Black Frost !!

We visited the Grange last weekend and had wonderful warm weather up in the 30's, but with a few showers and were able to spend time in the garden pruning the dead and damaged shrubs.


We discovered that the damage was caused by what is called a Black Frost and thought this was just a  french name, but apparently not. Over a 3 day period from around April 11-15 the region experienced a dramatic drop in temperature.


It was a frost without snow that blackens vegetation and as defined by the Britannia Encyclopedia:
plants containing plentiful and dilute solutions in their leaves, fruits, and so on, are easily damaged. The occurrence of a killing frost without a hoarfrost deposit is sometimes popularly called a black frost.


cooling will cause condensation to occur. In the absence of sufficient moisture, hoarfrost does not form, but the water in the tissues of plants may freeze, producing the condition known as black frost.


This explains what has happened and why so many shrubs have suffered, although we are pleased that most appear to be recovering. 


We have now invested in a shredder to make use of all the pruning we will be doing and to avoid merely burning the waste, we can now create our own mulch to conserve the moisture in the beds and limit the weeds.

Drought Damage!!

Despite our experience of a few years now, we have been surprised that some of the woody shrubs we planted and even a 9ft Bay Tree that has been growing for years appear to be suffering for drought so early in the year.


It was even more surprising that in recent weeks there has been lots of rain in Colondannes, but despite this some shrubs have died.

The strange thing is that all of the soft stem and leaf plants have survived and continue to do well, so we are at a loss to understand what is happening and can only hope the woody shrubs eventually recover.


One benefit of the recent weather it that there are no signs of the Moles and so far in 2012, no mounds have appeared.  Perhaps the weather is the cause of this benefit.


Our herb patch is going strong and we have already had a large crop of Rhubarb to  cut and are about to make some tarts and crumble.  The strawberry plants are again doing well and look as though they will produce a crop even better than last year.  They are benefiting from  the wood mulch, which of course is helping to keep the weeds at bay, but some purging is obviously necessary.


Over the winter we installed 2 large and connected water butts to catch the rain from the wood store/shed and they are both full, so we will be able to water some plants when we are out there and need to water in some new plants.

February Snows

When I returned in February, we were greeted by snow on the ground, which limited what we had planned.


However, the new logs we had ordered in December and some of which we had stacked and covered were on display.


There was little opportunity to do any work in the garden, so a long delayed plan to build a cupboard in the utility room was actually started and there was time time to just chill out and do a lot of reading.


At long last over this winter we have succeeded in getting the balance between the heating and wood burning stove correct.  We even succeeded in getting the stove to stay lit over night and ready for a new log to boost the fire each morning.

Christmas in the relaxed atmosphere of France is great and a bit different to the UK.  In common with most of Europe the main focus is Christmas Eve and and David arrived with Joshua early in the morning, although Linda and Joan had been there for a week to get set up and ready.


The Christmas Tree was purchased earlier in December in readiness and dressed ready for pride on place in the lounge.

We spent an enjoyable time in Colondannes over the Christmas period and relaxed before returning to the Uk on New Years Day.