December in Raleigh

The ornamental grass is broken and not sticking upright anymore, which has nothing to do with winter but instead with the fact that I dropped the plant before putting it into the ground.

The dogwood tree is down to buds only...

Beau is as handsome as ever.

All the leaves are pretty much gone, but the sweetgum trees are still brilliant.

There are still raspberries on our plants, despite nights that dip below freezing.

The coneflowers are dried up and looking quite spiky.

The camelia bushes are in bloom...


... and the vinca vine is still green and pretty, setting off leaves that look way cooler than this photo makes them look.

There are just one or two yellow redbud leaves still hanging on. Their heart shape is my favorite.

The tea olives are in bloom.

The delphiniums are still rocking it.

The pansies on the front porch are all sorts of Christmasy.

And funniest of all, I have a very confused forsythia bush. Over the dry, hot summer, many of them shriveled up and - I thought - died. But when the rain came they sprung back to life, and now they look appropriately fall-ish. See exhibit A:

But the ones that lost their leaves also tried to come back. But the problem is, they think it's spring. See exhibit B:

See the weak and wimpy flowers? I feel so bad for it! I just know it's thinking, What the heck?! I want to tell it, "Go to sleep!"

Three hours after I took these pictures, we got three inches of snow. Go figure! All the pretty blooms shriveled up, all the leaves finished falling, the raspberry bushes melted into frost, and the three of us went inside to curl up by the fire. But days later, when we emerged, those darn forsythia flowers were still hanging on. It's winter, shrub. Go take a long nap.