First frost of the year

We had the first really hard frost of the year last night - down to minus 7 degrees, which is pretty low for any time of the year in this part of the world. We've had a couple of minor ground frosts in the last few weeks, but this one has really sent temperatures plummeting.

I love frosty nights, mainly because they're almost always followed by a day of glorious winter sunshine which makes the garden sparkle as if it's been dusted with diamonds. I've left as many of the seedheads on this year as I felt I could, and it's in these conditions that they really reward you for it: the ones in the picture are Helenium "Moorheim Beauty", which were beginning to go a bit soggy and brown but have been transformed this morning by their frosting of mini-icicles.

Leaving seedheads on à la Piet Oudolf can be a bit hit-and-miss, I find. Some are strong enough to cope, but others (even ones Mr Oudolf recommends) collapse very quickly into a rather uninspiring mass of damp bobbles. A client of mine has an otherwise lovely clump of Rudbeckia, which are supposed to stand most of the winter, but despite my exhortations to last at least until Christmas I think I'm going to have to tidy them up in a week or so as they look just awful at the moment.

The lovely fluffy puffballs that adorn my cardoons (Cynara cardunculus) on the other hand have been wonderful - the birds think so, too, as everything from great tits to starlings have been tugging great clumps of fluff out of them to line their winter quarters with. I've got another flock of bluetits which have been stripping the seeds off the Stipa gigantea (which has been truly gorgeous this year - you can see why everyone raves about this fabulous grass). They also perch precariously on the wildly-waving bobbles of Verbena bonariensis to feast on the seeds inside: now this is one plant which stands bravely no matter what the weather, though I think mine are about to lose their heads if the birds carry on the way they are. It may be winter, but it's not boring.