regnum-plantae:

These are some of the photos I took this morning, when we unexpectedly woke up to sun, snow and ice, truly a winter wonderland. We were staying at my boyfriend’s parents’ house and their small garden was bathed in such a beautiful warm yellow light.  

The purple flowers are Erysimum linifolium ‘Bowles’ Mauve’, the wallflower, a favourite of my boyfriend’s mum especially because she says in October it attracts lots of butterflies. She has a video on her phone she’s shown me of her and our niece surrounded by the flowers and dozens of very docile butterflies, I need to ask her to send it to me! The bushy plant is Fargesia murielae, the umbrella bamboo from central China, while the monocot-looking one with yellow stripes is Cordyline australis, the cabbage tree from New Zealand. The tree-tops against the blue sky belong to the native Crataegus monogyna, the common hawthorn.