My Little Garden 16th Dec 2023

With less than two weeks before Christmas, I feel I ought to be more organised and ready for family gatherings, but I find myself seriously lacking in motivation. All I want at this stage is for the festivities to be over and the new year to start.

But then again, the excitement of the grandchildren is infectious, and I do like a mince pie or two. Ooh, and a turkey sandwich from M&S might have found it’s way into my shopping basket yesterday.

Moving swiftly on to gardening matters, I took a wander around the garden yesterday to see what I could find and also do a bit of a tidy up. The leaves were cleared away from the hellebores, and I found snowdrops pushing their way through the soil. Simple things that make my day.

There have also been lots of garden visitors again this week. As well as the usual robins, dunnock, and blackbirds, there have been bluetits, great tits and a whole family of long-tailed tits.

I’ve been making some plans for next summer as the sunny border needs a bit of an overhaul. I have quite a lot of purple, and I think some helenium might work well as opposed to the pastel shades that I’ve favoured in the past. If I move a clump of astrantia in spring there will be plenty of room.

As for my six on Saturday, I’m looking back at July, August, and September in terms of colours, and it’s just the time of year that a clump of orange helenium would be perfect.

1. Lilac

After the disappointment of my new double geranium (Geranium ‘plenum’), which turned out to be a completely different variety of the sort that’s hard to get rid of, Geranium ‘Cloud Nine’ didn’t let me down.

2. Yellow

Anthemis tinctoria ‘E.C. Buxton’ also did well. The white lychnis that you see in the background was joined by a pink one this year. I’m not sure how that happened - I don’t have any others in the garden.

3. Blue

A blue from the dry front garden.

4. Cerise

The zinnias were a bit of a disaster this year. Too much rain and too many slugs.

5. Pink

The sedum in September attracted the butterflies that had been a little sparse over the summer.

6. Purple

Eurybia x herveyi (Aster macrophyllus ‘Twilight’) is a really lovely aster thar flowers in late summer and looks good throughout autumn.

As the flowers fade, autumnal fluffiness and little stars appear.

Have a good weekend, and thank you for reading my December ramblings.