December - and I'm dreaming of how my garden will look next year (hopefully)

I've been mentioned in my dad's christmas letter and now feel the pressure to keep up the photos of the changing garden!

I recently planted three Christmas Roses (Helleborus Niger) at the back of the garden and they look very pretty. I had an offer in a magazine for 3 more which i might send off for soon. I also moved the nicotina plant further back - although I'm not entirely sure whether its a annual or perennial. I made a shelter for the two new laurel bushes to protect them a bit from the wind that comes across the back field.

I saw some dogwood in a magazine which i think would go well at the back of that bed. My uncle thinks i should stick to the bamboo plan. I think I'll do both at the different sides. All still fits in with the "forest" theme. ish. Also now that back bed is just going to be blue and white flowers. And then the greens etc from the evergreen bushes. Plus the red from the dogwood when i plant it, which hopefully I'll do over Christmas - or maybe i should wait until February. Not sure. I'll also plant some snowdrops "in the green" in that back bed in Feb. Mum is going to take me to a special place to buy some! I did buy the trillium and Paris bulbs - so they're in that back bed near the ferns. Let's hope they work at it was probably a bit late in the year to be planting them.

The themes for my two new flower beds are going to be "jewels" and "pink". I want to put two climbing supports in the pink bed for Clematis and/or roses. I never used to like roses but I've been eyeing them up recently. I'll get a late flowering one for next year to provide colour at the end of the year.

Anyway - here is a rather misty pic of the garden taken on the 9th December.

We've had rain this week - look how the garden grows!

I'm going to have to work out how to thin the stock seedlings out soon. I put a whole packet in one row as i didn't realise how many seeds there were. I think its about 750! It says thin them out when they are ready - but i don't know when that is. My dad said when they are an inch or two and they have really grown this week.

I really like these pink flowers. They must have been in the bed before i moved here. They've never really come up this much before but i cleared a lot of ivy out of this bed the first year and lots of bind weed last year and earlier this year so hopefully that is why they are growing so well.

The gladioli bulbs are growing as well. I think the ones i put in a line will look a bit silly. My mum has now told me about growing them in clumps. I'll do that next year! The ones near the clementis should look better.

The plants i planted last weekend look OK. They are meant to be a in a sheltered spot and i thought they were. However, as the back fence has been cleared by the park gardener a wind comes wiping across the park and into that back bed so they've been rather blown about this week. I hope they will be OK.

I need to plant more at the back bed. I ordered some seeds about three weeks ago to go there but they still have not arrived. I also need to get the fence mended so I probably should do that before I plant more.