What's Looking Good January 2026

To my thinking frost is the deciding factor, up until Christmas things still looked good, one night of minus 5 can alter the whole look of things.
Its always annoyed me that basically Britain has a mild climate, rarely very cold and rarely very hot and if we could just be frost free there is a whole new lot of plants that would be possible.

 

Without frost some of those nasty pests and diseases will become opportunistic though and plants will suffer .

 

We are already having problems with pests and diseases moving in from milder climes.
Also within the UK they are marching steadily northwards.
Some also come in with imports.
The RHS has this depressing list New pest and disease risks / RHS
There is also Fuchsia Gall Mite that entered the country around 2007 on either imported plants or cuttings taken in France and bought over. This can be killed by a hard winter, but is spreading.

 

I hear that argument many times, makes you wonder how people in warmer countries manage to grow anything if that was the case.
My attitude is that frost and cold probably kills off any predatory insects that would be able to deal with the pests, bearing in mind we are getting more and more pests from warmer countries.
Likewise diseases spread by insects, in their homeland they are kept in check, once they get here they run riot.

 

In warmer countries, other climatic conditions will affect the life cycles of pests and diseases, such as flooding, fires, drought and pollution.

Pests and diseases that arrive here from warmer countries would be less tolerant of frosts and freezing conditions, hence their importance.

 

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In their original countries the "pests" are kept under control by predators and diseases, that they don't bring with them.

 

They dont bring with them no, but in most cases the pest seems to survive our cold but the predators dont.
Red spider mite being an example, the predators never seem to survive for long.

 

in many warmer countries insect pressure is absurdly high even with predators. bananas are never picked close to ripe even on obscure heirloom varieties in the deep jungle, because by the time they turn yellow theyre devoured. same with fruits here and blackbirds
they just got used to eating around the wormies. and then eating the worm in a stirfry. pesticides have eradicated this for global markets ...

 

I continued removing broken branches and plants in the garden. I left the seeds for the birds and hope that some seeds in one corner with Echinacea will germinate, which they do easily.
I took some pictures of what I noticed.

The first Anemone plants flower and it's looking good for the Daffodils. It's not unusual that the Exochorda Serratifolia "Snow White" starts getting leaves. It's one of the earliest flowers in the garden in April, just right for the bees.



The Daphne is a lifeline for a white-tail bee that is around since December. Rosemary on the right.

 

What is that first picture please? I love the leaves.

 

The first picture looks like an Anemone possibly blanda.

 

Pyracantha ’Red Star’

Helleborus ‘Lisann’ (Winter Ballet series)

 

Thank you Nigel. It has been years since I had Anemone.

 

They are called Anemone @Victoria
The flowers are not open yet, but the white and blue plant have got two flower buds.

 

I braved the wind to check on my Hibiscus, which are fine, some with buds.

I was delighted to see the Loropetalo Chinese Black has started to bloom ...


The Thunbergia Alata is glowing on the trellis ...


and Felicia and Lantana montevidensis in pot at base of trellis ....