Post Comment Love 5 - 7 December

Hello there, and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

Thanks for your good wishes last week, they have worked and my cold seems to have turned a corner. I feel less washed out, and haven’t needed to cancel things this week and managed to head back to my usual exercise classes, though opting for a Reformer Pilates class rather than a Yoga session, as I still wasn’t that sure that putting my head upside down would be a good thing!

It’s also been good to see some sun again - and feel its warmth - after lots of rain and a good few grey days. I did smile as I stepped out the back door though and noticed that the new olive tree seems to have found the sliver of sunlight, which I think can only be a good thing.

Have a great week.

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My garden in November

I didn’t get around to sorting out my bulbs while the weather was still mild, even though that mild weather lasted a good couple of weeks into the month. Realistically it’s unlikely that I’ll get to them this year, so that means this season but it’s definitely a job for once they’ve finished flowering. I think they’ll flower ok this winter, but would benefit from a repot and some attention.

With the end of the more tropical November weather ending our focus was getting the garden ready for winter, which meant moving a lot of pots around. Those which I’d dotted around the garden to test out locations have now mostly moved back into the shelter and additional cover of the established border, but I was pleased to spot the burgundy Mottisfont rose trying with another bloom. It’s still trying and I’m not sure if it’ll succeed or not, if it does I’ll nab a photo. But that attempt did secure it a spot where we can just about see it from the window!

My succulents are now overwintering in the gym, as they did last year. This year they’re in larger pots and have been joined by the bargain chilli plant (20p and not a chilli in sight yet!) and two young Amaryllis plants from my dad.

There’s actually nine pots in there this winter, and without it feeling overrun with plants so that’s something. I’ve made use of our new garden table and some surplus gym flooring for some of the pots, others are alongside the windows - and most importantly I must remember to set a reminder to check on them and water them, though much less than in the summer months.

Elsewhere in the garden things are growing, or not growing as you’d expect. The small crab apple has shed its leaves but not yet all of its fruits, so it looks a bit like a strange Christmas decoration - I need to look into and potentially make time for pruning this, as the poor thing really did have its work cut out with all the fruit this year, and some of the branches are twice as long as they were.

In, what I deemed the ‘sick bay’ both of my once yellowing bay trees have recovered brilliantly and are so much more healthy than they were back in May. It’s amazing what some light, regular watering and a bit of a feed can do isn’t it?

What I didn’t realise though until I moved this one into the gym, is that it’s had babies or extra blooms at least under the main growth (next to the blue mat in the picture), when it was on the patio we only looked at it from the other side so it just goes to show there’s benefits in many different viewpoints, and more specifically it’s a reminder to rotate my pots!

Nottinghamshire's tropical garden

Yes, you read that right. A while back I spotted Honeytrees tropical garden in a local Facebook group, and my interest was piqued. It’s close to us, a little over ten miles away and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine anything quite so lush, or tropical so close by. I also spotted that they planned to open every weekend in August as part of the National Garden Scheme. As MOH has long had a hankering for including a banana tree in the plans for our garden it made sense to go along - we managed to get there on the last day of August, and their last day of opening for the year - phew.

It was amazing. Packed full of plants, and then some more on top of that.

And on this chilly December day I thought I could do with a burst of tropical colour. What I didn’t really expect to see though was some roses, but I did.

The garden was packed full of plants and structures including a viewing platform - and while it was a relatively large plot it wasn’t overly huge. It just goes to show that you really can transform spaces with some thought, and a lot of passion.

For MOH it’s the colour of the cannas, and the scale of the banana plants that appeal to him. For me it’s the multicoloured foliage and less than usual shapes.

And as we went around the garden, each turn wowed us more. I’m not about to turn my plot into a tropical garden - I’ve seen how much work goes into this garden - but I would like to incorporate some of the plants we saw when we visited.

Maybe not a monkey tree though…

With so many tropical plants and not so tropical winters, many of the plants needed to be sheltered at this time of year. There were a lot of pots, but also a lot of plants already in hot houses, which were already pretty hot back in August.

The work I mentioned before included lots of propagation, and I mean lots!

Some of the plants were for sale, and we were sorely tempted. But in the end we left empty handed but with a bit more knowledge about caring for the plants, and knowing that we’d be back again to visit and at some point likely to be ready to make a purchase too, but not until we’ve got somewhere to overwinter it properly to give it the best chance of surviving, and that could be a little while yet - no doubt much to MOH’s frustration.