4th January 2026

Welcome to the first of the winter monthly updates on the gardens 2026

The weather has been literally freezing and the Moat frozen. Some flurries of snow but mainly frozen ground and Icy winds.

The bird table in front of the kitchen window has been constantly occupied by Blue Tits, Coal Tits, Robins and Dunnock . The sheep happily munched on the redundant Christmas tree (not Yew) and 7 pheasants were settling on top of the Nut Walk to get out of the wind.

The Vegetable Garden has produced the last of its Cabbage and Cauliflower, but we are still picking Leeks and the Broccoli is looking very healthy. Surprisingly we have only just finished picking salad leaves.

In the garden bulbs are only just appearing. Aconites are late for us and only a very few tightly closed Snowdrops so far.

Hellebores are flowering well and we are removing

 just the odd dead leaves from the plants. This is halfway between the fashion of removing all the leaves, which make the plant flower stalks look naked, and leaving all the leaves, which can detract from the flowers if there are too many dead leaves. Muntjac or Rabbits need no encouragement to nip off the flower spike.

Daphne Buhola is in flower, the Viburnum have finished but the Witch Hazel is in tight bud.

It’s the time of year when we work on the Nut Walk . This involves some pruning but largely winding back the new growth into the framework. This usually

takes two weeks and the race is on to get it finished before the emerging Aconites come up and are trampled on.

Apart from finishing the rose pruning, the other gardening job at this time of year is pruning the two Weeping Pear. This is a very enjoyable occupation but requires warm hands to operate the secateurs so we will wait.

Despite recommendations I think it is too cold to sow seeds in our unheated Greenhouse so again we will wait for temperatures to rise – especially night time temperatures.

Nevertheless, the cold weather is very welcome and plants and animals are sensible enough to hunker down and wait for it to improve. It’s time to do the same.

Stay healthy and good gardening

Lynda tucker