Snow and ice

It's half term holiday week and a very busy week for my husband and I. He is doing umbrella decorating workshops in Hastings for the Preservation Sunday Parade; a New Orleans style jazz and umbrella procession through the old town to the town centre for an afternoon of music and dancing on Sunday19th Feb. He's also doing a kite making workshop in Rye. I am doing two willow dome planting workshops and a bug house workshop in Eastbourne. The freezing conditions aren't ideal for planting but the temperature is supposed to be rising quite a bit tomorrow. There is membrane on the ground and the snow on top of that will have insulated the earth. The workshops are in children's centres and a school and are free. I also have two pages of art to create for Moshi Monsters Magazine for Friday. I've been doing this in the evenings.

On Tuesday I went to see my Polish friend who gave me a reiki massage. (I pulled a muscle in my back last Saturday). She told me I would feel better in a couple of days. I didn't believe her. I wasn't able to get out of bed without strong painkillers and was taking them throughout the day. The day after the massage I was still in some pain but mentally I felt much more able to cope with it. Two days after the massage I got up without pain killers. She gave me another massage on Friday. I'm fine now. I'm very grateful to her.  She healed herself from serious illness in her twenties and also her daughter's twisted spine condition. A very strong-minded person she researched alternative therapies and natural treatments at a time when there was not a lot of information of this kind available in Poland.   

I hope you are all in good health, or are receiving the best care if you're not so well. Hello to new followers, how's the weather? Of course now I feel like I'm getting a cold....onwards and upwards....

Bridge Community Garden: perpetual winter

Perpetual Winter Never Known

When the light falls on winter evenings
And the river makes no sound in its passing
Behind the house, is silent but for its cold
Flowing, its reeds frozen stiffer than glass
How can one anticipate the dawn, a sudden
Blazing of sunlight thawing the harshest sky?
How can one not remember summer evenings?
Must not the tired heart sink and must not fear
Bite, like an acid, wrinkles in its stone?
Behind drawn curtains, gazing at the fire,
Think how the earth spins dumb and bound
By iron chains of frost through death-still air;
And how in every street the sealed windows
And orange cubes of firelight, how in houses
Cuckoo-clocks imitate the spring, candles are
Suns. Perpetual winter never known,
Families warm their hands and wait, nor
Ever doubt the season's transience

by David Gascoyne

The Bridge Community Garden: Frozen fruit & veg

From the top: Rainbow chard, gooseberry leaves, kale + beetroot + marigold, pak choi, rainbow chard, lettuce, rainbow chard, lettuce, rainbow chard + raspberries, rainbow chard, brussels sprouts.

The Bridge Garden: November snow

Photo by Paul Buck.

Winter colour: brights

Evergreens and coloured stems and bark are shown off to their best with a dusting of snow. My son is having fun being a little green man in the last photo.

Winter colour: dramatic contrast

Snow is good for the garden because it acts as a winter mulch. The worst thing for the plants is when the soil is constantly freezing and thawing. It can dislodge plant roots and weaken the plant. Before the snow came I mulched around some roses using leaves I had collected in autumn. It will act like a cosy blanket. In spring I will scoop them up to compost them.

Winter colour: soft and gentle

Bare tree branches look like the skeleton veins of leaves.