I’ve not managed to get out in the garden much this week, partly because of family commitments and partly because it’s flipping freezing!! I haven’t quite acclimatised to winter temperatures yet! The drop in temperature has meant some ground frost, when I went out this afternoon the aquilegia still had little water droplets on like drops of silver.

The winter flowering shrubs are starting to come into their own now. I planted this skimmia in the spring, so it’s still pretty small but it’s already producing it’s lovely flower heads.

Our beech hedge has a lovely range of colour at the moment from green to gold. It will eventually turn coppery brown, the leaves stay on all winter and don’t drop until next years are ready to appear. From a gardeners point of view this is a double edged sword, it’s nice to have the leaves during the winter, but they drop just as everything is starting to grow so it’s more difficult to get the leaves up!

Despite the inclement weather there’s still an occasional rose, this one is Teasing Georgia from over the arch by the patio. I’m hoping the bare-rooted roses I ordered are going to arrive soon.

This nandina is looking beautiful at the moment, it’s another new shrub from the spring,it’s just in front of the autumn border. I’m hoping it survives the winter as I’m sure I’ve had one before and lost it.

The leaves fallen from the acer are a wonderful range of colour. It’s only a couple of feet tall at the moment, but hopefully in a few years it should make quite an impact in the autumn border.

I spotted some fruit on my ornamental quince today, it’s been in for years and never produced a thing so I never thought to look, I’m not sure now if I’ve left it too late! What does an over-ripe quince look like??

This is the next big area I need to tidy up, for one thing I’ve a rose coming which is going to go in here! There’s a lot of cutting back and weeding needs doing first.

From a distance the garden is still looking fairly full, there’s lots of work to do before the winter sets in too hard so I’d better get my woolies on and get used to the cold!