Happy New Year

Weather: Mild, overcast and damp. Daytime temperature 7C

The first of January seems to me an ideal time to start a garden blog. I have kept records of my garden sporadically over the last 15 years in a collection of diaries and I won't be able to resist referring back to these from time to time!

In 1998 I see that that it had been a stormy new year's eve in Oxfordshire - followed by a 'grey day' much like today.

We moved to this garden in August 1989 some three months after the previous owners had moved out. In those three months the old farmouse garden in front of the house had gone wild! It was dominated by an old rose, later identified as New Dawn, which had to be cut back so that we could get in the front door!

Beyond an old stone wall there was a longish narrow plot surrounded by old farm buildings - much of which was once cobbled farmyard - crying out to be turned into a garden.

We don't own any of the surrounding farm buildings and along the long southern side of the garden there is a particularly tall barn that blocks all winter sun from the whole of our garden. On a gloomy day there is not much to draw me outside at this time of year! But my first gardening decision of the year looks ahead to the summer and that is where to plant a new rose - a Christmas present from my mother - a Rose "Mutabilis" which, as it's name suggests, promises a flower that changes it's colour as it ages..

It is quite happy for now - recently potted and sitting in my cold greenhouse. The weather forecast is for cold weather later this week so I think I'll leave that decision until after that...