Green Girl Gardener

I’ve been absent for a couple of weeks, and I’ve missed my creative blogging time. I’ve just had a lot on and haven’t found time to write. It also feels like I spend my whole life tired at this time of year so even when I have found myself with a few spare moments in which I could’ve shared what I’ve been up to, my brain’s been too sleepy to work!

I will try to find some time tomorrow to write a general catch up post of what’s been going on in the land of Green Girl Gardener over the past few weeks, although some of it I’ll have to tease you with because I have to keep some of my exciting news under my hat for now.

Anyway, enough of that and on to my first Six of December. It may also be the last of December – the impending festive season means a distinct lack of free time on Saturdays. We’ll see, maybe I’ll be able to squeeze one more in.

1. Hydrangeas

We have one Hydrangea in the back garden which was gifted to us by my in laws when we moved into our house. I finally planted it out at the end of Summer 2018 and it’s done well this year having more room to spread its roots.

However, when I checked it this morning …..

….. something has trampled it and broken off some of the faded flower heads. This, I think, is not good news. The old flowers protect the next year’s growth underneath so now I’m concerned that it might be damaged before the weather improves. Incidentally, please excuse the weeds – this area was almost inaccessible throughout the Summer because the Sweet Pea frame was in the way.

We have another Hydrangea in the front garden which I salvaged from a sale table this Summer, and it did really well and looked so pretty all Summer. I’m hoping it’ll get quite big and fill the corner of the garden.

I was really surprised to come out this morning and find some new growth on it.

I can’t remember what variety it is, but I’m sure it’s not supposed to bloom at Christmas!

2. Roses

We have lots! I love them!

This one is a patio Rose that’s in a pot on our bistro and it’s still valiantly trying to flower for me. There’s a teeny tiny spider currently making a home in its petals.

This one I think could be described as a mummified Rose! It’s my Rose Hot Chocolate which did really well this year. It’s become somewhat lanky so it needs a hard prune. I’ll have to check when to do it.

Finally, in the front we have beautiful Rose hips. This Rose was in the garden when we bought the house so I don’t know what variety it is, but it’s lovely.

3. Staying in the front garden, the Camellia has buds!

This also seems early. It flowers oh too briefly in very late Spring/early Summer and I’m always sad when the beautiful pink flowers turn brown and drop. I hope any potential cold snaps don’t ruin its chances of flowering next year.

4. Daffodils

Close inspection of the area in front of my birthday planter this morning revealed Daffodil shoots emerging. ALREADY! I’m sure they didn’t peek their heads into the world before Christmas last year. No sign of the Crocuses yet though. I wish I’d planted more Daffodil bulbs this Autumn. Last year I planted these ones in a row and whilst I loved their cheery yellow joy in the Spring, I think they’d have had more impact if I’d have planted them in clusters rather than a straight line.

5. There’s good news and bad news in the greenhouse. I always eat my sprout (singular!) first when eating my Christmas dinner so in a similar vein of getting the worst out of the way first I’ll show you the bad news first.

These were my cuttings, emphasis on the past tense! So disappointing. They were doing so well and now they’re really not! I don’t know what went wrong. Too cold? Too damp?

Anyway, sprout dealt with so on to the turkey and roasties.

The Fuchsias and Gazania seem to be coping ok with the cold. According to my thermometer, it’s been down to – 1.5° in the greenhouse. Let’s hope it doesn’t get any colder (for my sake as well as the plants!)

6. In case I don’t manage to squeeze another Six in before Christmas, I’m going to finish with Euphorbia ‘Rudolph’ for obvious reasons!

Unfortunately the reason for its seasonal moniker isn’t obvious during the festive season. You can just about see the pink tinge still but during the Summer it had bright red ‘noses’ just like Rudolph. This was from the sale table in Notcutts and I’m really pleased with how well it’s done.

I’m really late finishing this post this week (I started it at about half eleven this morning in the hairdresser’s) so if you pop over to the Propagator’s blog there’ll be plenty of other Sixes to catch up with in his comments. I’ll try to be back tomorrow with another post to make up for my extended absence.