Final Autumn Planting of the season | Making a Christmas hanging basket

Hello and welcome back to the garden and you join me on a gorgeous blue sky day and it's the first decent day we've had in two weeks. We've had wind, rain, hail and for the last few days snow, ground hasn't frozen, it's been quite cold. I say that turning cheek because I know lots of you suffer way harsher temperatures than I ever do here in Northumberland but it's gorgeous today and it's an ideal time to finish off this top section of this new woodland border and the first plants that I'm going to add are these Carex grasses or sedges actually, that's what they are and these have been living in containers for quite a few years, they've got too big now so it's time to get them in the ground. This particular one, can't remember the name of it but I'll put it on the screen, they're incredibly hardy, they stay like this all winter for me, they never die back but even if you lived in a harsher climate they do grow back the following spring if they die back in the winter. So I'm going to add them, I've got three around these three variegated rhododendrons and I just think they'll contrast lovely and as the rhododendrons get larger and taller these will grow underneath and I think it'll give a nice display. So I'm going to add them in here and then around them I'll add the bulbs so let me plant these first, see what they look like and then we'll work out where the bulbs are going to go. Now this ground has never been cultivated before so I'm adding a little bit compost just to get the plants off to a good start. So the first bulb that I'm adding is a daffodil and it's an ice folly. One good thing about adding them this time of year you can get reductions in the garden centre and as long as they feel firm they'll flower. They may flower a little bit later because you're planting them so late but these ones grow to about 40 centimetres, what's that about 15-16 inches and they're a nice strong daffodil. They do seem to stand a windy spot like this is here, we do suffer from heavy winds or strong winds I should say and planting, obviously you plant them if you've done these before most of you probably have, about twice the depth of the size of the bulb, about four inches, four to five inches depending on the size and they recommend about three to four inches apart. I actually plant them closer in a clump because I want that kind of look. If you want a more naturalised look, if you're planting in a lawn that sort of situation, throw them up in the air and plant them where they land, it'll look quite natural but because I've got a particular approach here to planting I'm planting them in a clump and I'm adding about eight in that clump. The only other thing to add is that these are white daffodils with a yellow trumpet and if I've got a picture from last year because I've already got quite a few around this area I'll add it on the screen. So it's the next day and it's been a bit wet hence the cap. I called in yesterday to the garden centre to buy more of the reduced daffodils that I need for this area. I want to swamp this area with daffodils and I just don't have enough and I noticed that they had reductions on quite a few plants in particular the carex grasses so I've bought three more to have a drift around these other rhododendrons just like I did yesterday further up and eventually I'm going to weave them right through this section. So these again are the I think it's evergold rhododendrons, no label on this one but I'm pretty sure they're evergold and they're lovely and variegated which matches the variegation on the rhododendrons. Again hardy in my area I could have kept them to spring before I planted them out but because I have such mild winters I'm going to take the chance and just get them in the ground and if they do fail and they don't come back they were very cheap to buy but I'm pretty confident that they'll be fine. Over the last couple of weeks all my effort has been spent in the border on this side of the steps and I would say I'm about halfway down. On this side I haven't actually started yet other than the very top buxus balls which have been planted there for a couple of years now but I do want to recreate a similar type of look that I've got on this side where I've got the stumps at the top at this end so that's what I'm going to do next. This second woodland border at the top is quite small compared to the one on the other side. It does have some existing shrubs which have all got flowers on. These are three skimmiers that I added I think it was last year and two upper mediums at the front and an awful lot of snow drops and I think we've had moles through this area because they're all lying on the surface so I'll need to sort that out but the intention is to create a look similar to the other side by using these sections of tree limb tree stumps just like what I did on the other side. It's quite heavy so I'm just going to play around with them until I get the look that I'm after. Just adding the last of the tree stumps. Now this has worked out quite well because the established shrubs, these skimmiers and one hellebore that I've got in the middle there, they soften the area, they look quite good so I'm pleased with that. So I just need to put back the edging which marks out where the path is and where the border is, how the border starts and then I can add some plants. Now I have two plants that I can use around these tree stumps and I'm not quite sure what to use. Both have been dug out from elsewhere so I do need to get them in the ground. One is a lovely hellebore and I've found the label for this one and it's called shooting star. It's cream with a slight red tinge to the end of the petals and it's one of those gold collection hellebores which I had in a container last year and I find those particular ones more expensive to buy initially but they really do seem to survive wherever I put them. And the other option is another one of these dryopterous ferns and again this is being dug out of the shade borders on the other side and I think I'm going to go with that because I like the look of that around the stumps. So this shooting star hellebore is going to go right in here. It's got so many lovely flowers on it. I wanted to get it in the ground as quickly as possible before any more bad weather comes and I'll eventually add more hellebores to this small border in the near future. But now it's off to the potting shed and I'm going to start my first Christmas decoration for 2025. There's only so much gardening that even I can do in the rain in all of the mud but I thought this is the ideal opportunity heading towards the end of November to create the first Christmas decoration for 2025 and this will be a Christmas hanging basket. Not to be confused with a winter hanging basket which will be full of live plants, living plants. This is full of dead material which I've foraged from around the garden. You can see along the side here I've got all different types of greens that I've been cutting down over the last couple of weeks and I've been hedging. I save quite a bit of it for projects like this. Now this is a hanging basket, just a very old wicker hanging basket that I've had for many years. I've left the compost inside. I've just removed all of the annuals that were in there and this is just basically compost and nothing else and I thought it would be easier to work on top of this pot so I can spin it around to show you how I'm getting on. Now this old compost is quite moist because it's been outside in a pot but the first thing that I'm adding are anything that will drape, any greens that will drape and when I'm referring to greens I just mean any pieces of hedging that I've cut down and this will be all the way around the outside and this just happens to be lyondi hedging. I'm not using anything too heavy because obviously this has to hang on a bracket and I've got quite a good sturdy bracket but at the end of the day I don't want to pull it down so I'm being very careful about what I add. The next green that I'm adding again is more of a one to drape over the side. I think this is from a larch tree, there was a big branch that came down in one of our windstorms and I put it to one side because I knew that it would look good either in a hanging basket like this or in a container. I think it'll start to give more of a Christmassy feel when I go all the way around adding these. That's the last of this larch, I think it's larch green that I had. I'll just post that right down as far as I can go and I'm now going to fill in one more bit with another green. I think this one might be a cypress it's quite a pretty one it's got quite yellow tips to it but unfortunately you won't see that because it's going to be draping over the side so I'm just going to fill in again all the way around so I've got good coverage. That's the last of the cypress added to fill in. Now I'm going to add some, I think this is juniper, again to drape over the side. I'm basically just adding anything that I've got, I'm not following any format as such, just adding what I've got and I'm just making it look pretty. So the centre, you can see me above all of this greenery, is still empty. I've got some of these Japanese laurel, akuma hedge cuttings that could go in the middle, I think that would look quite pretty. I might use them but because it's a Christmas pot I think I'll stick with some of the cuttings from a Christmas tree. So I'm going to add those in the middle as a centrepiece and I may add some around the side too. I've just packed it full of these, I think it's a Nordman fir, sections from a Christmas tree. Now I haven't cut this from one of my trees, every year I buy a cut tree from the local garden centre that I use to add to all of the arrangements that I like to make. I think that looks really good, nice and full. Now this is the fun bit where you can add a bit of colour, I'll start with red. This is actually going to hang in the white garden but how it comes alive with some red, these are faux baubles but you have to get very strong plastic ones, you don't want those ones which are soft, they won't last. So you need to get really good strong ones that are firm plastic and they'll last you from year to year. Or if you're like me and you're lucky enough to have hedges which have lots of berries, these are from my hawthorn tree which are quite spiky so I'm very careful how I pull them apart. But these are my own natural berries which I think make it even more fun to add. And then you can add pine cones as well, I've got some pine cones on sticks that I used last year. Everything I've had for a few years now. You can add as much or as little as you like. So I'm just having the last of the berries, hopefully that looks good because you can see it from the front. And that's it, that's the red berry Christmas hanging basket. So let me hang it up and then you'll see what it looks like. Well that's it for today, the next time that you see this hanging basket it will have moved to the white garden. I'll have swapped all of these red berries for white baubles and it will be used as part of the white garden Christmas makeover. And that will be coming very soon. So thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.