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.

.