Garden therapy

It's been both mild and mostly dry so far today, so I've been out taking a look at the bedraggled garden, and making a start on some post-winter clearing up... taking the optimistic view today :-)

This is clematis 'cirrhosa balearica freckles'.  What a plant!  It's evergreen, it seems happy to colonise whatever space you give it, and it provides flowers during the winter.   Even our rather arid rockery cum rubble bank, at the back of the garden, has not defeated it. Despite its delicate looks, frost and snow seem to cause it no problems. Ours has spread over a section of wall that needed covering, but winter winds, rain and snow have dragged some of it off its moorings. A bit of pruning and tying back in should sort it out.
Other than that, I dug out a cotton lavender that had mostly gone dead and woody; one of the failed experiments. I checked over a couple of rose bushes,  our little damson tree and the mirabelle plum: all have shoots developing nicely. 
If all goes well, we'll restart our childcare bubble, with the grandchildren, sometime in March. Fingers crossed. So now's the time to get on with the garden really, while we can.