A Winter Walk Around Wrest

We took a visit to Wrest Park recently - an English Heritage site and one of our regular local haunts throughout the year. It always looks different each time we visit - even if it's the same season. The weather and the sky always help to determine the landscape. 

This day was one of those cold and crisp winter days. It had been glorious when we started off from home, then we drove into mist and fog. When we arrived at Wrest, the fog was still lingering, but the sun was breaking through and came out whilst we were wandering around. 

We explored the beautiful grounds and walked around the moat. The water was icy in places, the plants were resting, but somehow the bare branches of the trees and the remains of the reeds looked spectacular. The birds were out in force as usual. We heard woodpeckers and blackbirds, spotted robins, wrens and thrushes and as always the swans, ducks and geese were enjoying themselves out on the waters. 

It was a bracing walk and afterwards we sat out by the cafe still wrapped up in our coats and scarves and gloves and warmed ourselves up with hot pulled pork sandwiches and lattes. I love to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air even in winter, but even Ted needed to be kept cosy in his coat. 

Summer Plants and Winter Frost

I was looking out over the front garden just the other week and was thinking you wouldn't know it isn't summer. The garden looked in full bloom with hydrangeas, lavenders, roses, daphne and honeysuckle still flowering. Many of the summer annuals were still flowering in their pots - in fact they've looked so lovely I haven't got around to swapping them over with winter bedding plants yet. I've usually replanted the pots and baskets long before now, but it's been a mild autumn and the plants have been thriving rather than dying back. It seemed a shame to uproot them for new ones yet. 

As November came to an end, December and the meteorological beginning of winter arrived - officially winter and with it came the cold, ice and heavy frost. The heavy frost turned the garden into a whole new world of white, transforming its look and all the plants into something new and magical. 

Of course, those last summer plants have begun to fade now after the heavy frost and it's time to get my skates on and replace them with some winter bedding before the year is out. It's a milder week weatherwise so it's an ideal time to put the garden to bed for winter, do a last tidy and visit the garden centre before the winter bedding plants are all sold out and replaced with Christmas trees and Christmas decorations. 

Cold and Frosty Mornings

We've had so much damp, wet and windy days this winter that it's such a pleasure to wake up to a cold and frosty morning once in a while. Those type of mornings that promise a glimpse of the sunshine. We've only had a few, but the garden and plants take on a whole new dimension when they are covered in frost and ice. Plants that have faded long ago look alive again - dead flower heads illuminated with a wintery glow - differing shades as the rising sun catches them as it tries to reach up higher in the sky. 

The lawn turns silver overnight, there's suddenly crunchy grass under your feet, not mud and puddles anymore; the garden teams with new interest and textures - icy ponds and bird baths, patterns in the ice, frosty spider webs...

My sea shell collections are tinged with a fresh and delicate powder of ice - almost looking like the sand where they once lay. Even the patterns on the garden tables are heightened by the ice. My favourite is the palm tree - an ornamental structure always there by the pond, but in the morning frost it stands looking grand, decorated by nature in all its winter glory, more rigid and strong.

I love waking to these mornings in winter. 

Last Days of Autumn

The Last Days of Autumn

November and we saw the last of autumn, 

Reds, russets, browns and golds. 

The tree's glorious goodbye,

Before winter falls.

Late autumn sun on the mountains and trees,

Blue skies, fluffy sailing clouds.

In what is now a cool, crisp,

And winter warning Breeze. 

Mosses, so green in summer, 

turned now to a bronze shimmer.

Ready to transform themselves to a protective brown,

As winter's onslaught gives a glimmer.

The last of the fairies toadstools,

Standing tall and bright in the mossy light.

But, like the swifts and the swallows,  

Fairies have disappeared long ago for the long winter night.

Trees stand tall in their barrenness grandeur,

Leaves now all lost at Autumn's end.

Not gone yet though,

They trickle leisurely like a stream,

Until the gales of winter descend.

We will wake in the morning to wintertime,

As the pale twilight of autumn disappears.

As though he knows his own and rightful place,

A robin in all his bright glory suddenly and gently just appears.

©KAGraham