Innehållsförteckning för December 2024 från BBC Gardeners' World

Conifers are superb garden plants. Wait! Come back! Don’t turn the page… And that’s the problem. The reputation of the Leyland cypress has tainted our view of conifers – it grows far too tall, far too fast. And my advice is never, ever plant a Leyland cypress. You may have the time, energy and skill – or the savings – to keep it from towering over your home, but will the next people to live in your house be the same? Probably not. Here’s the thing. The Leyland cypress is just one variety of conifer out of thousands. There are many other options: varieties that are well-behaved, elegant in shape, attractive in their foliage and, yes, slow growing. So forget about the Leyland cypress. Other conifers to forget are ‘dwarf…

HOT TOPIC Wildlife concerns I would love to feed wild birds, but living close to the edge of a village very near fields and woods, all I get are jackdaws, devouring anything I put out. I can get up to 20 at one time. The small birds don’t get a look in. I have tried squirrel-proof feeders, but they just hang on to it and poke their beaks through to the food. I find it very depressing not to be able to put out feeders. The jackdaws eat everything in a matter of minutes. So I envy you Monty, being able to feed and attract such a variety of birds (Full Monty, November issue). Leona Drayton, Somerset Has anybody else noticed the lack of garden spiders this year? Usually my…

Classic with a twist Traditionalists will love this red, gold and green display created around the Christmas rose. This compact arrangement gains height and texture from the orange-stemmed conifer, while low mounds of the shiny-leaved and russet-flowered skimmia, the red-berried gaultheria and the red-green foliage of the bergenia give polish and warmth. The blue-tinted euphorbia adds a twist woven through the lower levels and draping on the silver-grey pot. With dense planting like this, rain may not penetrate, so water it regularly. Festive glow Terracotta combined with warm-toned flowers and foliage creates a seasonal glow on cold days. Peachy-pink violas are the small but sugar-sweet stars of the show, their bronze centres picked up by the libertia’s jaunty ruff. Deadhead violas regularly to promote flowering. Contrasting colours come from the…

Placeholders When decorating your festive table it doesn’t need to stop with a central arrangement. There are lots of lovely little extras that you can add. When our friends and family sit down to eat, I want the place settings to look personal. Follow these easy steps with a gorgeous selection of foliage and make your table look extra special. 1 Gather a selection of foliage, herbs or dried flowers. Here, I’ve focused on herbs such as bay, rosemary and thyme but use whatever you fancy. If you are creating another arrangement, try to use the offcuts to reduce waste. 2 Create small bunches of foliage and secure the end with twine or ribbon. Attach a name card to the twine or thread it through the stems. Make this centrepiece…

SAVE £21 when you buy 3 Loved for their striking winter beauty, hellebores will survive the coldest of weather, poking their heads up above the snow. Blousy, cup-shaped double blooms appear above glossy, evergreen foliage throughout winter and into spring, providing your garden with colour. Perfect for planting in shady borders and containers or underneath trees and shrubs. Choose from the following varieties: ◼ Helleborus x hybridus ‘Double Ellen White Spotted’ Delicate maroon flecks are sprinkled across the frothy double layer of milky-white flowers, framed by glossy evergreen leaves. Height x Spread 35cm x 35cm Flowers Feb-Apr 1 plant in 9cm pot £14 (K25738) ◼ Helleborus x hybridus ‘Double Ellen Purple’ Leathery, dark-green leaves with double, lightly speckled, deep-purple flowers. H x S 35cm x 35cm F Feb-Apr 1 plant in 9cm pot…

■ Potter like a pro My favourite thing at this time of year is to retreat to the greenhouse with a cup of tea, put on a radio drama and set about a task that requires little concentration, such as cleaning labels or sorting out the shelf above my potting bench. I line up dibbers, pencils, clean labels and tools in a row of pots, ready for spring. ■ Get creative for Christmas The potting bench is the perfect place to make the Christmas wreath. I have all the tools to hand and can load a bucket with holly, myrtle, beech twigs and rose hips from the garden. ■ Warm up with the washing up If I’m pottering in the greenhouse and it starts to get a bit too chilly…

Mulch borders Load up wheelbarrows and trugs now to spread a layer of mulch on the borders. When beds are permanently planted, this is the only way to replenish organic matter and improve the soil over the long term. The benefits to soil and plants are many, and include: weed suppression, moisture conservation, and additional nutrient and soil structure improvement for root growth. Weed the ground first and leave the surface clear for a few days while the birds feed on larvae, and slug and snail eggs near the surface. The ideal time to mulch is after a spell of rain. Avoid frozen conditions as the mulch will keep the cold in. Shovel the mulch onto the soil and use a rake to even it out to a depth of…

Water your winter crops Water plants very carefully in the greenhouse during winter. It’s so easy to overwater and then lose plants due to root rot. When plants are growing actively, they need to take in water to cool the cell tissue – it runs through the plant and evaporates off the surface of the leaves. But in winter, especially under glass where there’s no wind, they need much less water. Always feel the soil or compost before watering. Leave the watering cans full so that when you water again, it is the same temperature as the plant. Water at ground level or into the pots to avoid splashing the leaves, which can lead to rot. QUICK SOLUTIONS Make a stock of fresh young pelargoniums to pot up at the…

December is the first month of meteorological winter. This might well sound depressing, but in fact this is exciting news for gardeners because it’s time to begin pruning most dormant shrubs and trees. The leaves have well and truly gone, so you can now see the framework of branches and stems, making it easier to shape, clear and decongest specimens that need it. And making those cuts now allows the plant to direct its growth where you want it next year. Lots of fruit trees, including pears and apples, are best pruned at this time of year. However, leave plums and cherries until the summer. Grapevines will also need cutting back hard around now, as they will bleed sap from cuts made in early spring and perhaps even late winter…

Christmas colour These four indoor bloomers make ideal festive gifts, but they’re a bit muddled. First, can you unscramble the anagrams, then can you match each name to the right photo? Making mincemeat Here are six tasty ingredients commonly used to make mincemeat. Unfortunately numbers have replaced the letters. Can you crack the code? Going nuts Can you find 10 nuts you might enjoy as a Christmas treat? You are looking for: ALMOND BRAZIL CASHEW CHESTNUT HAZELNUT PEANUT PECAN PINE NUT PISTACHIO WALNUT Step by step By changing one letter each time to make a new word, can you turn FIGS into NUTS? Hidden flavours Using each letter in the grid below once, can you spell out three herbs and three spices traditionally used in Christmas cooking? We’ve supplied one…

As we were putting the finishing touches to this issue, I was struck by how our individual traditions play such a big part in the way we all experience and enjoy the festive period. I was fascinated to learn that Monty looks forward to Christmas as his (and Longmeadow’s) only real time of rest, and that for Alan a real Christmas tree is always a must. But that’s not the same for everyone, as our debate on p20 reveals. It goes to show that we all have our own ways of doing things. We’re hosting our festivities at home, which we haven’t done for a few years, so my family is excited. There’s been a lot of debate about where the tree will go (real for us), what we’ll do…

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Stocking fillers… Watering spike Made by a World Fair Trade Organization enterprise, this wildlife-inspired terracotta spike helps you water house plants efficiently and healthily. Fill with water and insert in the soil to irrigate plants even when you’re away. £8.99, namaste-uk.com Leather keyring Ensure keys are easy to find with a personalised leather keyring. In a host of colours, these are handmade from smaller sections of the hide that would usually be discarded. £8 each, rheamore.co.uk Kitchen Garden Planner Beautifully illustrated with a different crop for each month, this spiral-bound 2025 wall calendar has plenty of space for each day. £9.99, emmabridgewater.co.uk Bee patch Help bee lovers brighten up a jacket, hat or bag with this easy iron-on patch. Letterbox-friendly, this sweet bumble bee needs no sewing skills to attach…

As we hurtle toward the end of the solar year and the winter solstice, when the days start to grow longer again, I can’t help but think ahead to the plot in 2025, dreaming up ideas and starting to make lists of new crops to try. Going forward, I’m going to lean even further into hassle-free crops that give the highest yields for the lowest amount of work. For me, this means more mangetouts, beans, tomatoes and winter-storing squashes. Perennial edibles have always been high up my list and increasingly I’m going to concentrate on these too, such as raspberries, asparagus and nuts. I’ll grow fewer labour-intensive potatoes and anything that needs loads of kitchen prep before it can be eaten. Up here in Yorkshire we’ve had really unpredictable weather…

Save up to £29.97 Begonias bring long-lasting summer colour to containers, hanging baskets and bedding displays. The tubers will be delivered from February COLLECTION COMPRISES: ◼ Begonia Giant Picotee Mix Large flowers up to 15cm across with layers of elaborate, ruffled petals with a picotee edge. Height x Spread 40cm x 40cm Flowers Jul-Oct ◼ Begonia Pendula Mix The pendulous stems of these trailing begonias are smothered by enormous double flowers. H x S 30cm x 30cm F Jul-Oct ◼ Begonia Fimbriata Mix Vibrant blooms with crimped edges produced on sturdy plants throughout summer. H x S 30cm x 30cm F Jul-Oct ◼ Begonia Non-Stop Mix Fully double flowers in a mixture of five vibrant colours. Rich, chocolate-coloured foliage. H x S 30cm x 30cm F Jul-Oct ◼ Begonia Apricot Shades Improved Large,…

Plant bare-root blackberry canes Plant bare-root blackberry canes for a supply of fruit in your garden rather than having to forage for fruits in your local hedgerows. Bare-root plants, available from November to spring, are easy to plant and usually cheaper than potted plants. Cultivated blackberries are often thornless, with bigger and fleshier fruits than their hedgerow cousins. They need plenty of room, with a run of up to a 2.5m per plant, on wires held taut between posts or grown along a fence or wall. Grow easy varieties such as ‘Loch Ness’, ‘Bedford Giant’ or ‘Merton Thornless’. Look for the newer self-supporting upright varieties such as ‘Navaho’ if you are short of space. Plant in free-draining soil and preferably in full sun; however, these berries are more tolerant of…

Pick Brussels sprouts Winter frosts make Brussels sprouts taste sweeter, so if temperatures have recently plummeted, now will be a good time to pick some of yours. Start from the bottom of the plant, holding each sprout firmly and tugging it downwards to snap it off cleanly. Older leaves can be snapped off to tidy the plant at the same time. Pick a few sprouts from each plant, moving higher as you go through the season. The last pick can be the top of the plant, which makes a tasty spring vegetable. Lift and divide rhubarb plants Now is a good time to split or otherwise move rhubarb. Splitting roots reinvigorates old, congested plants, and is also a cheap way of starting new patches. Dig around the outside of the…

This month 126 Gardeners’ Question Time The BBC Radio 4 experts answer this month’s pick of readers’ queries, including: ◼ Growing Japanese anemones from seed ◼ How to get an amaryllis to rebloom ◼ Planting in areas prone to flooding Split potatoes I’ve never heard as many complaints about a tricky growing summer as I did here in the UK this year. Weeks of unrelenting cool temperatures and rain were followed by unpredictable showers and, finally, dry days and heat. Certain crops, such as cucumbers and tomatoes were named as underperforming or fruiting very late. When weather conditions change rapidly it can be just as hard for our plants to adapt as for us. This results in a range of disturbed-growth disorders (symptoms produced independently of a pest or pathogen), including…

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Incredible as it seems to me, there are some people who actually like and enjoy the month of December. I tip my hat to them as they manage to make the most of what is, by any measure, a dismal, dreadful month. But let’s not be too gloomy. I like Christmas and I like the way that the early evenings mean I can spend much more time in my workshop making things like hurdles and gates for summer use without the siren call of the garden and all its urgent needs whispering in my ear. December passes with a big sigh of relief and January brings a new year, new hope and, at Longmeadow at least, a surge of busyness as we prepare for the new season of filming that…

I hope not. I absolutely love the run up to Christmas, and one of my favourite things is decorating my home in anticipation of the big day. I always have at least one wreath made from locally sourced, natural materials, adorned with a naturally dyed silk ribbon. I also have an antique urn in the hallway, which I fill with an arrangement of branches and dried flowers – I remake it every winter and eventually take it apart in the spring. I’ve moved away from large cut trees, but I’m afraid I can’t quite bring myself to turn my back on the tradition of a Christmas tree altogether. There is something about the smell of fresh pine and the twinkling of fairy lights that, to me, seems magical. “There is…

A cornucopia of conifers Young conifers make great year-round plants for pots – they need little attention, can cope with dry conditions and come in a wide range of colours, shapes and textures. I chose lemon-scented, lime-yellow Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Goldcrest’ and blue-green Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Ellwoodii’ to provide height, bushy blue-green juniper ‘Blue Alps’, and weeping Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Sungold’ to cascade over the side. Along one edge I added a row of hardy succulents. Then for a splash of festive colour there’s red-berried Gaultheria procumbens, which thrives on regular watering with rainwater.. TOP TIPS…

grow something different Matthew Pottage Matthew Pottage is the Head of Horticulture and Landscape Strategy at London’s Royal Parks and a BBC Radio 4 Gardeners’ Question Time panellist. He was formerly the curator of RHS Garden Wisley and is a horticultural consultant and author. Find him on Instagram @matt.pottage Give this little-known shrub a warm, sunny spot in your garden, says Matthew Pottage, and it’ll reward you in the depths of winter with bright yellow flowers that have the most wonderful fragrance I adore the element of surprise that this shrub brings. For much of the summer it’s a green, unassuming kind of character, and then in autumn when the leaves fall, you’ll notice silky, silvery flower buds on the branch tips. These open to form round clusters of small yellow…

Foliage wreath Every year I like to make a foliage wreath. It really gets me in the festive spirit. I love the Scandinavian style of creating something simple but natural and beautiful. For this wreath, I have used a gorgeous selection of foliage that can be grown or foraged in the UK. I usually put this style of wreath on my front door, so I always use materials that can withstand the wind and rain. This wreath will also dry over time, if you wish to keep it long term. You’ll need ■ 25cm reusable wire base ■ Natural twine ■ Secateurs ■ Sustainably-sourced sphagnum moss ■ Fresh foliage such as eucalyptus, mimosa, pine, spruce pine, rosemary, pittosporum and Leptospermum scoparium ■ Ribbon Gypsophila wreath Another wreath I like is…

Plant cyclamen in pots Cheer up the patio or an empty space near an entrance by planting pots with bedding cyclamen. Cyclamen sold in garden centres now are hybrids that will tolerate a light frost and add cheerful flowers through the rest of winter, as long as they are given good drainage. Place them in a sheltered spot, ideally near a house wall, and grow them in peat-free multi-purpose compost, with a couple of good handfuls of grit mixed into the compost for each pot. TOP TIP Remove weeds then place bark mulch on the soil surface around plants such as hellebores so that their flowering display will look as good as possible. Cut off old leaves that would otherwise spoil the plant at flowering. Remove infected rose leaves Pull…

Keep Christmas cacti happy Unlike most cacti, Christmas cacti come from rainforests, so keep them out of direct sun and in high humidity, at about 18-20°C. Position them away from draughts too, as air movement can cause the buds to drop off and let the compost dry out between waterings. If you buy a new plant now, choose one with lots of buds so it will flower over the whole festive season. After flowering, move it to a cooler room and stop watering until March. In summer, put it in a shady spot outside. Give it another short, cool rest from watering in September, then bring it indoors ready to flower over Christmas. 30 MINUTES TO SPARE Place plants that are in centrally heated rooms on a tray of pebbles topped…

Pippa Greenwood One of the top experts on pests and diseases, Pippa gardens using organic methods. Christine Walkden Garden writer Christine appears on BBC1’s The One Show. She is also a lecturer and tour leader. Matthew Pottage Matthew is Head of Horticulture and Landscape Strategy at The Royal Parks. Q What can I plant to soak up intermittent flooding? Ken, Central Scotland A MATT SAYS These situations seem to be more frequent across the country these days. Happily, many of the willows and dogwoods with colourful winter stems cope well with intermittently waterlogged conditions, so you can achieve a little bit of winter ‘wow’ factor in this situation. Try some of the Cornus alba and C. sanguinea cultivars, and for the willows, consider Salix alba var. vitellina ‘Britzensis’ or Salix…