Midwinter flowers

It was Solstice on Friday - Woohoo! Nearly Spring!

Ok, so I might be getting a bit ahead of myself, but believe it or not there are actually some blooms out there at the mo. What hardy souls they are, bringing us some cheer on these cold short days. Heroes!

Honeysuckle - possibly the longest flowering plant we have

Heather - still blooming through the winter months

 

More winter interest

A few years ago, we bought a contorted hazel. It sits slap bang in the middle of the garden & is starting on its show run right now. When the leaves drop in late Autumn, not only do we get to see all the twisty stems, but the catkin buds that have already formed too.

Catkins on the twisty hazel

Over the next few months, the catkins will lengthen as they mature and then blossom in the Spring. Lovely.

& while I was out there on this big blue blustery day (a welcome respite from the 3 days of rain we've just sat through), I noticed the rhubarb has started already. What a beast...

& we're off! The Rhubarb steals a march

A new toy in the virtual toolshed

Part of my reason for blogging about gardening was to use it as a tech playground. & this week, I'm trying something new.

This is my 1st post using Snapseed rather than Instagram. I was prompted to look elsewhere for frames & filters after the Terms & Conditions debacle. & so far, so funky I reckon (I hope you like the results above too).

Snapseed is a free app from Google. I particularly like that it doesn't require a sign in & it doesn't make publishing my photos to the web an integral part of the photo fettling process.

Admittedly, the range of functions is bewildering, even daunting. But a quick mess around with it yielded some interesting results, so it'll be fun to play with it over the next few posts.

& the next of those will be in the New Year I reckon, so thanks for reading so far, have a great time whatever you're up to during the holidays, & I'll see you in 2013 :)