Plan ahead for next year….

I was reflecting recently how lucky I am to have a mature garden. When I bought this house over 30 years ago it had previously been a farmhouse and came with a very overgrown garden. Over the years we have drastically changed and added many new design features. For example, we removed all the fences which were prone to wind damage and planted instead beech, hornbeam and yew hedges. We planted a stilt hornbeam hedge above a dry stone wall and moved a whole aucuba japonica hedge to a different boundary.

What this means is that at Christmas time when I want to make my advent wreath I have plenty of green material to pick from. I created this years wreath entirely from my garden. You will see it contains aucuba from the original hedge, a yellow form of euonymus which is a low growing ground cover and hidden in there some conifer from a tree in the corner and various other bits and pieces. Not a prickly holly in sight. Although I do have holly in my garden as well and that too would have been wonderful - I just wanted to go with the softer green and yellow feel this year.

Plan ahead for your wreath making next year by planting evergreen shrubs now during the winter months.

So don’t live in regret and get to next year and think ‘oh I wish I had more greenery’ like some of my garden clients often say to me - now is the time to act! Visit your local garden centre or nursery and see what greenery there is around at this time of year. The ideal time to plant is now. You can buy shrubs in many different sizes some may even be available bare root. Have fun planning…..