I've mentioned before that Virginia Creeper ramps up one side of the ancestral home every year. During the summer months it is a lush green then turns fiery red in autumn. 

 When the leaves drop in late autumn I cut through the stems at head height to prevent any further growth. Every Christmas I pull them down. They're still clingy but a good tug yanks them off. This annual chop and drop is essential; two years growth would be up and over the roof.

 The leaves I sweep up and dump in a wire enclosure to make leaf mould. They seem to decompose much quicker than tree leaves. The stems go through the shredder reducing them to a sackful of mulch. 

 Postscript In his book 'Creating a Forest Garden' Martin Crawford notes "The stems are a good basketry material". For me though it's time to get the shredder out.   

Fascinatingly fungal.

 In flower on Boxing Day. Common Gorse (Ulex europeus) has a long flowering season -typically January to June- but this is a bit early. Hard to imagine that this viciously spiky plant was widely used as a fodder crop for cattle and horses albeit crushed/mashed. 

 Roy Vickery's excellent Plant-Lore website includes a photo of a Gorse mill built in 1842 in Wales complete with water wheel. He notes that factory-made milling machines became available in the 1850s which were hand-operated or oil powered. Seems like Gorse is a renewable resource which has been largely forgotten.

Season's greetings to one and all.

 The sun shone through bright cloud as the day dawned. There was even some hazy blue sky later in the morning. It elevated my mood to feel the light on my skin and see it brighten the surroundings.

 I can appreciate why sun worship was probably the first religion. All life on the planet depends on the sun. The Earth biosphere is solar powered though one species is different from the rest. Humans burn combustible materials to fuel our civilisations which has good and bad consequences.

 Today however I stand with our ancient ancestors: praise be to the sun!

 The shortest day. I NEED SPRING! I enjoy autumn and usually I find the weeks before Christmas atmospheric in a nocturnal sort of a way. But this year I'm struggling; perhaps it's because we've had a long run of grey, grey days. I'm not especially tired, I'm not depressed, it's just I feel like I'm at a low ebb that will only lift when spring is in the air. Hopefully a bracing winter walk or two will be a cure.

 Anyway, today is the Solstice so the wheel turns and the days start getting longer... 

 As the year draws to a close the first bulbs are already starting to poke through the leaf litter. Well, in London at least; one of the milder parts of the country by virtue of being a 'heat bubble'. I think the metropolis is comparable to somewhere like Cornwall in the length of the growing season.

 The end of my back garden is carpeted with Snowdrops in late January/early February. They are Galanthus 'Sam Arnot' I think. This variety was sold by mail order in the fifties and sixties by the Giant Snowdrop Company which perhaps explains how they came to be here. There must now be a couple of thousand and I would think they have increased considerably from the original planting.

 Bulbs species multiply by offsets (i.e. bulbils that grow from buds on the mother bulb) and of course shed seed after flowering. I've read that Galanthus species do not set viable seed in UK conditions but I'm not so sure about that. The pattern of dispersal in my garden looks characteristic of self-seeding as well as 'clumping up'.

 The standard (and good) advice for planting bulbs is to plant them at a depth at least several times the height of the bulb or deeper in some cases. Nonetheless I notice that wild and naturalised bulbs sometimes grow much closer to the surface, even on top of the soil as seen with the Snowdrops in the photo. That makes sense if we consider that the seed falls to the ground and geminates on or near the surface. Over time the 'contractile roots' of a bulb will actually pull it down to its preferred depth.

 Then again bulbils often seem to push up to the surface. I wonder if that's because it makes the bulbils more likely to disperse from the mother bulb? Everything plants do serves some evolutionary purpose.  

 Last Sunday I went to a great gig at a great venue- the Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses in South London. From time to time they put on sessions of wild and wonderful music which they call (appropriately enough) 'Avant Garden'. 

 I'd arranged to meet some old friends of mine Neil and Kelsey who moved to Penznace about twenty years ago. I'm sorry to say we lost touch during that time and it was good to catch up. Indeed, Kelsey was one of the performers and played a selection of her beautiful nature-themed songs, mainly solo piano/vocals with a little help from her friends (and daughter).

 At one point she led the audience in a singalong about the joys of Red Valerian. This plant is the subject of quite a few entries in this diary but I never expected to be singing a song about it! The number of songs concerning Red Valerian is limited; in fact Kelsey's may well be the only one of the genre. Anyway, she sings of the Hummingbird Hawk-Moth and the Painted Lady on Red Valerian so here are photos of both these insects nectaring on that very species.

 If you want to listen to Kelsey's music check out her recent release 'Kelsey Michael Music of the Waves' which is available from an internet near you.

The wildflowers of spring and summer cheer my thoughts during these grey winter days.

 I think of Snake's Head Fritillary in Lammas flood meadow.

In my mind I wander through drifts of Bluebells in ancient woodlands.

 

 I picture Orchids on chalk hillsides.

 And always in my mind's eye there are pollinators.

 Very few flowers to photograph at this time of year but Mahonia x media comes into its own; cultivars like 'Winter Sun' and 'Charity' are widely planted. I don't detect any particular scent but bumblebees do and will come out of hibernation on milder days when they get a whiff of it.

 Sometimes the various Mahonia are referred to as 'Oregon Grape'. More accurately that is the common name of the lower growing and spring flowering M. aquifolium which hails from the Pacific Northwest of America. The ones that bloom in winter have Asiatic antecedents being accidental and deliberate crosses of M. japonica and M. lomariifolia (and perhaps M. bealei). Botanically speaking I should note that Mahonia is generally now classified as Berberis which is a larger genus.

 Looking more closely at the inflorescence of the one seen above it has the characteristics of a raceme i.e. a flower spike where the flowers grow and open from the base upwards.

Frosty morning in the lanes of Hertfordshire.

 Hedgehog habitat. I've read that hedgehogs will nest in piles of logs and leaves. My father had tree surgeons in to lop a Corsican Pine where it was overhanging a neighbouring property. There have always been hedgehogs round here so I thought the cuttings could be put to good use...

Beginning by stacking the spindlier branches with an entrance of sorts into the inner space.

 Then covered over with the trimmings.

 The remainder of the trimmings I simply laid in a heap at the base of the tree. The needle-like pine leaves might suit a spiky hog. Also made a log pile of the thicker sections of wood (see top right of the top photo). Whether for hedgehogs or not organic matter in varying states of decomposition teems with life from micro-organisms to mammals.

 I gather hedgehogs move quite freely between nests. They have both summer and winter nests which can be rudimentary for resting or denser for hibernating. I've never come across a nest but the colony seems to be thriving so they must be kipping somewhere... 

Winter has arrived with hard frost, freezing fog and dun colours.

Blue sky, bright sun...and very cold.