One heckofa Yule Ball

Did I invent this?? Not sure. This is Roswitha's front door, and she loooooves it when I make these every year. Super fun.

Anyways, first you take one hanging-moss-basket from which you have just clipped all the bedraggled annuals (silently thanking them for a glorious summer of colour).

Then you roam around the garden with your secateurs and gather an armload of beauteous evergreens and berried treasures.

For the above (and below) set of Yule Balls I salvaged:
--blow-down fir branches
--holly and Salal branches from the far reaches of the property
--hydrangea blooms and the red berry-panicles from Nandina domestica (by the pond)
--white Symphoricarpus/Snowberry and red berries on Willow-Leaf Cotoneaster surreptitiously gathered from the roadside on my way to work
--white Baby's Breath from a bouquet the owner just happened to be tossing out
--and the final touch: wire-edged ribbon bows we saved from last year (easy to make)

Once you've jammed all the tough evergreen branches into the mossy soil-ball (so easy! no wiring necessary!) in a somewhat even fashion, with some dramatic foliage also trailing from the bottom of the ball (no wiring neccessary!), you can add the more delicate and colourful bits. Then remember to water it before it freezes solid because it will last FOREVER or at least until February. And you can always remove the bow to deter carollers after the holidays.




Fa la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

*Oh--and we just had an idea today, when we noticed birds were picking away at the Yule Ball berries: wouldn't it be an amazing gift to make one of these for someone, and also spike it with bird seed/hanging suet balls...whatever you feed birds? Sounds like a good idea--unless a crazed flock flash-mobs your handiwork into a pile of detritus under a hanging dirt-ball. That would be sad.

Signs of Spring...

I know: one step at a time. But these are the 2010 baby leaf-buds of Sedum spectabile, already formed at the base of this year's spent stalks. Little tiny spectators, waiting.

Winter Rose Contestants

Countdown to Christmas Rose 2009. (C'mon, I have to amuse myself during snack-break.)
We've had a run of particularly beautiful frosty-sunshine days, and these little shrub-roses are gasping in the last rays of the year. Persistance is a virtue.


If you were a painter, you would paint this rose-hip.

Now for the fun part...

Oh, it's all fun.
These are Rose's pots, getting jazzed up for Winter-mas. Best free winter-decorating tip ever: Save Your Hydrangea Blossoms Before They Go Soggy. I stuff them everywhere--in wreaths, made-over hanging moss-baskets, pots, etc. They last forever under the eaves/out of the rain.
The pot above already had skimmia and variegated holly, so I added white cyclamen, paperwhites, pussy willows, and evergreen branches.
Below, we worked the donkey-tails euphorbia already in the planter into the design with fresh evergreen, red osier dogwood, red huckleberry and golden willow branches. This winter medley (sounds like a salad) also serves to disguise the nondescript bare branches of a Black Beauty elderberry which also lives in the pot. I find the Big Red Bow rather festive. Don't u?

The Problem with Persimmons

I recently noted that the local nursery has a few Persimmons in stock: little whippets of trees bearing golden orbs that look too good to be true... Since you so rarely see full-grown Persimmons on the North Shore, I took some post-leaf-drop shots of Jim n' Wren's trees (same garden as the prior post's banana grove) and the uncommonly abundant crop this year.

You often don't know what sort of crop you have until leaf fall because they're hidden so well. By the end of November (haven't been here since...August?) a few light frosts have damaged most of them. (Pause for rending of hair.) I know, because I pole-pruned a Safeway-bagful for the neighbour, who wanted to make jam. Persimmons aren't the tangiest fruit at the best of times, so when I returned on Monday (a much nicer day--see title bar photo!) I got the local jam-report: "Terrible!" I couldn't help laughing at how vigorously he delivered his report. And then he said it's the second year he's made "terrible jam" but he just can't bear to see food go to waste so he's determined to make it...
I figure persimmons are best eaten fresh. Next year I'm gonna make a point of rummaging around 20 feet up there in September/October to save him his torture.

The trees themselves are very nice shade trees--though a rather weedy tree where they are indigenous in the more southerly States. So I'm judicious with pruning, and just tend to remove twiggy/dead branches to create a more open centre looking up from below. Any largish cuts result in vigorous suckers shooting for the moon. If you let it, the tree will almost touch its branches to the ground like a skirt, creating a lovely green gloom under the dome (*if you clear out the centre*). So we keep it crown-raised so you can walk under it, and in all, I do like the shape of the bare winter branches, and the remaining fruits are beautiful in the evening light.