Mzzz B'S December Garden

Frost flowers on heather

Frozen roses

Frosty fennel

Frozen Gingko leaves still provide colour.

December in the garden is a quiet time. A time to sit by the fire and plan ahead for the coming year. Think about what grew well last year, in a fairly challenging year of heat and drought then a lot of rain, and then this extreme cold, with the ground frozen. Who knows what next year will bring as the climate is changing.

Order your seeds for next year- and remember that as a member of Tattenhall Gardening Society you get a very good discount from Dobies.

This is also the time to look at the structures in your garden and to plan a garden that is for all seasons. Colourful winter stems of shrubs, seed heads, grasses will all add structure and colour in the winter.. Winter flowering shrubs with lovely scents, like winter flowering honeysuckle and sarcocca, great to have where you walk past to your door. They aren't that good looking during the summer but can provide a backdrop for more showy things while you wait for them to have their time to shine.
Then there are all those exciting shoots that have started to emerge- snowdrops and daffodils.

Christmas is the time to scour the garden for non plastic christmas decorations, when it warms up enough to pick. The RHS magazine had a whole article on making tree decorations from natural plant based materials – fir cones, seed heads, dried grasses, wooden/cardboard stars. Make a door wreath from sprigs of conifer or evergreens and decorate with dried natural material, berries( although the holly berries in this garden have mostly been eaten by the field fare and redwing!)

Although the shortest day lands on December 21, the Winter Solstice falls the day after on December 22. The day is marked at Stonehenge with the sunrise marking the start of the Solstice..

In the garden it marks the shift in the length of the day and some plants are very much governed by this, and given some mild weather the garden will start to slowly wake up again, and at that point we can see what damage this freezing weather has caused. Think of it as an opportunity to try something new!