to us. We could think of no explanation for it.

We will leave the first part of my post about our cold woodland walk at Attingham Park, as we reached this beautiful 5-bar wooden gate which gave atmospheric views over the River Tern and the neighbouring wet grassland. In the next part we will move on from the gate and onto the woodland walk proper.

I am obsessed with succulents and this obsession has been going on now for a decade os so now so my collection is getting really large. I love most succulents but my craze started off with mostly echeverias.

In this post I will share with you some photos of one of the best and certainly my favourite and just now it is flowering too! Echeveria ‘Black Prince’ has foliage to match its name and its flowering stalk rises up to nine or so inches and displays bright green buds which break open to show off its beautiful salmon orange flowers.

Hamamelis are one of the earliest shrubs to flower each year and this year was no exception. We grow three -‘Jelena’, ‘Diane’ and a new one this year ‘Harry’, which are red, orange and yellow/orange respectively.

Here is a little gallery of them in bloom to cheer up the dullest day!

In previous gardens we have grown yellow varieties such as H. mollis, H. pallida or H. Arnold Promise, but in our current patch we have gone for richer shades.

We have rarely experience clear frosty days in recent years as climate change is showing its hand. So when one does come along it makes our garden look very special. In the second week of January we woke to an extremely cold morning and Jack Frost has decorated the front garden with whiteness. In the gravel garden, The Beth Chatto Garden, we have many tall grasses and perennials which we leave overwinter for wildlife and for days when frost or snow appear.

Here is a selection of photos I took that morning before the sun came around and melted the frost away.

So I promised to return with a visit to my garden journal for 2020 with my entries for December, the last for 2020.

On my first page for December I wrote,‘December, the last month of the strangest year ever, 2020? For us long periods of lockdown, sometimes exaggerated by weeks of shielding, all to help us avoid Covid 19. Our garden was our saviour – what would we have done without it? During this month wildlife shared our patch, hedgehogs have hibernated in the shelters we have provided for them, late bees, wasps and flies continued to enjoy the flowers of plants we grow to help look after them.

Our garden, front and back, features bird feeding stations visited daily by flocks finches and tits, joined by individual blackbirds, robins, dunnock and wren. Members of the thrush family are joined by blackcaps to gorge on berries from plants we have planted specifically chosen for that reason. Kites and buzzard put on flight displays in the sky above the garden, occasionally giving out mewing calls.’

Added the bottom of the page I added three photographs of important winter wildlife plants, providing flowers and berries, Fatsia japonica, Euonymus europaeus ‘Red Cascade’ and Hedera helix ‘Arborescens’.

My second page features one of my favourite plant families, the ferns, truly an obsession of mine for several years now!

The page opposite displays simply a set of my drawings featuring a skeletal poppy seed-head, fund in our ‘Hot Garden’. Simple beauty! I used pencil, fibre tip pen and Japanese Brush Pens.

‘The winter garden is good at springing surprises, unexpected visits by bees and wasps, out of season flowers and skeletal leaves. This December surprised us by presenting us with a complete skeleton of a poppy seed-head.’

More seed-heads are shown over the page, this time featuring those of agapanthus. ‘We grow lots of agapanthus for their dramatic blue, purple or white spherical flowers in mid and late summer. But come winter and their beautiful skeletal seed-heads take over.’

More of my drawings appear on the page opposite, some sketches done in Japanese Brush Pens. I studied an evergreen pink-flowered geranium which showed us why the family is known as ‘cranesbills’.

Over the page a double page spread features red berried shrubs and a beautiful succulent. On the left hand page I wrote, ‘A mid-December visit to one of our favourite plant centres saw us sorely tempted to acquire a beautiful specimen of Ilex verticillata. Its red berries glow against black stems. We already have a specimen bought a few years ago, again whilst in berry. We did not realise that we needed two plants to get any berries, so the future chances of a repeat berrying seems more hopeful.

We also grow several varieties of shrubby cotoneasters which produce masses of red berries for us to enjoy and equally for thrushes and blackbirds to feast upon. We also grow a tree version but this displays yellow berries!’

I wrote at the top of the right hand page, ‘My flowering plant of the month is one of my favourite succulents, Echeveria ‘Black Prince’, with its deep brown foliage rosette from which a flowering stem emerges. On top of this stem sit bright green buds opening to expose orange-salmon flowers with lemon yellow centres. Arising from the centre is a cluster of bright yellow stamens.’

My final words for December appear on the top of the next page, ‘Foliage is such a powerful force in the December garden, outside in the borders and undercover in our glasshouse, on succulents, grasses, shrubs and perennials.’

So there it is, the last monthly report from my Garden Journal 2020. My next visit to my journal will be for January next year, 2021!

We grow lots of grasses in our garden as they provide all year interest as well as being great for wildlife. Birds eat the seeds in the autumn and winter and seek out insects within them in spring, summer and autumn. The bases of grasses are grand places for insects, invertebrates and moth pupae to overwinter. Thus we don’t cut our grasses down until late February and early March. If any collapse in the wind we cut them down and bundle them up as wildlife shelters.

We grow them because they pick up the slightest wind and move gracefully, they catch the light to adding extra interest. They vary so much in structure, colour, texture and shape.

At this time of the year we enjoy the deciduous and evergreen varieties equally. We grow lots of different varieties so have much to enjoy every cold winter’s day.

In his talks Dan Pearson, who uses grasses fully in his designs, describes grasses as having a diaphanous quality and talks of how they, “…..hold the light and communicate the movement of air, or the lack of it.”

Here is a selection of photos taken in December of some of the grasses growing in our garden for you to enjoy.

The one evergreen grass we grow most of is the Carex family. They feature so many shades of green, some sport variegations but they all enjoy any aspect. They are particularly suited to shade or semi-shade equally well which makes them very flexible.

We often use carex to edge paths and borders too, where they give us interesting neat low ‘hedges’ of many textures and colours.

To recognise that we have said goodbye to 2020 and to celebrate seeing the back of such an awful year controlled by Covid 19, I decided to wander around the garden and look for the brightest of garden colours, orange.

I hope you enjoy seeing what I found – some photos are more obvious than others where orange is harden to find!

In the first gallery orange appears brightly in flowers, primulas and witch hazels but more subtly in the stripes of grasses or the bark of trunks and stems.

In gallery 2 we find orange in berries of Viburnum opulus, in fallen leaves, cornus stems and even the delicate seed head of an agapanthus.

In my third gallery oranges are found in violas and at the tip of a bud of a welsh poppy, on the peeling bark of Betula ‘Kanzu’ and Prunus serrula, and in the fresh leaves of Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’.

For the penultimate gallery I took photos of delicate orange in grass blades and Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’ stems, in late blooms of Rosa ‘Warm Welcome’ and a hint of orange in the brown seed heads of Sedum now known as Hylotelephium.

The final gallery shows oranges in foliage of cotinus, in stems of Acer ‘Sango Kaku’, in Hamamelis ‘Jelena’ and I found bright orange in metal furniture.

So I found quite a few examples of oranges throughout our borders in the garden. I hope you enjoyed a little brightness to start off a new year!