Through the Garden Gate --December 2024

December is always a busy month with preparations for Christmas and doing nice Christmassy things. It's never a gardening month for me.

At the beginning of December I made wreaths for the front and side entrances to the house.

Early in December we also had a trip to the garden centre to buy the Christmas tree. Getting it home in the car is always quite an event. 

We had a Christmas tree festival at our church and my friend and I decorated one. It wasn't just the tree to decorate though, it was the table top around it. So it took quite a bit of thinking about as we planned it. They all had to represent a Christmas carol and there was a quiz for visitors to guess the carols. Ours was 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'. I think it would be quite an easy one to guess.

We visited our daughter Sarah down in Bedfordshire for a weekend and her church also had a Christmas tree festival. They seem to be quite popular events now in churches. 

Back home, the following week, our other daughter, Helen and I went to Lytham Hall. The hall is open to visitors throughout the year, but at Christmas it is decorated up with a Christmas theme. This year it had a Charles Dickens theme with each room representing a different Dickens book. It was beautifully decorated. A lot of the decorations were hand made by some of the volunteers.

The garden is looking quite bedraggled with soggy leaves on the beds, but it's nice to see bulbs starting to emerge. The first to flower will be the snowdrops. I was quite surprised as I walked around the garden yesterday to see the Hamamelis flowering and near the kitchen door there's a lovely sweet smell of the Christmas box which is just starting to produce its little white flowers. There are also cyclamen flowering under the trees. There's plenty of interest in the garden if I spend some time walking round and searching. Sometimes it's a bit too cold to go out though!

I received two garden books for Christmas, Carol Klein 's 'Hortobiography' and 'Drawn to the Garden' by Caroline Quentin. Carol Klein grew up only a few miles from where I grew up so it's interesting to read about her early years. 

I also received a long handled patio weeder. I do love a new garden tool. It should be easier on my back if I don't have to kneel down to weed the patio now. 

The weather has been really miserable recently, with grey skies, fog and drizzle and there's a weather warning for snow in the next few days. It's definitely not gardening weather. Fortunately there's not much to be done at this time of year. 

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and I wish you all a happy and peaceful New Year and happy gardening.

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--December 2022

Not much work gets done in the garden during December, Christmas preparations take over my time, although some of them are garden related. I've spent a lot of time looking out of the windows thinking about what needs doing, admiring areas which look good and watching the birds feasting on the crab apples and anything else they can find.

At the beginning of the month I cut greenery from the allotment and the garden to make Christmas wreaths and flower arrangements. I managed to get conifer and berried ivy from the allotment, box and rosemary from my daughter's garden and Pittosporum, Brachyglottis and dried hydrangea heads from my own garden.  I had a few busy days making the wreaths--one for the front of the house and the other for the side. We bought the Christmas tree from our local garden centre and this provided me with a bit more greenery.

A couple of weeks into December we woke up one morning to see snow had fallen overnight. It was the weekend our daughter Sarah and family came up for a pre Christmas visit. Cars were sliding about, wheels spinning, so we decided to cancel our plans to go out and about that weekend and stayed indoors in the warm. We had a lovely weekend with our family together and I made a big Christmas meal. It took a week for the snow to go from the paths and garden and was very slippy out.

Now at the end of the month we are getting a lot of rainy, windy weather and the garden is looking quite bedraggled. I'm looking forward to some better weather so I can get out and do some work again. In the meantime, I received some lovely garden books for Christmas so I am doing quite a bit of reading.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and I wish you a happy and healthy New year.

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

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 in December

I prepared this blog a couple of weeks ago and with all the busyness of Christmas, didn't get around to finishing it. So as it's about things I have been doing in the garden in December I decided to publish it as this month's 'Through the Garden Gate' post, joining with Sarah at Down by the Sea.

There's not been much gardening done in December except to sweep up leaves and cut back the odd plant which has got messy. But I've had lots of fun doing other things.

Christmas is a busy time,  I love all the sparkle and glitter, it just seems to brighten up this dark time of year, not just in the house but also in the garden.

I've always enjoyed making my own evergreen door wreaths at Christmas. I put one on the front and one on the back door. But in the last two or three years I have felt inspired to decorate the garden too. I have loads of foliage available in the garden and at the allotment. There are seedheads, moss, twigs, berries and many other things freely available.  So I have been making use of them.

I got a few ideas from our December visits to RHS Harlow Carr who decorate the greenhouse and summer house with rustic stuff, but who also add quirky things like hanging big baubles from trees and twiggy stars from the pergola.

So this year I have made twiggy wreaths wrapped in moss and  berries and hung them on the garden gates and the shed. I have also arranged pots of seasonal colour on the garden table and potting benches.  I made stars and hearts out of twigs to hang from the apple tree and other places.  And I have hung big red baubles  from the apple tree too.

I am expecting that the berries will all be eaten by the birds, but that doesn't matter they can have a feast for Christmas. Storm Barbara arrived here in the north yesterday and this morning I spotted a bright red shiny bauble on the lawn which had been blown off one of the stars in the apple tree. I'm hoping for some calmer weather soon.

Thank you to all who follow and comment on my blog I wish you all  a happy and peaceful Christmas.

Hyacinths at Christmas

 It seems ages ago that I potted up the hyacinth bulbs for flowering at Christmas. It was at the beginning of October and once I'd planted them, I put them away in the shed where they would be cool and dark and almost forgot about them. Occasionally when I was rummaging about in the shed I remembered them and checked to see if they needed watering. They always looked no different to when I had first potted them up.

But then about three weeks ago I checked them again and amazingly there were pale yellow shoots poking through the compost. I brought them into the house and following instructions on various gardening web sites, I put them where they would get some light but still be cool. After a week the pale shoots had turned green and were looking really healthy.

Some of them I give to friends for Christmas presents, others go to family. The rest of them go in my front porch on the windowsill or the table, and decorate the porch for Christmas. I cover the top of the compost with moss, collected from the garden, and I put sparkly gold twigs in the pots which look good at Christmas but provide support as the hyacinths start to grow taller. The hyacinths are white so with the gold twigs are a good seasonal colour. I'm not sure that they'll be in flower for Christmas, but they won't be long after.

Some of my friends say that it is easier to just buy them from the shops at this time of year, they are quite inexpensive. But I love the growing process.  The waiting and watching, the excitement of those green shoots appearing and the knowing that this was something that I have nurtured. This is all part of the magic of Christmas.

December on the allotment

Plot 8

Work on our allotments  slowed down considerably during December.  Our visits there were only to feed Ziggy the allotment cat, to pick produce and to cut greenery for my Christmas wreaths and flower arrangements.  December is such a busy month at home with all the preparations for Christmas that the allotment has to take a back seat. A few days before Christmas we went down to see what vegetables we could pick. The brussels sprouts haven't done very well and a lot of them have blown. I decided they weren't good enough for the Christmas day dinner table. Maybe another day. But I pulled beetroot, parsnips, leeks, swede and collected some onions from their storage racks in the shed.

plot 10b

We've had frosts this month which have finally finished off the flowers in the cut flower beds.  The autumn raspberries have gone over and are now ready for cutting back.  There are still beds which need to be cleared and topped with manure, the rhubarb and fruit bushes need manuring too.  There's plenty to do and I can't wait to start work again as soon as the weather is a bit milder.

Thank you for reading my blog. Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and lots of good gardening.

Winter colour and rustic decorations

 

Just before Christmas we visited RHS Harlow Carr.  I love the rustic decorations  in the gardens especially in the greenhouse and summer house.  They always give me ideas to use at home although some of them probably take a lot of preparation.

The table display in the summer house was quite simple but looked really good so I decided to decorate my porch in a similar way. I only managed to make one candle bowl as my porch table is much smaller than this.

Walking around the gardens we were quite taken with the winter colour from the dogwoods.

Seeing all this colour always makes me want to plant some dogwoods in my garden, but I wouldn't have enough space to get such a lovely effect.

Putting up the Christmas tree

 

The  second weekend in December we always start the process of putting up the Christmas tree. It always takes longer than intended that's why I say 'we start the process'. It can actually take several days. The tree was bought the weekend before and was left standing in a bucket of water outside until we were ready to bring it indoors.

Getting a 6ft Christmas tree into the house is not an easy job. We have the first job of moving the furniture to accommodate it. As we move the sofas around ( and they are heavy) the carpet gets a thorough vacuuming and we usually find numerous bits of Lego and small toys which the grandchildren have lost throughout the year. This time I all I found was a ball belonging to the cat and a dead spider. The cat views all this activity with wide eyed interest and as the tree is put into place she takes up residence under its lower branches. Perhaps she is remembering the fun she had last year. We are wondering if we will find her sitting on the top branch in the morning. No she will be banned from the room overnight!

When the tree is finally in place and decorated we rest our weary backs and agree it's the best tree ever (it always is). The cat meanwhile is plotting what mischief she can get up to under those branches.

Christmas shopping event

We've been really tired this week following last weekend down at our daughter's helping with her fund raising event. Packing up the car with all the stuff was quite a challenge especially as we were travelling a fair distance. Making sure nothing got squashed was important as well as finding room for everything in our little car. Our suitcase was somewhere underneath all the boxes as was the spare wheel. My husband was hoping we didn't get a puncture on the journey down!

But we had a great time and the whole event raised  a good amount for cubs funds. I enjoyed running my Christmas decorations stall and meeting so many people. It was good to chat to people even if they didn't want to buy.  We didn't sell up, I didn't expect to so we brought  some things back with us which we can either make use of ourselves or pass on to some local charity events and I managed to sell another fresh foliage door decoration once we got home. Now I need to find the time to make my own door wreaths.

Being so tired we haven't felt up to doing any allotment work, but as the work is slowing down now I'm not too worried. It's all about clearing and manuring beds at the moment and we can do that a bit at a time.

We've had frost this week so I'm glad that I remembered to close the lids on the cold frame where I have put some tender plants.

One of the wreaths I made

Glitter time

It's that time of year. The glitter is out and all over the place and it will probably be around for the next six months or so. On carpets, clothes, the cat, even the garden. For the last few weeks I have been making Christmas crafts for a fund raising event my daughter is organising--Christmas tree decorations, pomanders, rose hip hearts, pot pourri. It all involved plenty of glitter and smelly spices. The grandchildren complained about the smell but I like it.  This week I have been making fresh foliage arrangements--wreaths and table decorations.  I have raided the garden and the allotment for conifer, ivy, holly and anything else which looks good at this time of year and will keep for a few weeks.

It started off as just a small idea but grew as I got carried away with it all and did lots more than I intended.  I'm exhausted now, but it's all done and soon we will be attempting to pack all the stuff in the back of our little car and drive down to Bedfordshire. So if you are in the Stotfold area on Saturday 29th November, 12noon--4pm, call in at the Scout Hut on Baldock Road and enjoy a Christmas shopping day. You get a mince pie and a glass of mulled wine with your ticket. It should be a great day. If you see me say hello.

Getting myself together

I've been finding it difficult to get back into blogging.  It all sort of fizzled out in December. But then December is such a busy month and the time just after Christmas is a time when I get a bit lazy, eat too much, drink too much, get up late and seem to lose my energy.

I'm also aware that having been blogging for nearly two years now I am in danger of repeating myself. So I've been running out of ideas of new things to blog about.

But now the decorations are down at last and Christmas has been banished to the attic for another year. The red candles and vases of holly have been replaced with pots of white hyacinths and tete a tete narcissi. I'm liking them a lot, they are so simple and fresh looking after all that sparkle and colour of Christmas. They make me think of spring and give me lots to look forward to.

Now we are into the new year I'm feeling more enthusiastic and want to be doing things. I want to be working in the garden or on the allotment, it just needs to stop raining so I can get out there without slipping and sliding about in all the mud. So I'm starting to get myself together and think about our plans for the allotment this year. I'll tell you about those on another blog.