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Your Garden during December, Three C’s to Consider.

Even though the days seem shorter and most plants seem to be asleep, there is still plenty of ways to become involved with your garden during December.
For starters, try my three C’s.

Containers
Containers such as terracotta pots, window boxes and hanging baskets, which were filled with colour during the summer, need not be forgotten during December. There are a wide variety of plants available right now in your local garden centre, which can be used to add some doorstep/windowsill colour and brightness. Seek out Cyclamen (white/pink), Polyanthus (all colours) and the seasonal ornamental cabbages, as well as the more permanent evergreen container plants such as Ivies, goldcrest conifers and heathers.

Also, don’t forget to add in plenty of that winter wonder bedder known as the universal pansy. The various pansy flowers cover a colour spectrum spanning around nineteen colours, plus any number of bicolour and blotchy combinations. Aside from planting in window boxes, hanging baskets and pots, the pansy is also ideal to liven up sorry looking beds and borders.

I find that at this time of year the most effective and spirit lifting colours within the pansies range are lemon yellow, bright orange and sky blue. When visiting the garden centre for your pansies and other winter container plants, remember to purchase fresh planting compost, instead of using the spent leftovers from your summer bedding.

. The open bloom of the climbing rose Zephirine Drouhin , photo / pic / image.


Climbing plants.
Lots of climbers can be quite readily planted in December, amongst them the climbing rose. Fine examples of climbing roses that you can plant right now include Iceberg (white and lightly fragrant), Galway Bay (pink and lightly fragrant) and the immensely popular Zephirine Drouhin (rose pink, highly fragrant and THORNLESS).

One word of warning when planting these climbing roses or any roses in fact, and that is to avoid planting into areas where roses were once grown. This is because roses can suffer from replant disease also known as soil sickness, where a replacement rose fails to establish properly in whatever place an old one once grew. So, give the climbing rose a new planting location or none at all.

Apart from climbing roses, all the other climbers within your garden will require a small touch of attention during early December. There’s nothing like a whipping winter wind to cause havoc across the soft and lanky stems of climbers. However, the simple measure of ensuring that these plants are securely tied to their supports and trellising will protect them from that wind damage.

Continue planting.
Trees, shrubs, hedging and perennials of all sorts can still be planted now. Don’t be put off by the fact that your garden is a bit dreary looking and the outdoor temperatures are a tad too low for your liking.

Wrap up warm with a few layers of clothing, and then grab your spade to start planting. Within a few minutes of starting, you will have worked up a sweat, whereupon you will have to shed some of those clothing layers to cool yourself back down.

Planting during December will give you a jump on the garden for the upcoming year. A good group of plants to settle into your garden now are the spring blooming shrubs, which once planted will repay you quickly with New Year colour. Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Moerloosei’ (pink/white flowers), Spirea ‘Arguta’ (white flowers) and Cytisus x praecox ‘Allgold’ (yellow flowers) are shrubs which I would recommend for planting throughout December.
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