Specialty Gardening: By special request (part 2), 1 by wallaby1

wallaby1 wrote:
Thanks pmulcaire, winters here are not ideal, but I don't know who thinks any winter is! At the moment it's 9C (48F) which is warmer than usual, but it's grey and damp feeling, we reallydon't get much rain but it feels like it! If the sun would shine this temperature would be great to get out and garden, some days at lower temps can be grey but if we happen to not have that damp feeling, and it's totally still with no winds, it can be pleasant. Sun is needed to encourage and warm the muscles, it's amazing how it lifts your spirits. The average winter temp. is around 6C (43F), we have lower, sometimes higher by +/-2C on average, occasionally days around freezing temp. Nights can be often as warm (or cold! as day temps, or very little lower but we do have the occasional frosts, sometimes only a handful of about 4 in the winter and no lower than -5C (23F), other times more and with a few lower, we had one last week which was -7C in the greenhouse, probably -9C outside (16F). These are mostly after we have sun! The clouds do have some benefits. Spring can be variable, we can have winter temps well into April. We are subject to many weather systems from all directions off the seas and nearby land masses, it can keep us from getting too cold, but can also keep us from getting warm. Some people living in lower latitudes suffer much colder weather, such as Todd in Newfoundland, we have the warm sea current on our side, cheers for that!

A shot through the tall species Dahlias with Lilium Marco Polo, the smaller pink flower on tall wiry stems is also a dahlia which has ferny foliage, not sure which though as I keep finding different ones which look similar. This is looking over to the bed with the red lilies. You can see Just Joey, the rose, and to the left some dead poppy stems which I do remove once they are fully dead and I get around to it, but they are well camouflaged.