Winter is well and truly here and with it comes a cool beauty like a Hitchcock blonde, weaving her icy magic and seducing the lovers of winter with her shining diamonds and beckoning soft duvet of snow.

 I know most British people find Winter a drag and every time we get a snowflake, the cold air is marred by miserable faces and grumbling voices echoing their spells of disenchantment. But winter can bring magic and beauty especially at the moment when we are blessed with good old traditional Christmassy weather. 

And what better place to see that magic than in our very own gardens! This is the time that it pays to be a lazy gardener, leaving all those seed heads and dead perennial flowers means that you will have a winter wonderland of a garden when the frost finds them. Grasses, fennel, poppies, thistles, achillea, verbena – all make great canvases for winter’s fine art.

Shrubs and trees which carry berries are another great choice to create your winter wonderland – not only are they beautiful but they will also help the birds stay happy and fed throughout the hard weather.

For a little bit of colour try planting some mixed helleborus – these will glow like velvet jewels during the late winter and add a touch of mystery to the winter garden.

Winter flowering shrubs are another great choice – not only beautiful but often delightfully scented – creating a wonderful experience for a moonlit wander around your snow laced garden!

So next time you feel yourself about to moan about ‘the dreadful weather’ think instead of the beauty you can be a part of in either your own garden or a public park. Don’t shut the winter out – welcome her and she will welcome you with more magic than you’ll know what to do with!

-Jane

PS: if you have any questions about looking after your garden in the Winter or what plants to plant or anything like that, feel free to email us and we will do our best to answer them.

This summer seems to have gone by so quickly – and now I look out in my garden and everything is starting to look worn out and old  - but look more closely and some plants are doing all they can to keep going -  the sweet peas are fighting for their last few  buds to open, the Verbena bonariensis is bravely soldiering on and still has a lot of life left in it - and the roses are in their 3rd flush!…and some flowers are only just beginning to show off as their turn in the spot light approaches…

September is a strange month in the garden with so much on its last legs and many other plants just beginning to live – here’s some that love the end of Summer and the beginning of Autumn…

Anemone hupehensis – saucer shaped flowers that like semi shade and sun and show off shell pink to white flowers.

Aster x frikartii ‘Monch’ -  a dainty cool lilac daisy flower – adding a fresh colour to an autumn border

Callicarpa bodinieri var. giraldii ‘Profusion’  – stunning berries that have to be seen to be believed!  Bright, metallic beads of bright violet turn this quite ordinary shrub into something spectacular every autumn – its a must if you have a large garden!

Caryopteris x clandonensis ‘Heavenly Blue’ – A shrub that looks as though it should flower in spring and is running late! Delicate blue flowers charm the silver branches of this lovely shrub right through September. A really lovely plant for the autumn garden.

Ceanothus ‘Autumnal Blue’  – another shrub that looks like it is running late – gorgeous sky blue flowers drip from this evergreen shrub from late summer into autumn.

Dahlias – mixed varieties – What can I say about these loud and jolly blooms! They’ll keep producing the fireworks right up to Bonfire night!

Euonymus europaeus ‘Red Cascade’ – This tree-like shrub shows off the oddest of colours reminiscent of an 80′s crime of fashion!  Bright cerise fruits that unfurl to show off bright orange seeds – at the same time! sounds revolting – looks great!

Lirope muscari – These lovely plants are relations to the grape hyacinth and look at home on a woodland edge. The strap like leaves fall away from little spires topped with a cluster of purple flowers. A real cheery site on a cold autumn day!

Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’  Are you brave enough to let these lively chaps into your borders? Go on – give them a go – they won’t disappoint!

Sedum ‘Ruby Glow’ Play host to this year’s butterflies last supper with this lovely sedum – great for front of border and is a luscious deep red – very opulent!

There are so many fantastic plants to grace an autumnal garden – these are just a tiny fraction of what is available. And don’t forget to leave the seed heads on your herbaceous perennials and grasses over the next few months – and you will be rewarded with a beautiful display of diamond encrusted spiders webs – followed by even more sparkles in the first frosts!

-Jane

Day 3

The marquee has gone up today!! It’s one of those traditional ones and I must say it was quite impressive to watch. An army of workmen arrived on site and worked like a well oiled machine for the whole morning putting it up. All we could do was nervously watch – keeping our beady eyes on the height of the sides and silently willing the marquee to be as tall as possible. As the canvas at last  fell over it, like a shroud over a skeleton,  I did feel a little wave of relief – the sides are taller than I thought and we should be ok. Now the site really does look like a Time Team dig and we are attracting rather alot of attention from Sandringham visitors having a peek – as long as the only skeleton is the metal one of the marquee, we will be ok!

Now we can start building the features and getting some height happening and tomorrow the steel arrives!