I’ve recently discovered the excellent Blotanical.com website – a global repository of gardening blogs from around the world. Bloggers can register their site and there is a manual validation procedure to ensure that each blog
listed there is a bona fide website. You can search for blogs by country and check out both the most popular and newest blogs. You can also ‘fave’ your favourite sites regardless of the blog platform/software they use – I think that’s a real plus-point, and send messages as well. Each blogger has a rather good ‘My Plot’ area which, as well as giving a thumbnail sketch of themselves, lists some of their garden ‘favourites’ (e.g. flower, time of year, garden etc).
One of the most popular websites on Blotanical.com is MySecretGarden (http://tanyasgarden.blogspot.co.uk/) and very deserving it is too of this accolade. I know that quite a lot of you are registered on Blotanical but for those who aren’t, click on the logo at the foot of the right hand column to find out more. And no, there’s no commission for me, and no cost to you! (Hint for UK, northern Europe, maybe Oceania and US night-owl bloggers – the site is ‘faster’ earlier on in the day than later on, before our US green-fingered friends pull on their gardening gloves!)
Anyhow, I digress. The MySecretGarden’s creator, Tatyana’s favourite colour is green. Being a bit of a ‘brighter the better’ kind of person from the late Christo Lloyd School (see Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners), green wouldn’t have been my first choice, I have to say, but as I was walking around the garden in the half-gloom of an early January afternoon, I did start to notice that the prevalent colour was indeed green, and I started to look at the evergreens in a new light as they shone out in the gloom. And very welcome they are at this monochrome time of year. Thank you Tatyana!
So, pictured are just a few (not 50, you’ll be pleased to hear) of my favourite shades of green taken recently.
In the spring, we’ll be ordering one or two new shrubs for the Secret Garden and the Woodland. Note to self: include some evergreens!