Let it snow. The predicted 10-20cm of snow arrived with more forecast and temperatures around freezing. It's in the DNA of plants that are native or naturalized in the UK to survive cold winters and in fact thrive on them as part of their life cycle.
 For example, there is an old cherry tree in next door's garden. Like other stone fruit trees a period of winter chilling is required for it to flower and fruit well. The last time we had a brutal winter 5 or 6 years ago it flowered magnificently in the spring in a shimmering mass of pink blossom. Be interesting to see if the same happens this year.  

 Seems like the big freeze is closing in on London with temperatures several degrees below zero, cold by London standards. I took a walk through Abbey Woods in south-east London, a fragment of ancient woodland that became surrounded by the expansion of the metropolis.
 This frozen pond gives a sense of the chill that's setting in. As I walked away from the woods they were whited out in a snow flurry. I'll return later in spring because the woods are a noted colony of Wild Daffodils, Wood Anemones and Bluebells.

 Postscript And the snow duly reached New Cross Gate...

 

 Changing of the guard. The Snowdrops will start to fade soon as the daffodils come into flower. The daffs in this photograph look like they're Narcissus pseudonarcissus- the Wild Daffodil that's native to this island.
 These were seen in Hertfordshire where they're by no means common, unlike say the Lake District where Wordsworth wrote:

                                            " I wandered lonely a cloud
                                              That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
                                              When all at once I saw a crowd,
                                              A host, of golden daffodils".

 This photo was taken in a copse which contains the ruin of an old cottage so perhaps they're a remnant of a garden there. "Cottage garden" is now a style of garden design but an actual cottager's garden would have been based on plants of the surrounding area.
 Sadly this floral vernacular is largely lost. I notice this when I walk through rural areas that are still rich in the wildflowers of that locale. When I come to a village the gardens tend to be dominated by the kind of generic garden centre plants that can be purchased anywhere.   

 Where there's muck there's brass the saying goes. In this case well rotted horse manure purchased by my father for the allotment. The straw bedding used in stables combines with the droppings and urine to make a well balanced mixture.
 "Well rotted" is the mantra where compost is concerned. Fresh muck can scorch plants because it's too potent at that stage and soil can become depleted of nitrogen processing uncomposted materials. Once the processes of decomposition are well advanced the goodness and organic matter is readily absorbed into the soil structure.
 Following a "no-dig" or at least "low-dig" philosophy spreading the muck as a surface mulch is fine for building soil fertility.  
 

 Narcissus February Gold is a reliable early flowering daffodil. It's parentage is N. cyclamineus x pseudonarcissus. There are several dozen daffodil species in the wild but hundreds and possibly thousands of cultivars developed by plant breeders crossing and re-crossing different ones over time.
 Most are rather crass in my opinion but the act of hybridising one wild species with another has resulted in some pleasing varieties. Nature does this anyway sometimes though February Gold was probably given a helping hand back in the day; it doesn't seem to be recorded when or by who.
 It lends a splash of bright colour to the garden at this time of year when the sun is still in short supply.

NB postscript to this entry several hours later. The same clump with the sun fully overhead...

   

 Snowdrops (Galanthus species) and Winter Aconites (Eranthis hyemalis) come into flower round about the same time and sometimes grow in close proximity, as is the case here by the roadside in a Hertfordshire village.
 These were spilling out of a nearby garden, reflecting their habit of running wild when the locale suits them- no doubt someone once planted a few and now there are many.

 "Tommies"(Crocus tommasinianus) naturalize happily in short grass and under deciduous trees (and in pots on my window sill). They're sometimes called the Woodland Crocus but they need the sun on them for the flowers to unfurl and reveal the bright orange anther dusted with pollen.
 They range in colour from a rare white form through silvery shades of violet into deeper tones of pink and purple. They have an ethereal quality but they're tough: flowering in February they can withstand the last throes of winter.

 The Stinking Hellebores (Hellebore foetidus) towards the back of the garden have been flowering since before Christmas. Further back the drift of naturalized Snowdrops illuminates the green shade (hmm green shade, I've heard that phrase before somewhere).
 Both attract bees on sunny days even in the cool temperatures of February like this bumblebee making its way round the Hellebores. NB They have no scent that I can discern and only a foetid smell if the foliage is crushed. The bees must have a way of being alerted to them though, either by some scent or the vivid lime green flowers (or both).
  

 In search of Snowdrops I walked out across frosty fields in Hertfordshire to Benington Lordship, a historic house in the village of Benington. It sits alongside the ruin of a far more ancient structure- an Anglo-Saxon castle. The grounds are noted for their drifts of Snowdrops.
 In some parts they gleam in the arc of the wintry sun but elsewhere they grow happily in the shade of the trees and buildings and in the hollows of the earthworks that once defined the castle and its moat. In these places the heavy frost remained unmelted; living up to their name the stems stood and the flowers nodded completely unaffected by the biting cold they were subject to.
 These are our "common" Snowdrop Galanthus nivalis. Snowdrops can be considered wild by virtue of their habit of naturalising and proliferating in spots that suit them (including my back garden though on a smaller scale!). The colony at Benington is none the less an introduction by a previous owner who planted some in the early twentieth century: conditions clearly suited them.
 Snowdrops are found across the UK in woods and hedgerows as well as gardens. They might be native to this island but they tend to be found in areas where human habitation has likely played a part in the recent or distant past. It seems a credible theory that they were first imported and planted by religious orders at monastic sites around the 10th. and 11th. centuries.
 NB See also my entry from 13th. February 2017 concerning the Snowdrops in the grounds of Ankerwyke Priory for more on this.     

 Snowdrops, Winter Aconites and Crocuses are among the first bulbs to show their heads. They bloom at the tail end of winter and herald the spring.
 I'm cheating a bit because these photos are from last year but they all start to appear round about now and through February. It's so damp and grey today that I needed something to cheer me up and to think of a few walks where I can seek out these early flowers...