The most exciting thing to happen in my garden recently was having the holly tree felled. It was growing out of a stone wall on the boundary of my garden where there are many more trees creating a shade tunnel as I have trees on either side of my narrow strip of land. I wanted to save the dry stone wall which had started to burst apart due to the girth of the tree and let more light in so my plants could thrive better. The weather had been too wet to burn all the branches so they are still stacked at the bottom of the garden. Then I had the idea of making holly wreaths out of them, perhaps selling some to the local florists even. I've not made wreaths before but as there is still plenty of holly growing around here there would be a small supply to continue making holly wreaths in the future should I find I enjoy doing so.
Having decided on this I then regretted having taken off so many of the berries because my first idea had been to make fat blocks for the birds. It is too early to make the fat blocks but I have a bag full of holly berries, along with some wild bird seed that I bought the other week in readiness for this. I have also ordered some wire wreath frames from ebay to make the wreaths. As the berries seemed to come out early this year, they would no doubt be no good come Christmas time anyway. There are still enough sprigs with berries though and I may experiment with putting clear nail varnish over the berries to see if that helps keep them better. This years wreath making is an experiment so I'll see what works best. I am so glad the bonfire wouldn't light the other week when the tree surgeon was here. It is amazing how things often turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
My poor summerhouse, which is more like a shed than anything fancy, has no roofing felt when it blew away in the strong winds that I get up there frequently in my exposed garden. I should have put a tarpaulin over the roof when the felt first blew away so I hope I don't have to replace the roof as well now. With all the holly stacked up behind the summerhouse it was hard to reach from the back to temporarily cover the roof on my own, but that will have to be re-felted as soon as I can do something with all that holly as access around the back of the garden is difficult right now. Being a very wet year the urgent jobs have been on hold like the bonfire and waterproofing the summerhouse roof, as I need more than just one dry day occasionally to help dry everything out.
I bought another new tool, a maul to chop the wood of the holly tree for my woodburner. Not used that yet but the wood will not be seasoned enough to use this winter anyway. I also bought a moisture meter to check the moisture content of wood before burning any logs. I'll post the results of my wreath making attempts once I have finished one, assuming I can keep the holly alive until December since it was cut on the 9th Oct. I wouldn't mind having a few holly bushes as bushes rather than trees, so once the remainder of the crown of the holly tree is burned I'll have room to plant a few somewhere, and will choose a couple of variegated holly shrubs as I understand that variegated holly is harder to come by. All this and I don't even celebrate Christmas!
For some reason I have the idea that the local florists may be interested, and if not I can always sell sprigs of it, along with my wreaths, from my front garden or even on my blog.
On Tuesday I am due to go on a coach trip with the gardening club to Garden House. This is on my links list of local gardens to visit so I'm looking forward to getting some photos of that to post next.
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