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.

A snowy start to the new year

Christmas has now been packed away in boxes, except for the evergreen wreaths at the front and side of the house.  They are still fresh looking and I don't want to take them down yet. The house looks a little bare, so I bought some daffodils the other day, which bring a little brightness and cheer. Much as I love all the sparkle and glitter of Christmas, that's over with now and I want to look forward with hope to the Spring and daffodils give me that. Things are not good in the world at the moment, worse than they have been since the start of the crisis, so we all need a bit of hope to keep us going and to know that soon this shall pass. 

After Christmas we had snow here in Lancashire, lots of it and it's taking a long time to clear.  So there's no chance of doing any gardening jobs or going to the allotment yet. I have been feeding the birds, enjoying watching them on the feeders and walking around the garden spotting the changes taking place. The crab apple still has lots of orange/red fruit on its branches which the birds have been ignoring even in this cold weather. But now the fruit is going soft and mushy on the branches perhaps it will be more attractive to them. The brightness of the berries is a lovely splash of colour against the snow.

                                              

In the autumn I planted bulbs in pots, crocus, little tete a tete daffodils and tulips. Its lovely now to see little green shoots emerging from their snow topped pots on the patio and potting bench. This is my bit of hope that over the next few weeks they will continue to grow and will soon be flowering.                                   

Also in the autumn I planted up pots of hyacinths which I kept in the garage in the dark and brought out into the light in December to grow on. Some were ready and flowering at Christmas and some will have their buds opening soon. I bring them into the warmth of the house gradually so I will have a continuous display for several weeks. 

                                             

January can be quite a dreary, depressing month even when we're not going through these bad times, but I am trying to focus on the small, simple things which make me happy.

What's helping you at the moment during lockdown?

A happy, healthy and safe New Year everyone.

Through the Garden Gate--January

January is that month in the year when gardeners are feeling restless. they want to get outside to do things,  but the weather is not good, the soil is usually too wet to be able to plant anything and it's best for the garden to just leave things alone for  a few weeks.

It's a time to rest, to plan ahead and look forward to the Spring.  That's how |I have been feeling these last few weeks, I have been longing to get out into the garden and when I have been out there I've realised that there is nothing I can do yet.

We had some fine dry days early in the month, but then the cold set in and we had our first snow of the winter. The garden takes on another look when it is covered in snow. Much as I don't like the snow I love to see how it changes the look of the garden.

I didn't cut back in the autumn, I left the dead plant foliage and seed heads to give some winter interest and provide food for wildlife. When the seed heads and grasses are covered in snow they look lovely.

Although the January days are dark and dreary, I love to walk around and see what's growing. Our garden was only created last year so all the plants were newly planted. I've been keen to see how everything has survived in the new garden. There are buds on trees and shrubs. New growth is appearing at the base of perennial plants and there are bulbs coming through. The snowdrops I planted last year are flowering--there aren't many yet but I hope to add to them this year.

The witch hazel (Jelena) has grown really well and now has lovely orange flowers which seemed to pop open overnight.

The hellebores which I planted last year are flowering too. I really like these pink flowered ones

We have had more snow so still no gardening for a while  yet.

What's your garden looking like at the moment?

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--February

February started badly, when I went flat on my back on the wet lawn sustaining a fractured ankle . I was on my way down to the bird table with a pot full of seed. The seed ended up all over the lawn and my husband reported that a flock of starlings descended shortly afterwards to consume it all. I do wonder if they missed any and if we will be seeing sunflowers and other things growing out of the lawn later on in the year.

Well, a few weeks later after much rest, ice, painkillers and physio I am now getting about, pottering around the garden. The physio continues, the rest and painkillers are still needed after I've overdone things. I've been told it could be a couple of months before my ankle is fully healed.  But when the sun shines as it has done in the last week, I have to be outside. As therapy we have been out to the garden centre and I have bought pots of bulbs. Quite gingerly I have found that I can kneel down on my kneeler which has handles to hoist me up again. So I have planted spring bulbs and Hellebores. This is a new garden for us and one which didn't have much in it before. So I am trying to bring in some spring colour.

A box of goodies from the garden centre

In the front garden last year I cleared a space under a Weigela shrub, cutting back some of the branches to raise the canopy. This month I planted  crocus and tete a tete daffodils under its canopy. In the back garden I planted snowdrops, crocus, daffodils and hellebores in a new shrub border which we  made in January. It's lovely to see the spots of colour starting to appear. 

Spring bulbs poking through the snow under the Weigela

 Digging I definitely can't do at the moment, so Richard has done some digging out and planting up of bigger things which needed a spade. There is a large border at the side of the house which had a clump of very well established Crocosmia, yellow irises and bluebells. I dug as much of these out as I could in the autumn.  Crocosmia and irises are difficult to get rid of once they get too established and they are not my favourite plants.  Bluebells can take over a space too if allowed. They are better in the wild or in a woodland garden. As I wanted to give this bed a new look, they had to go. I brought  a Sarcococca ( sweet box) from my old garden. It had been in a pot for a few years. This was planted in the new border by the path where hopefully we will get the scent of it as we pass by. It has looked much happier since it has been planted in the bed. At the other end of the bed Richard planted a Brachyglottis.  This plant used to go by the name of Senecio. Why do they keep changing plant names I wonder? I like to grow this plant for the silver/grey foliage which I find useful for flower arranging. In the centre of the bed is a yellow Potentilla which has always been there. This is quite a good sized border and I'm looking forward to adding some perennial plants in the next few months. It gets quite a bit of sun from early morning to midday. I want to plant up some cottage garden plants which will tumble over onto the path.

The snow arrived this week, so no more gardening for a while. I was going to take some photographs of our planting work, but now the garden is covered in snow. I hope it will soon be gone and we can enjoy all that spring colour. I hope too that I will soon be able to get back to gardening properly with a fully healed ankle. In the meantime all I can offer in photographs is that of a snowy garden and a box of the spring plants before they got planted.

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

Snow

Yesterday we woke to see snow on the ground. Just a light covering, but enough to throw the area into chaos as any fall of snow seems to do. There were complaints of roads not being gritted and drivers who didn't know how to drive in snow. We were just glad we didn't have to drive to work any more. All we had to do was walk the grandchildren to school which took longer than usual as we had more clothes to put on.  Then there was the wellies I had to find our granddaughter as she'd grown out of her own. She clomped up the road in a pair two sizes too big for her. And of course there was all the silliness that a fall of snow seems to bring.  I don't find snow that much fun, it's cold, wet and  slippy.  I still have bad memories of falling in the snow two years ago and fracturing my wrist.

I must admit though that snow transforms the landscape in a very beautiful way. We took our usual morning walk after we'd left the children at school.  Some places were quite snowy but there was only a light covering on the fields.

Today everything was completely different, the snow had gone and we just had a cold wind. The fields still looked lovely.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

 

I've been reading a few gardening blogs today and somehow or other I found my way to Carol at May Dreams Gardens  There I read about Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. To blog about what's flowering in my garden on the 15th of every month sounds like a good way to keep record of my garden progress. To start this in January is a bit of a challenge, but I thought I'd have a go. So on this very cold but sunny morning I went out with my camera.

The garden is still looking a bit white after yesterday's fall of snow, but it's gradually clearing. I found primroses around the borders, these are native primroses which I planted a few years ago.They have formed some big clumps now and I really must get around to dividing them sometime.

The viburnum tinus has some white flowers. I love this shrub and the flowers have a lovely delicate fragrance. The witch hazel is in it's second winter. I bought it with garden vouchers given to me by my daughter. I'd wanted one of these for ages for it's winter colour.

Another shrub just flowering is winter jasmine. I brought this as a cutting from my daughter's garden a few years ago.This is planted in the woodland garden where it drapes itself over the wall. The hellebores are also flowering in the woodland garden.

In the front garden I spotted some flowers on the mahonia. This is another shrub with a lovely scent.

Although there are no flowers yet on the snowdrops there are  plenty of green shoots pushing their way through the soil. That's something to look forward to in February.