I pass this hedge regularly on my walk to work and had recently noticed new growth springing forth. The different colours – the reds, pinks and greens caught my eye but I either didn’t have my camera with me or felt too inhibited to stop and photograph it (it’s on a busy main road and overlooked by a couple of houses).
Anyway, yesterday I eventually stopped and took a couple of photographs of the new buds emerging amongst the older woody stems. Really, though, it doesn’t seem ‘right’ for new growth to be starting this early in January and I do fear for these shoots and buds if the weather does turn. The Woodland Trust has reported snowdrops and daffodils emerging and, indeed, in our garden I noticed a few cyclamen and primroses yesterday. It seems as if Winter has never really arrived. It’s all very strange.
The Lantern Room 
Great title! I’ll be really interested to see how things develop with this hedge and it would be nice if you could shoot it at different times of the day….. 🙂
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Thank you Eremophila! You’ve handed me a mini-project and I’ll see what I can do 🙂
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nice details! funny that it has been so mild for you – not good for the plants and trees. winter is trying here ha ha
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Thank you Sheila! The weather is certainly very strange: apart from one harsh frost and one or two very mild ones, that’s been Winter so far. Apparently it’s the mildest or second mildest Winter on record so far too. Personally, I like the differences each Season brings; this mildness in the Winter season feels very odd.
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Incredible textures! It’s beautiful. 🙂
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Thank you Nandini. I haven’t been able to identify it yet!
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Meanderer–I’ve noticed this too! Tomorrow it’s going to be 60. Last Saturday it was 68 degrees!! If that’s a flowering bush, the buds will die if there are consecutive days of temperatures in the teens and no flowers in the spring. Geez! Mother Nature, what are you doing?
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Sounds like your weather is all over the place too. What are normal temps for you? 68 degrees is very warm. Some plants haven’t stopped producing buds throughout the last few months. It seems as if nothing has really gone dormant. I think it’s a good idea to record these details so that a longer term picture can be made.
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It is really pretty. I know your spring comes before ours, but isn’ it early?
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Thank you Sandy. It is very early. Over the last few years, Spring has been arriving earlier and earlier but early January is incredibly early.
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Hey, since the “wrong time of the month” doesn’t quite fit here, maybe mother nature is on “the change” 🙂
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I think you might have something there: hot flushes and changeable 🙂
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This is a delightful photo, the colours you have captured are so warming.
I know what you mean about the Winter; some days it feels like I’m still in Autumn, others I feel I have skipped the Winter and headed straight to Spring, like this morning, I swear I saw the start of blossoms… my nose started to tickle like when I get my hayfever too… all very weird but it does make for some stunning, contrasting images
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Thanks so much Littleskew! This plant catches my eye on most days – the reds and pinks really stand out in certain light conditions. I do worry about these plants Springing into life. Gosh – hayfever symptoms in January: really strange. It really does seem as if Autumn has merged into Spring. I guess we could get a late Winter. I’ve heard tales of snow in May 😉
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I know. What happened to winter?
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It doesn’t seem to have arrived does it TBM? I spent the day on Bournemouth beach today and it was so warm. It hardly seemed like a day in mid-January at all.
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We are having a strange winter on this side of the Atlantic also. I saw some bulbs (Crocus I think) emerging from the ground the other morning…odd.
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It is all very unusual isn’t it? It’s also strange how we, as humans, seem to need the Seasons to be differentiated from each other 🙂
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