Growing for success | ’Tis the season for colour at Riverside Gardens!

Wednesday evening after work, we had Santa, his reindeer and sleigh fly into the shop, and strands of red and gold tinsel appeared overnight.

The reindeer and sleigh are now parked four metres up in the air in the middle of the shop, surrounded by our hanging gardens of beautiful large Boston ferns.

It certainly makes it feel like Christmas, and you suddenly realise time is running out to have your garden and pots planted with colour for the festive season.

It is also a time when traditional Christmas plants start to appear in the nursery.

Poinsettias are probably the most well-known of these.

This is because, in Christian culture worldwide, poinsettias have become the traditional Christmas plant, even though in our part of the world they would not normally be in colour for Christmas.

However, if you walk into almost any garden centre or florist at this time of year, you are bound to find a display of beautiful poinsettia plants in full colour.

The flowers of a poinsettia are yellow and small, but the surrounding modified leaves, called bracts, colour up in striking shades to attract the interest of insects and bees.

It is these bracts that create that beautiful display of colour, with their bright red, white, pink or marbled hues making a stunning statement.

In recent years, hydrangeas have become a popular Christmas gift plant, with their large heads of bright-coloured flowers.

Now, it is easy to see why.

The ball-shaped flowering hydrangeas, Hydrangea macrophylla, are budding now.

Native to Japan, they will be in full flower by mid-December and will certainly brighten up your garden in semi-shaded spots.

The ‘Hydrangea endless summer’ range of the macrophylla variety will repeat bloom through summer and autumn, providing a long display of blue to dark pink, almost red flowers.

With a bit of forethought, you can manipulate the colour of the flowers by adjusting the pH of the soil.

Plants growing in low pH soils will produce deep blue flowers, while those in higher pH levels will produce pink to crimson flowers.

There is quite a range of other hydrangea varieties to choose from, apart from the large ball-shaped flowers.

There are also conical and flat sprays of flowers that will keep blooming through to late autumn.

Living Christmas trees have arrived at the garden centre already, with the most popular being ‘Picea glauca Super Star’’.

These conifers hold a natural cone shape, making them ideal Christmas trees, and they handle growing in pots well.

In the ground, they can reach a height of 180cm in 10 years, but when grown in a pot, their height can be controlled by the size of the pot they are planted in.

Remember, though, if you are placing this tree inside, it will need to be in a light space and kept moist, not wet.

After Christmas, gradually reintroduce the plant back to full sun to allow the foliage to harden up and prevent it from dropping or scorching.

This way, your living Christmas tree, with a little love and care, will happily grow from one year to the next.

A little bit of flowering colour can really brighten up a garden or an alfresco area for Christmas.

Seedling plants such as petunias, begonias, impatiens, coleus, alyssum and marigolds, if planted now and nurtured, should be in full flower in time for the holidays, assuming we get the right run of weather.

These can be planted from punnets of seedlings or slightly more advanced plants in pots, which will give you a better guarantee of flowers, regardless of the weather.

You could also consider using calibrachoa, which come in a huge array of colours in single, double and bi-coloured flowers.

They make a wonderful display in pots and hanging baskets in full sun to semi-shaded areas.

Calibrachoas are a biannual low-growing ground cover that, in our region, are probably best treated as an annual plant.

They will flower their heads off for most of the summer months, being almost completely covered in flowers.

With their bright, happy-looking flowers spilling over the edge of hanging baskets, they look stunning and give you a great visual return.

Fuchsias, geraniums, plectranthus, ferns and dichondra ‘Silver Falls’ also do well in hanging baskets and can really add a highlight to your patio or alfresco areas.

These would need to be purchased as established plants to have them flowering in time for Christmas.

Roses, given a light trim now, will also flush into flower in time for Christmas and the new year festive season.

So, with a bit of work and planning, your garden can easily be looking its best for Christmas, but the time is getting away from us, and if you leave it much later, you’ll miss the sleigh — I mean boat.