I’ve hung a wreath on my front door and twined some fairy lights over the olive tree. It can only mean one thing: winter is here. I’ve plundered the garden for as many natural embellishments as I can find, and they are waiting on the kitchen table until I have time to turn them into decorations. In fact, I did have an early burst of festive creativity, because I had a small stand at a Christmas preview evening in mid-November, hosted by my talented gardening friend Tracey Mathieson at her barn shop, Foxtail Lilly, in Oundle. I took some boxes of my tea towels and cards, and planted up some vintage bowls and containers with hyacinths, cyclamen and paper whites which I displayed and sold alongside my designs.
I’d been collecting these lettered basins and jars throughout the year, and they proved very popular. I sold them all, and lots of tea towels too (although I do still have some left, so please do contact me on fionacumberpatch0@gmail.com if you’d like to order. A few people have been asking! I don’t have a web shop – yet!).
The garden hung on into late November, before frosts finally took the dahlias and the thunbergia. I was late in planting my spring bulbs, but these are all now in their pots (although if I do spot any in the sale section at the garden centre, I’m still buying and popping them in).
I put some winter flowering plants on the table by the back door, to bring some cheer and colour.
Inside, the aeoniums and pelargoniums are tucked up safely out of the cold. They don’t love being in the house, but they wouldn’t survive outside in my unheated greenhouse. I also have three citrus trees squashed into a corner of the kitchen, quite the plant party.
Yesterday, I was invited along to a local garden centre to take part in a wreath workshop. Gates Garden Centre is situated on the border of Leicestershire and Rutland in very pretty countryside with gently rolling hills. We were based in a large, warm glasshouse, which had been nicely set up with everything you could possibly need to make a festive wreath. I spent a very calming two hours working on my creation.
I chose Nordmann fir and lots of other evergreen foliage, blue eryngiums and dried oranges to wire on to the mossy wreath base. We learned lots of helpful tips and tricks to make everything stay firmly in place.
As I arrived home and was carefully unloading my wreath from the car, a passer by stopped and told me that this was the nicest wreath he’d ever seen. He wanted to know where I’d got it from, and what all the plants were. I felt as if I was at the start of a Hallmark Christmas movie – all it needed was some snow to start falling and a choir singing carols!
Here’s the wreath hanging on the door. The first part of the preparations complete – with many more to come.