safely gathered in

The bees were flying today.  As I passed by the Mahonia x media 'Winter Sun' in the front garden there was a tremendous humming sound coming from it, and when I investigated I found lots of bees busily foraging.  You don't normally expect bees to be out working in November, but the day was easily warm enough for them to fly, and one or two enterprising scouts must have spotted that the Mahonia flowers had just opened.

I brought in the white chalk stone with a hole in it and the blue glass leaves anyway.  I picked the stone up on a beach in Yorkshire, probably in contravention of by-laws saying I couldn't, but I really didn't think they'd miss the one.  Since somebody warned us that it was likely to spalt in freezing weather I've managed to remember to bring it in before the first frost.  There's still no sign of that, but it would be very easy to forget about it until it was too late.

I cut the glass leaves down from the crab apple tree because I don't trust the metal loops they hang from to behave themselves in frost.  The glass should be fine, but I have my doubts about the tops where holes have been drilled and the ends of the metal glued in.  Moisture seems to seep into every crack outdoors in a UK winter, and if it got into the holes and then froze I could see the glass splitting, or else the hanging loops rusting though.  The designer's website is rather vague on whether or not you can leave their products outside all winter, but I'm working on the basis that winter in north Essex is likely to be a quantum nastier than in a trendy town garden in east London.

I made my exciting discovery of the day while I was taking the glass danglers off the tree, which was two small mistletoe plants growing there.  I did try smearing some ripe mistletoe berries on various trees around the garden a few years ago.  The berries aren't generally ripe until late winter, so if you are going to try this you really need to find somebody with a plant and ask them to let you have a few berries in the New Year, rather than trying to use the bunches you can buy at Christmas. I can't even remember which trees I put seeds on, and I know that the young mistletoe plant is extremely unobtrusive in its first year or two.  Perhaps these two plants are a result of my efforts, or maybe simply due to a bird cleaning its beak.  Birds do like sitting in that crab apple, and I can only think that the frequency with which young asparagus plants appear under it must be down to them eating the berries then perching in the crab for a crap.  At any rate, the asparagus seedlings are definitely nothing to do with me, so maybe the mistletoe isn't either.

However it got there, I'm delighted to see it.  It isn't big enough to cut any this Christmas, but it will be very interesting to watch it grow.