It's December in the garden!

I never thought I’d have much to write about my garden in December. I don’t tend to plant much for winter interest and usually at this time of year I’m just refilling bird feeders and bird baths. So this year I’m so excited that I’ve been gardening through the month, and have lots to look forward to in spring!

I planted the last of my bulbs this month, I had to buy some new pots to accommodate them all! They’re looking lush already thanks to Lizzie’s tip of planting winter bedding plants over the top. I also filled my borders so can’t wait for the bulbs to come through. I’m still getting used to arranging them in a natural way so fingers crossed for when they bloom next year.

We’ve had a couple of weeks of snow here in the North East, which suddenly disappeared overnight so I’ve spent a lot of time checking plants for any damage. Thankfully, I’ve been keeping up with Lizzie’s stories and saw that I didn’t need to open the greenhouses in the frost so hopefully this has saved some of my geraniums.

I honestly can’t say enough about the TRPG Flower Seed Advent Calendar. I treated myself to this back when it first launched on the website this year after FOMO last year and I’m so glad I did. I’ve made a Pinterest board with pictures of all the fabulous plants so far to give me a bit of inspo!

I have quite a small garden so some of the seeds from the calendar will be shared with family and friends, but so far I’m very excited for Nigella Delft Blue - I grew Nigella Miss Jeckyll this year but love the dappled periwinkle of these flowers - and the Saponaria varieties. I was super surprised and excited to see some of the more sprawling plants but also the climbers like Morning Glory Heavenly Blue - the more blue the better in my opinion!

I was looking back at some of my garden inspo Pinterest boards and found lots of gardens with Oxeye Daisy, so I’m thrilled that these were in the advent calendar too. They really are a quintessential flower for British summer!

The new TRPG stock drop is STUNNING! I’m normally one for the blue and white colour scheme with a pop of pink but can’t get over how gorgeous the Astilbe 'Amethyst' is. It goes without saying that I’ve already ordered, I haven’t had the best track record with bare roots but I'm going to give Bleeding Heart White another go (fingers crossed for me please!) and give some new varieties a try. I’m especially looking forward to Peony 'Angel Cheeks' and Salvia 'Amethyst'. I was a bit chaotic with my ordering and haven’t decided where I’m going to plant these yet but that’s a nice problem for future me to solve.

Overall, I think this is the most excited I’ve been about gardening at this time of year, thanks to the advent calendar, Lizzie’s tips and the December stock update. If you didn't know already, there’s now a TRPG app too, so I’ll be giving this a go to keep me going through the darker months and looking forward to my 2023 garden.