This week in the garden: pick flowers for the Christmas wreath

Remember those bags of

spring-flowering bulbs

that you enthusiastically bought earlier this year, now sadly mouldering away in some corner? For a decent display get these in the ground just as soon as you can. If you didn’t get as far as buying spring bulbs in the first place, it is a great time to take advantage of the generous discounts that garden centres are offering on remaining stock.

Collect thick blankets of

fallen leaves

from where they might harbour slugs/ snails and encourage fungal diseases. Rake any heavy falls off lawns as otherwise they will rob the grass of light, causing yellowing and patchy growth. Either add the collected leaves to the compost heap where they’re a very useful source of carbon or bag them to make leaf mould, to use as a brilliant soil conditioner.

Hydrangeas

loved this year’s cool, wet summer and mild, sunny autumn, with the result that many are still in flower as I write. Dried, these make a lovely addition to Christmas wreaths and garlands. Use a sharp secateurs to cut the stems and then sear the tips in boiling water for a minute, before placing them in a vase shallowly filled with water. Place the vase somewhere cool and away from direct sunlight for a few weeks, until the stems have absorbed all of the water, at which point the flowers should be nicely dried.

DATES FOR THE DIARY

Tuesday, December 1st

(8pm-9.30pm) SMA Hall, Wilton, Cork, It’s All About Plants, a talk by Hester Forde on behalf of the Irish Garden Plant Society, see

[ irishgardenplantsociety.com  ]

Friday, December 4th and Saturday, December 5th

(from 11am) Laurelmere Cottage, Marlay Park, Grange Road, Rathfarnham, the RHSI Flower Festival, “a celebration of everything Christmassy in the RHSI’s headquarters”. See

[ rhsi.ie ]