Winter approaches

Today was the last day Dawyck Botanical Garden is open. They will close for the winter months and re-open on the 1st February next year. And the mood was definitely wintry today. We had a severe frost this morning and flutterings of white could be detected on the hills. Of course we had to have our last walk of the season at Dawyck, specially as there was also 15% off everything in the shop for members. Dawyck has frost pockets and all the white you can see on these photographs is frost rather than snow. It made for a pretty picture. Dawyck House is not part of the garden and still in private hands so there is a limit to how close you can get to it. But I managed to get a viewpoint from where the house looked much like a fairytale castle! This became my blip for today.

 One of the old flowerpots has been planted up with sempervivens and the frost made them sparkle.

That also happened to some of the other plants. I think the above one is a rhododendron. Somehow the buds (in the centre) don't get damaged by the cold weather and continue to grow over winter to burst forth with colour in spring.

Although, or maybe it should be because, it was very cold and frosty the sun was also out but now very low in the sky and just catching the top of the trees. When we were on the way home in the car, around 3 o'clock in the afternoon it was already slowly sinking over the horizon. The days are getting increasingly short .

Contrary to what you might think the whiteness of this tree is due neither to snow or ice but entirely to lichen. It's literally covered in the growth and looks magical.

 But this tree on the other hand owns it's beauty to the frost.

On our way out I spied these left over blooms from I don't know what, but they had a quite spooky appearance that I particularly took too! Farewell Dawyck, for the moment. We will be back in 2013!