Aluminium plant tags, graphite pencil and some winter cheer

I have abandoned plastic tags turning to aluminium ones instead. The plastic tags turn brittle in the sun, discolour and are tossed around the garden by hungry blackbirds.

I ordered two hundred tags and, despite the Christmas rush, they have arrived the day after ordering. 

I have also changed from permanent marker to a solid graphite pencil. I'm promised the writing will last for years! The rather nasty plastic tag is pictured before I binned it. For starters, it has turned beige without ever being in the sun.

And here is a pleasing activity for the winter months - writing out new labels. The graphite pen pencil certainly is easy to use and gives a satisfying end result. They can be used to twist round plant stems as well as being pushed into the soil.

However, to add some colour one of our roses that has somehow escaped the hard frost of the past two nights and is still cheering us up as we gaze at it through the front window

And from the breakfast table at the rear we can see a lovely salvia that, when I took a cutting of it earlier in the year, I thought was "Hot Lips".