DAY 270 (31 DECEMBER) Pansy (Viola tricolor) (Farnham)

This pansy’s an old scruff, planted in a council box overlooking the wintry river Wey. It looks how I might feel returning home in the early hours of 2020 – frayed but bright with hope.

DAY 269 (30 DECEMBER) Moss (Bryophyta) (Farnham)

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Take a branch or twig. Introduce the cold, to kill its pretty things. Bring on the nights. Call in the damp so that its stubs and dead fingers can only weep downwards into the mulch. Block hope. Then walk away, and give it days of its own. Look how, when it’s ready, it doesn’t mind you or me. Look how it makes a mockery of No. Look how it makes a new city of miniature green. (Copyright Jenny Rivarola)

DAY 268 (29 DECEMBER) Early virgin’s bower (Clematis cirrhosa) (Farnham)

Very happy to see these delicate drooping flowers in someone’s front garden today. They seem to come from the Balearic Islands and in Spanish are known as hierba muermera. Hierba is grass, but muermo/a means ‘boring’ so I can’t agree with that!

They’re from the clematis family and flower from November to April – how lovely.

DAY 267 (28 DECEMBER) Holly & berries (Ilex aquifolium) (Farnham)

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Today in Spain is El Día de los Inocentes, their equivalent of April Fool’s Day. But it’s no joke that holly leaves can act as miniature lightning conductors. So try standing under a holly tree in a storm?

DAY 266 (27 DECEMBER) Camellia (Camellia japonica) (Greater London)

Camellia buds in Mum’s garden. More promise of life in 2020.

DAY 265 (26 DECEMBER) Oak tree (Quercus robur) (Ealing, London)

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Visiting friends who live overlooking Ealing Common, I learnt that the oak tree in the background is much revered – perhaps because it is the only one on the common among horse chestnuts and planes.

DAY 264 (25 DECEMBER) Pine cones (Pinus) (Farnham)

Snapped these half way down the stairs on Christmas morning.

DAY 263 (24 DECEMBER) Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) (Greater London)

A beautiful day to collect my mother for Christmas. And so good to see magnolia buds in her neighbour’s garden, against the cloudless suburban sky.

Named after French botanist Pierre Magnol, the magnolia is apparently even more ancient than bees (whenever they came in).

DAY 262 (23 DECEMBER) Pussy willow (Salix discolor) (Farnham)

I’m still puzzled that pussy willow is associated with the end of winter and start of spring. Would love to be there already, but we aren’t… and yet it is everywhere. Like these on a local market stall as festive decorations. Perhaps it’s the flowers that follow that mark the season change…

DAY 261 (22 DECEMBER) Chinese bamboo? (Nandina domestica) (Farnham)

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I particularly liked the combination of this fern-like plant and the luscious red berries on the green today. They looked a bit different from other red berries I’d seen. I’m not sure Chinese bamboo is right?! But nature seems to know it’s Christmas.