Final Post of 2015

Champagne is cooling down, clocks are counting last hours of the year, so I'll be very brief and,
looking back at 2015,  mention only three things related to my blog and garden:

1 - On the blog, I finally arranged the majority of my posts about visiting beautiful gardens of the world in one, long overdue  Page: "Gardens of the World".
Now, I and interested readers don't need to sort through the blog's archive to find a certain garden.
I do actually reread those posts and relook the photographs.
I'm glad I took a lot of pictures to capture the plants and the bones of the gardens.
Very often, I see details in the pictures which were not noticed during the walk through those big outstanding gardens.
Among my favorite gardens to revisit are: Sissinghurst Gardens,  Lawrence Johnston's Serre de la Madone,  Villa Cipressi Garden on Lake Como, Arundel Castle Gardens, Hidcote Manor Garden and many others.

View toward the Terrace (Cutting) Garden
Picture taken on December 29, 2015

2 - Another thing to remember in 2015 was a feature about our garden in Garden Design Magazine.
Thank you all who left nice comments about it on my Facebook page!

Picture taken on December 29, 2015

3 - It'd be too time consuming to describe the garden throughout the year. That is why I'll tell about only one event that was absolutely unexpected, joyful, and also gave me a good lesson.
In spring 2014, I found out that my only Melianthus major 'Antonow's Blue'  (Honey Bush) didn't survive the wet and relatively cold winter of 2013-2014.
Attention! Not the last winter of 2014-2015, but the previous winter! I even put a note in my Plant List: "Died -  winter 2013-2014".
It's a border plant in our zone.  In one of the posts devoted to Melianthus (Melianthus Major in My Garden), I mentioned that my plant never bloomed but nevertheless, was loved for its architectural look and its beautiful big bold leaves.
With border plants, it's nice to have  them even for a few years, but anyway, it was sad to lose it.
Somehow, I didn't dig out the dead plant. Euphorbia and hardy Fuchsia grow close to it and camouflaged the black 'stump' of the Melianthus.
By the end of summer 2015, in August, I was doing some garden cleaning, and I got a surprise that almost caused me to shed a tear.
I noticed a fresh green growth around the 'dead' Melianthus base.
Very fresh, very green and very alive (see the picture below)!
After looking dead all year 2014, going through another wet winter of 2014-2015, spring and summer of 2015, it started to grow from its root!!!

Picture taken on August  30, 2015

Thank you, Melianthus for not giving up, and thank you Tatyana for not digging it out and disposing of its roots and dry black base!
I gave the plant an extra layer of compost in late fall and hope it'll reclaim its space in the front plant bed.
Long live Melianthus!
The lesson I learned: Give a plant a second chance and don't rush into saying Good Bye to it. Patience, patience, patience!

Returning to the blog, it was interesting to see that the most commented posts of 2015 were:
My Shade Garden Tragedy and Revival  and
2014 Garden Memories and 'Picture This' Contest Update.
One post is about an unfortunate and sad event in my garden, while another is about a happy uplifting event with regard to one of my garden's photographs-winner of the contest.
For me, it's a reflection of the nature of our blogging community. Gardeners are very generous, compassionate people. They support and cheer you up when you are grieving and congratulate and share your joy when you are happy.
On this optimistic note, I finish this post.
I thank all of you together and each of you individually for your support, encouragement and friendship through the year!
Have a wonderful, peaceful 2016!
All the Best to you, your families and your beautiful gardens!


***Copyright 2015 TatyanaS