-EP254 Can I Have December Colour In The Garden? Transform Your Winter Garden with Vibrant Blooms

What if your garden could light up even the darkest winter days with vibrant colors? Uncover the secrets of winter gardening as we share expert tips to transform your outdoor space into a midwinter wonderland. From strategically positioning plants to brighten your mood to snapping up great deals on bare-root hedging plants and bulbs, this episode promises a treasure trove of knowledge for those eager to maintain a thriving garden all year round.

Join us as we explore the magic of winter-flowering plants, focusing on the stunning hellebores that offer a burst of color with minimal care. We dive into practical advice on maximizing their bloom potential and simple propagation techniques that ensure your garden remains cheerful through the coldest months. Whether planted in the ground or in pots to brighten up entrances and windows, hellebores are a surefire way to bring a hint of spring into your winter landscape.

Garden enthusiasts will also delight in our curated list of winter-flowering champions, from the pollinator-friendly witch hazel to the reliable pansies and violas. Explore the merits of polyanthus, primroses, and cyclamens, and learn how early-flowering bulbs like narcissi and snowdrops can add splashes of color. With these insights, you’ll be well-equipped to add not only beauty to your garden but also festive cheer to your home during the holiday season. Happy gardening, and may your winter blooms be ever bright!

Chapters

• 0:12 Adding Winter Color to Your Garden
• 5:59 Winter Flowering Plants for Color
• 13:06 Winter Flowering Plant Recommendations
• 22:30 Adding Winter Cheer With Flowers

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

how's it going everybody? And welcome to episode 254 of master, my garden podcast. Now, this week's episode is well, it's answering a question that I was asked this week. It's not not a listener's question, but somebody who I know quite well but isn't very much into their garden and the. The question they asked was is there any way of getting a little bit of color into the garden at this time of the year?

Speaker 1: 0:33

And I suppose I have covered this episode actually even relatively recently back in October time, episode 246, plants to Add Colour in the Autumn and Winter Garden, and in that episode I would have focused quite a lot on autumn interest and then various different types of interest, including grasses that can look really well at this time of the year, even though it's not flower per se, but all of those can add a colour, color and interest. So it wasn't just, I suppose, flower, it was levels of different, different levels of interest. And that episode, as I say a couple of weeks ago to episode 246, that episode kind of covered that. But this person is looking for color in the garden at this time of the year and I suppose at this time of the year December, you know, probably leading into January, there is still quite a bit of you know, there's quite a bit that you can have flower and I've mentioned it before that one of the key things with flower this time of the year is to have it. You know somewhere that it's noticeable because there's, you know, generally speaking, we've had dark days. You know quite a bit of up and down in the weather in the last kind of week or 10 days and things can generally speak and look dreary, with shorter days, not a huge amount of sunshine. So anything that you have with flower that you can get into eyes, view or, you know, have it at the entrance to your house, you know where you're driving in anywhere where you're going to see it and it's going to catch your eye on a daily basis, will only be beneficial, I guess. And so I look at you know the few, the few plants or some of the plants that are kind of good at this time of the year, and a lot of them are useful in pots. You know some of them can go into the open ground or into your, into your beds, but again, if you know, like this person, you're not big into your garden, the key is to get it into areas where you're going to notice it, where you're going to see it and where you're going to get benefit from it. And benefit at this time of the year is it's pretty much something that's going to give you a little bit of cheer. Something's going to look like the signs of spring are on the way, even though I know we're a long ways away from it, but it's something that gives that little bit of cheer at this time of the year. So very, very.

Speaker 1: 2:58

You know, flower at this time of the year can be very, very important. As I mentioned, a bit of a strange week with weather and just to have a look at kind of the last week, what we've had is so bare roots. Root season has really kicked off now. We've had several nights of really heavy frost and you know plants are gone into full dormancy and bare root has has kicked off massively and everybody is everybody's busy with that. And it's a great opportunity, as I mentioned before, to get your plants in hedges, in fruit gardens, in. It's also at this time of the year that people's minds are transitioning to Christmas, so they tend not to think about that. But just if you are looking for particular types of hedging or that sort of thing. Keep an eye out, try and get it done early, because sometimes there's certain things that can get scarce after Christmas and particularly as we head towards the end of the bare-root season. So at least have it lined up or secured as early as you can if you are planning anything, especially if it's something that's maybe not that common or something that you need a lot of.

Speaker 1: 4:06

The other thing to watch is Black Friday, obviously, when this episode releases and you have all the different deals around the place, but something that's also happening at the moment. It's not necessarily linked to Black Friday, but it's very, very typical for, or very useful for, gardeners is that a lot of the bulb people you know the bulb sellers are getting to the end of their season. Some of them are completely winding down and what they'll be doing at this stage is they'll be exiting basically all their stock, and I'm seeing, you know, a lot of the bulb online bulb people at 30, 40, 50 off under bulbs, and it's still quite early, so we're only entering the, you know, the first week of december here, and if you can get your bulbs at 30, 40, 50 off, whatever it may be, you can get huge, huge amounts of bulbs and you know it's not going to cost you a huge amount and, as I say, it's it's not black friday related, but there's lots of deals to be got for gardeners at this stage. So, yeah, there's there's uh, lots of kind of things like that going on. Uh, for me personally this I've been doing quite a bit of cleanup. For any of you that have been listening all the time, garton has fell by the wayside this year because of timings and heavy involvement in GA and yeah, I've got back and done a little bit of tidying. And this Saturday, garlic onions going into the polytunnel. Maybe I'll plant some outside at the weekend and see what way the weather is, but definitely the majority will go into the polytunnel. Maybe I'll plant some outside at the weekend, I'll see what way the weather is, but definitely the majority will go into the polytunnel over the weekend and at least you know you're laying the foundations for next year, or I'm laying the foundations for next year as we, as we go, but to to get into this question.

Speaker 1: 5:59

So again, I've more or less covered this up, this sort of episode before, but we'll tie it specifically to flower now and, as I said, flower this time of year, of any sort, can look really, really good and there's lots of. You know the typical bedding plants that you'll see, and we talk about those because some of those are really beneficial and you know they'll be, they'll be really useful over the coming months and add great color to your entrances, to your doors, to your areas outside your windows that you can see and they'll bring. They'll bring that bit of cheer, as I said, and so let's have a look at some of them. So the first one I'm going to talk about is helibores, and for anyone that grows helibores, there's a few things with them. They're one of the easiest and you know, I know a lot of people online say that certain plants thrive on neglect.

Speaker 1: 6:56

But a helibore, to be fair, you stick it in the ground and you can pretty much forget about it and it will reliably do its thing every year for a long, long, long, long time and it's suitable. It prefers, generally speaking, it prefers kind of woodland type areas or certainly you know, shade, semi-shade. There's some of them already that do like sun, but typically they're going to do well in shade, semi, semi-shade and you know, as I say, that woodland type, so they like that. You know soil that has lots of organic matter in it, and you know really, really, really good. But what? What's so great about them, is that the foliage is a bright, glossy green color and the foliage in itself looks good, looks fresh at this time of year, has a bit of structure about it. Now they're not particularly tall, but when it flowers, then and I have a couple of heady borers near the back door and they're actually flowering or starting to flower now, starting to bud out now, and they will flower for a long, long time, and when I say a long time, those ones that I have now typically you're not getting flower until around christmas time, slightly just after it, but they're starting to flower there now, or at least they're forming flower heads and they do look even decent before they're fully opened. But that will will strongly flower until probably next end of march, early april, and it's going to do that every year there. So there's such a a great plant to have.

Speaker 1: 8:39

So for someone that's asking, is there anything that can get a bit of color in, hellebore is a great place to start, because you really can't go wrong with it. Now, a small tip for helping it to flower more vigorously is that keep an eye on the leaves on it and, as I said, those leaves are a great big green, glossy, shiny looking color. But a lot of the older leaves on it, they will look, or can look, discolored, and the best thing to do is to, anytime you see a discolored leaf of any sort, just clip it off. And what that does? It does two things it forces the plant to send out new, new leaf growth, but it also forces more flowers to come. So give it a little bit of a tidy up at this stage of the year will encourage it to send out more leaf and more flower.

Speaker 1: 9:27

So the, the array of colors that you can get from heliobores is phenomenal, and the level and the and the depth of the color is really really great. As an example, there's, there's loads of different types of cross varieties. There is obviously named varieties as well, but there's a huge amount of cross cultivars out there. Hybrid ones there's, you know, thousands upon thousands of them. You'll see them in any garden center and they're they're very, very good value typically. Now there is named ones that you can get and they're beautiful as well. Obviously, you're going to, you're going to spend a little bit more on those, but in general they're a phenomenal flower, really easy to mind. They do thrive on, you know, not having much care or attention once they're planted. That's kind of it.

Speaker 1: 10:18

But the array of colors they range from pinks to really really deep purples, so you'll get everything in between. So you'll have a light pink all the way up to deep purple and, as I say, everything in between. You can get yellows, you can get kind of lime colored ones and you can get there's so many of them now with different flecks through them. So you might have a pink flower with a kind of a brown fleck through the flower. You might have a pink flower with a white fleck through it, or a lime flower with a, you know, kind of a brown fleck through the flower. You might have a pink flower with a white fleck through it, or a lime flower with a kind of a pinky fleck.

Speaker 1: 10:50

There's just so so many variations and colors of flower, but whichever one it is that you choose, or whichever one you like, there is some beautiful, deep, deep purple ones out there. They're stunning. And the really dark, glossy leaf with the really deep purple flower they're. They don't stand out as much at this time of the year but on inspection they're a phenomenally beautiful flower, really really nice flower, and, as I say, they're helibores. You really can't go wrong with them, suitable for pots. So again, if you're looking to put something there you know near where you're coming in or out that's gonna give you that little bit of a lift every time you see it. Then you can't go wrong with a helibor. And easy to propagate as well. You know, as time goes on, they're easy to propagate. There's just just so versatile and such a reliable plant at this time dear. As I said, the top tip for them is to just remove any leaves that get slightly discolored as soon as you see it and that encourages them to to freshen up, put out more flower, put out more leaf growth. So helibores is a definite to put on your list.

Speaker 1: 12:02

Other flowering plants at this time of the year you're looking at things like um saracaca. That's really nice at this time of the year. You'll see that a lot in garden centers in full flower this time of year and again useful in pots, will flower for a period of time. Nice scent off it, which again is unusual at this time of the year. That's a really good one.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Saracocca, uh, daphnes, a lot of the daphnes, and there is a huge array of these available. You get small ones, dwarf ones, that will be, you know, just a couple of foot high, and then you'll get them right up to big, kind of bushy, almost large shrub type, semi, semi, small, tree type size, and you'll have loads of different colors in those as well. They'll typically be end of December before you start to see flower, but they're, you know, really really nice flowers at that time. Then you have the mahonias. They're brilliant mahonia japonica. There there's loads of different varieties of those, again in various different sizes.

Speaker 1: 13:06

You can get small ones or ones that will grow really, really tall, um, you know, up to up to kind of two meters high, or even a little bit bigger, and they're hugely beneficial. And you, you won't actually notice this for maybe a good few years after you little bit bigger. And they're hugely beneficial. And you won't actually notice this for maybe a good few years after you plant one, but when they're fully formed, fully grown, and they have a lot of flower on them, at this time of year they're actually very, very attractive to bees. And again, you, you wouldn't see a huge amount of bees out in sort of december or january, but when they start to come out next springtime and you know, on the earlier days like february and things like that, they'll flock to those. So hugely beneficial for early pollinators coming out and, yeah, really hardy, reliable plant as well.

Speaker 1: 13:50

So a great flower this time of year um, again, one that's going to be slightly later, it's not going to be pre-christmas, it's, generally speaking, going to be into probably january. Heading for february is witch hazel and they're beautiful, really, really nice yellow flowers and unusual, really nice and unusual at that time of year. And obviously then we're starting to kick off into into spring flowering stuff from from then on. But to keep it to, you know, what can look good at this time of the year and I'm trying to keep it to December or at the very least early January, and when we're looking at that time period, we really are looking at, you know, a lot of the bedding type plants and they can be, you know, really really stunning at this plants and they can be, you know, really really stunning at this time of year and give a really give a great lift and some of the, some of the better ones, obviously pansies are. You can get a huge array of color in them. Anybody can grow them, simple to grow, brilliant in pots. Can also be stuck in beds again. If you have flower beds near your front door or your or your, you know wherever you're going in and out. If you're able to flower up a lot of that, it can look really good at this time of year and give, as I say, a real great cheer. Pansy is super reliable, easy to grow. Anybody can grow them, even if you're not an experienced gardener like this person asked.

Speaker 1: 15:13

Viola, sort of a cousin of of the pansy, I find the viola is actually a bit better. It's slightly tidier, a little bit more flowers for a little bit longer. Yeah, it's just a little bit more solid at this time of the year. It doesn't get blown around, has a lot more flowers. They're, generally speaking, quite a bit smaller but there's a lot more of them and I think it's that small flower that means it doesn't get damaged or blown around as much as, say, a pansy would. So viola, for in my opinion, is a better version of you know, to give you a flower that time of year. I this week now will plant quite a few violas into different pots. Lots of use them for, you know things like grave pots at this time of the year and, yeah, they're a brilliant, brilliant plant.

Speaker 1: 16:03

Other things that you can get at this time of the year you can get, obviously, polyanthus and primrose. They're mostly not going to be fully flowering yet They'll be starting to peep their flowers, but from late December onwards they'll be starting to push out a lot of flower and they will flower reliably right through till next April, may and you know great, great one at this time of year. Cyclamens are another one. You get loads of them in the garden centers at this stage of the year really bright, beautiful flower. I find them a little bit finicky myself. You know, in terms of they, they don't like the weather too much. They're probably coming out of you know, basically greenhouses where they have got everything that they could possibly want, and you know they come outside and then they, they get the reality of the of the Irish winter and they get battered a little bit. So yeah, they're not not wonderful in my opinion. They look great when you take them out, but they just don't have any longevity in my eyes.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Then you're starting to look at some of the bulbs which are starting to flower at this stage, so you can get some early flowering narcissi and snowdrops. You get those flowering at this stage and, again, snowdrops if you're interested in something that's going to be a really early flower. Robert in Alton Mount has a huge collection of snowdrops now and he will have snowdrops and probably narcissiidae that are going to be flowering at this time of the year and you know you can get those and have them flowering at this stage every year going forward. So, yeah, they're kind of the good ones.

Speaker 1: 17:39

Another really good one at this time of year is headers, and when you go to your garden center you will see you've heard me, you know anyone that's listening for a long time I will have spoken on this before you'll have your natural flowering headers and they look great at this time of year. I think they're a really bright and vibrant color again. Reliable, really hardy, will flower for a long period of time, simple to grow pretty much will grow anywhere. And then, of course, you will see the sprayed ones and I cannot understand why anybody would buy a sprayed plant, but they're there out in garden centers. I certainly don't recommend that you buy those. I don't understand why, when there is such beautiful flowering plants you know, in headers at this stage of the year why you'd feel you'd have to spray it in a certain colour. But anyway, they're the ones, and the ones that I'd be recommending are the natural Erychicarnias, which will be available in whites, pinks, reds, beautiful flowers, really tough plants will grow anywhere, will grow in a pot, will flower reliably for years to come and they have very, very little maintenance or work with them. So they're kind of great ones for this time of year and for creating a little bit of flower. That's kind of more or less it in terms of.

Speaker 1: 19:00

You know, there is other flowering plants and I would have spoken about them in episode 246. But for for somebody who's looking to create just a bit of color around the house, for someone who's just looking to brighten up an entrance, brighten up, you know, around a patio or something like that, then that's a right collection of plants. That's a right collection of plants, really good collection of plants that you know will do that for you reliably, year after year, with very little care and without being, you know, without being a, you know, a green fingered gardener or whatever, you can do this really, really easily. So go through it again. Hellebores definite must, must have they're. They're superb at this time of year, really easy. Daphnies are good.

Speaker 1: 19:44

Again, lots of arrays of flowers. You can get them various sizes. Witch hazel, really interesting, one nice flower. Don't eat a lot of those, but certainly one or two specimens can be really nice. Saracocca brilliant at this time of the year, really nice at the entrance to your house, giving that bit of scent, as I said. Then the bedding plants, the pansies, the violas, polyanthus, primrose, cyclamens and, you know, the colored headers, the natural colored headers, as I say, and any of those will, will brighten up, brighten up the around the house at this time of the year. The other thing, as I mentioned before, don't just necessarily stick to plants for brightening it up. And, as Sandra Cofola said a long, long time ago on one of the earlier episodes, at this time of the year the bullfinches, the goldfinches will give fantastic color and they're certainly doing that at the moment in my garden on the feeders. So your wild bird feeders're certainly doing that at the moment in my garden on the feeders. So your wild bird feeders, if you have those at the moment.

Speaker 1: 20:47

It's not flower, it's not color, or it's not flower, it's not a plant, but it certainly is an interest and it certainly is color and fun and vibrancy and life at this time of the year and it's certainly worth looking at. For any of you that are watching on youtube, you'll see beside me here the poster with the, with the irish birds and the gold finches on it and bull finches on it, and you can see all the the various colors that you can get. You know from all the various colors you can get from just having birds in your garden and that is as I say. It's, it's not flower, but it's a. It's a different interest, it's a different color. This time dear.

Speaker 1: 21:23

So, yeah, right, rather sharp, short episode this week. Couple of interesting ones as we wind down towards christmas. A great response to last week's episode, which I think could be wrong, but I think it was the longest ever episode in terms of length that I recorded. I think it was an hour and 11 minutes or around 12 minutes, something like that, but it was um, some really interesting gardening gifts there and yeah, I think, yeah, really yeah, it was a really interesting chat and I enjoyed it, enjoyed listening back to it actually when I was, when I was um editing it.

Speaker 1: 21:57

So over the next couple of weeks I'll do the usual, I do a kind of a summation of the gardening year, do a summation of the podcast this year, um, you know the sort of top episodes of the year, and then we wind down towards towards christmas over the next couple of weeks and, uh, yeah, that's the sort of plan.

Speaker 1: 22:21

We're on the wind down now a couple of couple of well, we still have four episodes between now and christmas and then back at it, back at it in january.

Speaker 1: 22:30

But, um, yeah, this week's episodes covers that simple thing of having a bit of color which, can you know, really really does brighten up the place this time of year. Obviously we've loads of, you know, really really does brighten up the place at this time of year. Obviously we've loads of Christmas lights, christmas decorations and so on, but to have a little bit of flower that gives that a little bit of cheer, I think at this time of year, is a really beneficial thing around the house. So, as I say, it wasn't a listener's question. It was a question that a friend of mine essentially asked me is there any way of getting a bit of color? But I thought some of the rest of you might find some benefit in it. So I hope that helped and hoped it helped you to get you know some bit of a an idea into how to get a bit of color around the house. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening.