NB: A note for WordPress Reader users – you need to click on the title of the post again to come out of the reader and go to the post itself. This allows you to see the whole of the top photograph. (Otherwise you may see just a tiny section!)
January usually means a change to colder weather here. December can be quite mild and often doesn’t feel particularly wintry to me, but the start of the new year tends to bring a drop in temperatures.
True to form, we have frosty weather here now, so it’s a good time to get busy with the camera. The images here, though, are not from this winter but were taken a couple of years ago. We don’t often get such a heavy frost, so on that glacial morning I photographed everything I could find. (I’m still processing the photos now!) It could be a long time before frost encrusts everything as heavily again. The freezing weather doesn’t last long enough – this was the result of several icy-cold nights.
Right now, the frost is coming and going and I seize the chance to take a few photographs on those cold mornings. It does look as if we might have a run of several sub-zero nights in the coming week, so perhaps the frost will have a chance to build up…I’ll have my camera ready just in case.
(The plants here are Clematis ‘Lansdowne Gem’, which flowers in winter, and the seed heads of Potentilla recta var. sulphurea (sulphur cinquefoil). If you’d like to see what the clematis looked like before the frost got to it, there’s a post about it here.)
Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature 
The frosted seed heads remind me of a candy we used to make, letting crystals form on a string or a stick. The candy’s often colored, but in its clear form it certainly resembles your potentilla. The combination of red, green, and frost in your first photo would make a lovely holiday card. I do hope you get some nice frost this year; you do such a great job of photographing it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, I remember doing the crystals on a string thing when I was a little kid. My Dad was an industrial chemist and keen to get me involved in a little science ‘experiment’ – a happy memory! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Frost always makes for a good photo, though not easy for the photographer!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a huge help to have frost around when you’re trying to fill a blog in winter. 🙂 (We had a good covering of snow last night, but it has almost gone because it’s raining now.)
LikeLike
Frost photographs are often largely monochrome, given the bare season that frost normally happens in, so your opening image is surprisingly colorful (thanks to the Clematis).
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is a surprisingly colourful plant at this time of year, when there’s very little about. I’d like to find more plants that would flower between late autumn and early spring – they’d cheer the place up and be great for any bees that come out of hibernation.
LikeLike
Magical!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! We’ve had a bit of frost here but only a little overnight snow – the rest of the UK has had a lot more.
LikeLike
It’s not often we get such heavy hoarfrost here to be able to photograph plants like this. Right now there’s 4 inches of standing snow on sideroads and compacted bits on pavements which freezing temperatures have made lethal. Slawit is expecting at least minus 10 tonight so I don’t know if anything in my garden will survive. Most of it’s still under snow.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh my, Jill, I don’t like the sound of that! I would probably lose a fair few plants if we got down to that here. I try to buy fairly hardy plants but there’s always a temptation to try things that aren’t. I hope the snow will help to insulate your plants from the cold. (I’ve read that it can.) Hope you’re able to stay indoors, away from those slippery pavements!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not been out in the garden for so long, I can’t remember all that’s there. I have seen minus 16 shown on a weather forecast in a night or two. Hard to imagine in the UK. Next week the snow should thaw and reveal…something.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Minus 16 is very bad – I’m sure there will be a lot of burst water pipes and there must be a risk to animals outside too. Not a good time for sheep! Keeping my fingers crossed that the thaw doesn’t reveal (or bring) any bad problems…
LikeLiked by 1 person
In many ways, January is a tough month, mentally. It helps to be able to enjoy winter’s frosty gifts, such as this beautiful potentilla.
I hope you will be able to capture more frosty impressions of your favourite plants in the months to come, Ann.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Tanja! I’ve been busy photographing the frosty garden in the last few days, so I should have plenty to see the blog through this month and part of next. It’s always a relief to find something to post on the blog in winter! 🙂
LikeLike