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Thank you for visiting Words and Herbs in 2024! The likes and comments are much appreciated, and I am grateful for each and every one of you! Wishing you all a very Happy New Year. May it be filled with peace, hope and flowers!

I think ‘Royal Velvet’  is one of the most spectacular Hippeastrums I have ever grown, so I just have to share it today! I bought this one from Farmer Gracy, along with two others that have also done very well. One strong upright stem has four beautiful flowers open at the moment. Another bud is just showing at the base, so hopefully I will get another large cluster of flowers in a few weeks. Although it is not in a vase, I am sure our host, Cathy at Rambling in the Garden , won’t mind me using it for a Monday ‘vase’ post. Why not visit her to see what she and other contributors to this meme are finding to share from their gardens or homes this week.   Frosty greetings from Bavaria. And have a great Monday!

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Well, it never ceases to amaze me what I can find in my garden in the depths of winter worthy of bringing indoors! So I am pleased to be joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her Monday meme this Christmas week. The small sweets/cake plate gave me the inspiration when I noticed two tiny vases match it perfectly. A tealight dish with a green edge, and a small oval glass dish fill the other two corners. The dried Iris and grass seedheads have been in this vase for some months now, but I added some hazel catkins. Some Everlasting flowers went into the tealight holder. A Hellebore and some Heuchera and Geranium foliage went into the second little vase. And in the oval dish I used a metal floral frog for stems of Forsythia and Viburnum (which should open in a week or two), more hazel catkins, and Cornus sanguinea. The base is hidden with moss, of which we have so much this year! Here you can see one tiny Viburnum ‘Dawn’ bud… Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas! ...

Cirsium vulgare, December 2024 Cirsium vulgare, July 2024

Hippeastrum ‘Luna’ started flowering at the weekend with two stems at once and another in bud. I usually hesitate in cutting Hippeastrums, but the stems were curling and it seemed they needed more space. So one stem was cut for my appropriately shaped ‘Moon’ vase. Hmm… a little colour would look nice with it. Well, there is very little in the way of garden flowers right now except a new Hellebore, or Christmas Rose . So I added one of the flowers that has been open for some time. Now I needed a little greenery! Despite the cold wind I walked up to the woods adjacent to our garden. It was sheltered under the pines and spruce and I followed one of the deer paths across the soft pale green carpet of moss. It is so pretty in there, even on a grey and rainy day. I cut a small piece of spruce and then found a freshly fallen twig of pine – that was lucky as the branches are far too high up to cut and I didn’t want to disfigure any of the saplings. And then I found some ferns that were s...

Welcome back to my Week of Flowers! At this time of year we need something to remind us of the beauty our gardens and nature offer us in the warmer months. Something to start our day off with a smile. So join me in sharing some of your brightest floral photos of something you have grown this year for A Week of Flowers 2024. And today, Friday December the 6th, is the last day! Just one image, or a few if you like, it doesn’t really matter. Then leave a link below so others can find you. It has been a fabulous floral frenzy this week. Many of my blogging friends have joined me in dispelling the darkness of these mid-winter days in the northern hemisphere – with fabulous photos full of cheer, colour and light. Do take a look through the comments below my posts this week to see all the links to their lovely posts. But it is not over yet! Today I am sharing some more of my brightest and most colourful summer flowers, kicking off with an Allium sphaerocephalum. The bees loved these. Thi...