I’ve had a busy week tidying up my patio pots, throwing out the summer plants and potting up the Geum ‘Mrs Bradshaw’ and Achillea ‘Terracotta’ from the large containers into smaller pots to overwinter. I’ve put a variety of spring bulbs – tulips, daffodils, Muscari and crocus into the empty pots. A bit like seeing a blank piece of paper that needs to be filled in I have an aversion to pots with nothing but a gravel topping.
I took a visit to our local garden center and had a spend up! We have an issue with squirrels here, hence one of the pots with pea and bean netting on it. I ran out of plants hence it just being gravel (for the time being). The Christmas shop was so full of goodies, I couldn’t resist buying a few little robins! They might not deter the magpies and pigeons, but they are fun. Above are just a few of my winter pots, there are another six on the other side, but they are still full of flowering geraniums so not ready for winter just yet.
My Six on Saturday are the components of three of the pots, which are now also draped in lights, in case you wonder what the green wiring is, making them look very pretty in the evenings – in my humble opinion anyway.
Pot one
1. Variegated Osmanthus
2. Hellebore Nigra
When hunting for hellebores I found it frustrating that the larger garden centres such as Wyevale and Hilliers sell them in large pots between £11-£13. All I wanted was a couple of small ones, and was delighted to find them in Keydell nurseries, in Hordean at £3 a pot. There I also found osmanthus at £2.80 and a couple of ivies for under £2; that is the difference between a local independent nursery and chains.
Pot Two
3. Winter cherry – Solanum pseudocapsicum
4. Gaultheria
5. Mini Cyclamen
The Winter Cherries look like mini tomatoes but give height and brightness to the display with contrast to the dark red cyclamen and gaultheria berries. None of the plants will fill out as much as summer bedding but I am hoping they will grow a little bigger.
Pot Three
6. Skimmia Japonica ‘Rubella’ and more cyclamen
There is always a plethora of red, white and pink cyclamens in garden centres but I fell in love with the unusual very dark red variety and they particularly go well with the Skimmia.
Please pay a visit to The Propagator’s Blog who not only hosts the weekly Six on Saturday, has lots of other really interesting and informative blog posts.
