The camellias bask in the pale golden light of the morning sun, dew beginning to gather and run along the surface of each leathery leaf…

I used to feel a bit sorry for the tree on Christmas day. Uprooted, stuck in a pot, shoved in a corner of a room and bedecked with lights and tinsel and all manner of wotnot while odd human creatures rush about displaying behaviours characteristic of varying levels of stress…

Mild winters make the birds less eager to strip every twig and branch of their convenient energy snacks, and so the sodden late December garden is still punctuated with tiny blobs of deep red…

I’ve been holding out for a frosty end to the year. It looks like I’m going to be disappointed. And yet, now that it comes to it, I’ll happily settle for the festive season that’s just not sodden…

Calocephalus, or cushion bush, or Leucophyta brownii, is a strange and enchanting plant, one whose icy vibes are perfectly suited to a winter window box and wouldn’t look out of place in the landscape of Frozen…

By all that’s good and right and holy, December in this part of the world should be cold and crisp and clear. In my experience, December rarely pays any notice to this doctrine…

I’m a bit of a sucker for a furry plant. I’m also a fan of scented-leaved pelargoniums. A pelargonium with soft, furry stems and leaves and a strong peppermint scent was always going to grab my attention…

For all the work there is yet to do outside, it really does feel as though in early December the garden decides to reward itself with a few weeks off…

That’s the thing about self-seeding plants – you can’t rely on them to self-seed themselves where you want them to. But they are pretty much guaranteed to settle themselves into precisely the wrong spot…

It’s as well I serviced my secateurs recently – they’ve been getting a good workout as my work gardening year draws to a close…

Trees are pretty ruthless about getting rid of parts of themselves they no longer need – leaves jettisoned as soon as they have reached the end of their useful lives…

The leaves of stinking iris Iris foetidissima certainly have a characteristic smell, though not one I’ve ever associated with roast beef…

Under the leaf litter, the growing goes on, unconcerned with Christmas and tax returns, inclement weather and a lawn too muddy to make passage pleasant…

A walk through the London streets in the run up to Christmas, yielding me perhaps the most unlovely garden detail, though one I can’t help but return to consistently…