Making Christmas wreaths

 Gardening work usually stops in December to make way for all the Christmas activities. The garden itself seems to be happy having that rest.  We have had so much rain recently that the garden is absolutely sodden and it would be impossible to do any work even if I wanted to.

Last week was all about making Christmas wreaths, buying the tree and getting it into the house. I love making wreaths, it has become one of my Christmas traditions. I suppose it is garden work of a sort because it involves collecting natural foliage and it gets me outside even if the weather is not good. I cut some foliage from the allotment(conifer). I also cut ivy from my daughter's garden.  She is very happy for me to cut away at it as there is rather a lot.  Its the big dark leaved ivy with the lovely berries--ideal for Christmas flower arrangements and wreaths.  My garden was only planted up as a new garden two and a half years ago, so I am limited with what I can cut. I gather the grey leaved Senecio or Brachyglottis. I also use cuttings from Christmas trees which my local garden centre lets me take from their trimmings.

In past years I always used an oasis wreath base, but this year I thought I would have a change and use a different way to make the wreath. I used a wire wreath ring base which I packed with moss and secured with florists wire.  Then I attached sprigs of foliage around the moss with more wire.

I was quite pleased with the result. I always do two wreaths--one for the front door and one for the side door--which is where most people enter our house.  This year I did an extra one which I laid flat on the garden table with a pot of white Hellebores in the middle.

The Christmas tree was bought in early December and kept outside until we were ready to bring it indoors. After much upheaval of moving furniture round the tree was finally in place and the cat immediately took up residence underneath it in the far corner where we couldn't get at her.  But I know how to get her out from there--just switch on the vacuum cleaner and she's out in a flash!

Through the Garden gate-November

Gardening work starts to slow down in November, not just because there's no work to do --there is always work to do in the garden, but because the weather and preparations for Christmas usually slow me down.

I've pottered about a bit cutting some messy plants back. I tidied up the stumpery/woodland garden and bought some bark chippings to spread over this area. I never seem to have enough chippings no matter how much I put down, I always feel I need a couple more bags.  It looks better now though.

The rest of the garden looks ok. There are plenty of grasses which give some colour and there are still some yellow berries on the Rowan. In the winter light they sometimes look like little yellow fairy lights.

In the front garden there's a little area under the adjoining neighbours wall between the lilac and the weigela which is quite damp and shady and which I've been wanting to do something with, but not sure what. Richard dug out some of the turf in the summer as it was in such a mess. Since then the weeds grew and it began to look really messy.  When we had the painters in to do the front wall of the house we moved some pots of hostas from around the front door out of their way and put them under the wall. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much they brightened up this little area. So in my autumn  tidying up  session, I weeded here, put some bark chippings down and put the hosta pots back. They don't look much at the moment but I'm hoping that when they start to grow again next year they will really brighten up this dark, dreary area.

 I am linking this blog post with Sarah at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate'  post

Christmas foliage and a small harvest of veg

We popped down to the allotment yesterday, not to do any allotment work, but to cut some conifer branches for when I make Christmas wreaths in a few days time. There's a conifer hedge down one side of the plot which I really don't like as it takes a lot of light off the plot. We've hacked a lot of it back and tried to reduce the height but the branches are too thick to be able to cut it down easily. It comes in useful at Christmas though when I want some evergreen foliage. The  branches are also useful for hanging the bird feeders on.

I decided to pull up the remaining cabbages which were looking a bit slimy, but were big enough for the two of us even after removing lots of outer leaves.  I don't usually have much luck growing Brussels sprouts so I was delighted to see that there were some decent looking sprouts growing. They are a bit small yet but I picked some of the bigger ones.  There was only a small handful, but again enough for two of us and some kale too.

The plot is looking quite dreary at the moment, there are some jobs which need doing but they can wait until after Christmas. We filled up the bird feeders and left with plenty of veg to keep us going for a few days.

On our way out of the allotment site I cut some red dogwood stems and some branches of an unknown shrub which was full of red berries--possibly cotoneaster, all useful for Christmas wreaths and very colourful.

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A sad looking hydrangea

We have a hydrangea shrub outside our front door which has really got too big. So big it was causing access to the front door difficult. I have trimmed it away from the path  but don't want to do anything which will spoil it. It has lovely pink flowers in the summer and now in autumn the flowers are turning dark red. I've always admired those hydrangeas which turn that lovely deep pinky red colour in autumn, so when we moved to this house two years ago and saw that we had inherited one I was really pleased.

A few weeks ago we had the front wall of our house repainted and after the painters had left I realised that they had leaned their ladder across the hydrangea breaking some of the branches and causing other branches to flop over.  My poor hydrangea was a sorry site.

I thought at first that this was a good opportunity to cut the shrub back more, but the damaged bits were on the other side away from the front door. However, I  cut the broken branches and put them in a vase in the house and have continued to cut the flower heads over the last few weeks. They make good cut flowers.

My house has been full of hydrangeas and I have realised that you can't get rid of them.  If they are put in a vase they don't die, they just dry out and can then be used in winter flower arrangements or Christmas wreaths.

So now as well as having vases of them in the house I have a store of dried heads in the shed waiting to be used for other things because I can't bear to get rid of them.

Through the Garden gate-- October 2019

 

 The garden is still looking good even though there are not so many flowers about now. I love walking around and spotting the odd flower hiding amongst greenery, like Rudbekia, Cosmos, Calendula and Potentilla. Still going strong are the Sedums and hanging on in there are some tall dark blue Salvia, Schizostylis and Michaelmas daisies. But the one which seems to show no signs of giving up is the hardy Geranium--Rosanne. It has flowered all through the summer and is still full of flowers.

We had a lot of heavy rain in October and our bottom border which is always damp is really sodden, so in my tidying up I have not touched the soil.  Elsewhere I have been clearing away any very dead plants but leaving those with seed heads.  This tidying up has meant that the grasses now can take pride of place in the borders.

One grass which I am really liking is a Miscanthus sinesis zebrinus.  This grass has been moved about so much, after growing in a pot at our old house, I planted it in the raised bed here in our new garden but it got lost amongst other plants. Earlier this year I moved it to a new border next to the archway and it absolutely loves living there.

One of the first trees  we planted in our new garden, two years ago was a Rowan.  This year is the first time it flowered and produced berries.  I was surprised to see that the berries were yellow--I thought they would be red. I should have read the plant label properly! But I love these yellow berries they have been a lovely contrast against its red autumn leaves.

Also full of fruit is the crab apple, planted earlier this year, the fruit is turning red now and there are lots of them.  I wonder how long it will be before the birds get to them.

I have planted up some autumn containers with cyclamen and violas and these are providing lots of colour near to the house on the patio and outside the kitchen door.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly' Through the Garden Gate' post.

Autumn at RHS Harlow Carr

I've not blogged for ages, lack of time, energy and inspiration being the reasons. I've composed many  blogs in my head whilst out and about, only to forget about them later. This week though I decided to make a bigger effort. I was inspired.

Saturday is my birthday and I was thinking about treats of the going for a day out type. I don't know if it is because my birthday is in October that I so love autumn, the colours, falling leaves, smells of garden bonfires etc. So I decided that we would do an Autumn visit to RHS Harlow Carr, we haven't been since Spring.  There were lots of changes going on, new paths and borders being made which meant that we couldn't walk along some areas.  We didn't mind this as we could still see all the gardens and it was interesting to learn of the plans.

We always check out the kitchen garden first to see how it compares to our allotment. On this visit though I started to wonder why I bother growing vegetables.  There were broad beans and peas--mine have long since finished and I never have any success with growing a late crop of peas. The leeks were a good size, mine are thin and won't be ready to pull for months. Celeriac--I have given up trying to grow it.  The cabbages looked very healthy, much better than mine.  My husband pointed out that the vegetables are better looked after than ours because there are always staff looking after the garden.  We visit our allotment  about two or three times a week in the summer, less often at this time of year. The kitchen garden at Harlow Carr is also very open, no overhanging trees casting shade like our allotment.

We moved on to the greenhouse where there was an amazing display of pumpkins and chillies. There is a really big pumpkin bed in the kitchen garden and they always have a lovely display of them in the greenhouse in the autumn. I don't grow pumpkins on my allotment because I don't have a lot of space. Chillies, well I do try, but this year they haven't done well.

It was time to move on and stop feeling bad about my growing failures, so we had a coffee in the summer house. This is always a good place to stop for a rest.

Nearby in the Alpine House there was plenty of colour from the many fascinating plants. Outside the alpine house was an interesting poster display celebrating 'Dig for Victory'.

We had lunch at the café near the woods, sitting outside watching the birds which get fed well on crumbs from people's sandwiches and cakes. Next stop was the old bath house which had a local artists'  Christmas crafts display.

As we had come to revel in the Autumn colours we headed off into the woods, stopping first to examine some of the sculptures which were part of a sculpture trail.  I like the squirrel.

We spotted a newly developed area at the edge of the woods which was a stumpery and fernery.  I'm always interested to see a stumpery as I have started one in my own garden.

This was a good one, there were little areas with stumps and ferns and other woodland plants and it would be easy for people to get ideas for their own gardens.  I was pleased to see some of the plants which I have used in my little woodland area at home--ferns, hellebores, hardy geraniums, pulmonarias. I must be doing the right thing. I noticed also that the stumps and logs were arranged to look like they were growing out of the woodland bed.  Mine at home have just been plonked down--I can easily rectify that.

Over towards the arboretum we stopped at the bird hide, but there wasn't a bird in sight. Perhaps they were all down at the cafe. The arboretum is a lovely place and as expected there was plenty of lovely colours.  There is a little area through a gate which has been designated a silent space where you can sit and be quiet and still.

Coming out of the arboretum and woods we walked along the streamside for a while.  Here we saw some work being done to improve the streamside.

Harlow Carr suffers a lot from flooding and there are plans to improve other areas of the gardens too. We saw more of the sculpture trail along the streamside. Some of the sculptures were of plants and were very realistic. From a distance I was wondering what sort of plants they were!

It was soon time to go home and we hadn't been around the whole of the gardens. Another day, another season perhaps.

Through the garden gate--July 2019

The weather has been beautiful this month, but too hot to do very much gardening. I have pottered about a lot, snipping off dead flower heads and cutting a few things back. But the garden hasn't needed much attention thank goodness and I have taken time to just sit and admire it all.  With having a fairly new garden  I still can't remember all the plants which are in there. So sometimes I have a lovely surprise as a plant comes into flower which I forgot I  planted earlier in the year.

    

The garden has been a riot of colour for a few weeks now.  The bottom border which collects all the water when it rains heavily seemed to suddenly burst into flower with pink astilbes and yellow lysimachias and a lovely pink campanula.  I don't normally put pink and yellow together but it looked wonderful and we were able to see it all from the house.

 This is geranium 'Rosanne' and it is full of bees.  It was in the back of the raised bed last summer and got a bit lost amongst all the other flowers, so I moved it to the front of another bed this year.  It has been flowering for several weeks now and I think it will carry on until the autumn

In the last week there has been a lot of heavy rain and the flowers have take quite a battering, both in the borders and in the patio containers, so I need to get out and do more deadheading.

The sweet peas are now flowering and provide me plenty of cut flowers for the house. I had to cut some of the lavender back last week as it was falling over the path, causing a bit of a trip hazard.  They looked lovely in vases around the house.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post.

Through the Garden Gate--June

At this time of the year everything in the garden suddenly seems to go 'woosh' and get really big.  We have had a lot of rain recently which has helped the plants to grow and they are now all over the place.  So I have been cutting back some of the early flowering perennial plants especially the hardy geraniums. This has made room for the later flowering plants to spread out a bit and I have even found some plants in the borders which I thought had disappeared. In the gaps made by cutting back I planted some cosmos which I grew from seed.

There are also a lot of plants which have started to flop over because they needed staking. So I have been buying plant supports and canes and trying to tidy up these dangly plants. This is of course a job which I should have done earlier in the year before they got so big, but I am never organised enough to think so far ahead.

This Thalictrum is a really tall plant and looked much better after I had supported it with some canes.

I planted up lots of containers with summer bedding for the paths and patio and they are looking lovely now. I used a colour scheme of mainly pink, blue, purple and white. These seem to be the colours I go for in the flower  borders too.

This lovely deep pink poppy is called 'Bolero'

I love the blue veronica which I have in the garden and I was pleased to find this pink version in the garden centre.

When we needed a break from the garden we have visited the RHS garden Harlow Carr and one or two NGS gardens. It's always good to see how other people do their gardens and we always come away with some ideas to try out in our garden.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post.