Pom Pom

The sun was beaming in a clear blue sky and catching the frost which twinkled in the garden. After a late night getting home from a lovely family gathering in Yorkshire, there I was in slippers and a dressing-gown having groped trotted my way downstairs to grab an early morning cuppa but seeing the beauty out there I just couldn't help myself and opened the conservatory door.

It was just beautiful! Grabbing the camera I tip-toed to the rockery and standing out from all the other ice covered plants was this little chap, braving the elements with swirls of what looked like sugar crystals coating the yellow petals.

Lavender Cotton, Santolina chamaecyparissus, is a dwarf evergreen shrub hailing from the mediterranean liking full sun. It forms a silver and woolly looking cloud with bright yellow pom poms which hover delicately on wiry stems. The flowers are fading now after a rather lush display this summer but it is still making a statement! The grey leaves rather resemble pine needles and the frost had formed millions of tiny little crystals on what appear to be lots of tiny hairs or fronds up the leaves.

The down side was that I was shivering so much by now in cold saturated slippers that the photographs were blurred and I had to do it all over again with the tripod!