Practical Gardening

CHRISTMAS is a busy time of the year with gift buying, meal planning and tree decorating. Many people now also use outside decorations and lights to adorn their houses garden bushes and trees. Being a lover of Christmas time I’m all in favour of it. You’d think that would be enough to be getting on with but I would add one more task and that would be to make up a pot for the front door planted with some winter colourful plants.

The hardest aspect for a winter pot is to create a centre piece with height at a reasonable cost. If you already have a pot at your front door with say a cone or ball shaped box or bay tree then you can just use some underplanting of colour around that. If you don’t have a pot or the pot you have was used exculsively for summer colour you’ll have to work a little harder. You could invest in a bay or box as a permanent feature but these will be pricey. Holly plants are available and could also be used, which would be very festive especially if in berry.

Skimmias are another berrying plant that will give you less height but still enough to work. There are male and female Skimmias so the females will be those that are in berry. The alternative male plants usually Skimmia ‘Rubella’ are also lovely at the moments with masses of red flower buds that will open white in spring. For a cheaper option upright conifers can be used, usually in the form of Cypressus macrocarpa in a golden foliage but various Chamaecyparis and Thujas are aslo available. Varieties of Cordyline and Phormium can be used for their colourful striking grassy foliage. The bonus with all the above is that they can be transplanted into the garden in spring and become part of your permanent planting. A cut off twisted branch from a contorted willow or hazel can be effective even though leafless and a pruned off birch branch sprayed silver or white can look well at little cost.

The underplanting, I think, should be as colourful or should I say flowery as possible. I differentiate because I love white and there may be many of you that wouldn’t consider white as particularly colourful. For me winter cyclamen provide the best colour at this time of year and a combination of white and rich red is especially vibrant and seasonal. I’m sure Santa and a soft drinks manufacturer would concur with that. Strong purples and pinks and soft reds and pinks are other colour choices. Cyclamen will flower right through to spring maybe taking a short break if the temperatures get really cold. They will sucessfully plant out into the garden but are rarely as good in flower the second year.

Other underplanting colour options include pansies and violas which are really spring flowering and not of great impact at this time of year but great for then. Primroses are also popular but again are at their best in spring. Often they are seen now showing bud colour but very little flower. If you bring them indoors for a few days they will open up and can then be planted into your pots and they will provide a Christmas display worthy of the season. Other flowering plants that are now offered as winter bedding include blue Campanulas and Heleborus niger, the Christmas rose, with lovely white flower and yellow stamens. Both will become sucessful garden plantsin your borders if transplanted in the spring. Heathers are also in flower but I find them rather drab to be honest.

Non flowering under planting includes the berrying Gaultheria procumbens, red berries, and Solanum pseudocapsicum, orange berries. For additional foliage interest the silver blue grass Festuca glauca and the silver Calocephalus contrast well with other plants like Heuchera. Ivys as trailing plants will complete any pot.

Be aware that with winter planting like this it won’t fill out and grow like your summer bedding so plant as you intend it to be seen. Also I wouldn’t replace all the compost in existing pots. Just clear out the old planting and top up with fresh compost as these winter bedding plants will make up virtually no root between now and when you change them for your summer bedding. Clear out then and refill the pot completely with fresh compost.

All the best for a happy Christmas. CHRISTMAS is almost here and while some of you love this time of year and get very excited about it, there are others of you who dread it. And I am thinking about you now.

At work I hear both sides of Christmas. I hear about the excitement and the joy that some people feel and I also hear the sad side. I hear about the loss of a loved one and how this time of the year is a sad time because they are not here. Some people are sad because of the loss of their beloved pet. I learn about people who are ill. And about the people who can’t get home for Christmas, and the people who have to leave their children or loved ones to go to work. I hear about people who just don’t have the money–it breaks their hearts not to be able to give their children what they would love for Christmas. It’s a lonely time for so many people whose families are not near them.

I know that there are some of you that just can’t stand Christmas and want to bury your head in the sand until it’s all over. You simply cannot stand the fuss.

Some people dread the family reunion, the social get together, or the Christmas work party and other people thrive on them. Not everyone enjoys these occasions.

Christmas can cause a lot of anxiety and stress for families. Parents can be tired.

Worn out even, by the time the big day comes around.

Those of you that are suffering the loss of a loved one, my heart goes out to you. I hope that someone can help put a smile on your face if even only for a moment this Christmas.

Christmas is clearly not a time that suits everyone. So spare a thought this Christmas for a neighbour, a friend, a family member, a stranger on the street. We don’t know what is going on in their private world.

For those of you that love Christmas, I do hope you enjoy every minute of it. You’ll create some beautiful memories to keep.

Thank you all for your feedback, and support throughout the year, I wish you a very Happy Christmas.