Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
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It is hard to believe that it is only 27 days to Christmas, it just seems to be coming up on us so quickly this year.
There is still so much that we have to get done in the Garden Centre and the Golf Gardens to be ready in time for the festive season.
With December usually being the busiest month in the Garden Centre it’s looking like there will be some long days in the weeks ahead.
The same goes with the home garden, before you know it, Christmas will be here, so it’s time to spruce up the garden.
To be tackling the whole garden with the time we have left may be a bit daunting given your social commitments on the calendar and your other preparations for the festive season.
So, I would suggest that you start with the alfresco area, the outdoor entertaining space, the pool yard and maybe the front entrance.
By giving these areas a general clean up and adding a splash of colour as you go, you will be surprised at the impact it will have on the overall appearance of the rest of the garden.
Princess lilies can flower up to nine months.
This time of the year there is a huge selection of flowering colourful plants that will give you that hit of colour that you are looking for and a lot of them will flower right through until well into autumn.
Calibrachoa are a great example of this, as they are well known for their vibrant, long-lasting displays and are suitable to planting out in garden beds, pots and hanging baskets.
Often described as mini petunias, they will thrive in full sun to part shade and flower right through to the first frosts.
You can add a splash of colour to your outdoor dining table or even inside with some bright gerberas with their large daisy-like flowers.
Gerberas can handle being dry.
Gerberas like it on the slightly dryer side, so take care of their watering requirements, as they will collapse quickly if they get wet.
By planting out little 100mm colour pots of bedding plants like petunias, begonias, salvia, impatiens, marigolds or snapdragons now, they will continue to grow and flower to be looking quite established in time for a Christmas display.
These can be planted in groups through the garden or in feature pots around your outdoor living space.
Intricate features are a part of the Princess lily.
Princess lilies that have been flowering for months will continue to brighten up garden edges and borders for the months to come.
Also known as Peruvian Lilies or Lily of the Incas, but more correctly as Alstroemeria, they are a low growing, long-flowering tuberous perennial plant.
They have vibrant coloured flowers, often with intricate markings like whiskers, freckles or stripes.
They are drought and frost tolerant and can flower for up to nine months in full sun to semi shade.
Gerberas add a pop of colour.
Hydrangeas macrophylla are a plant that is becoming popular as a traditional plant for Christmas.
These are the hydrangeas with the very large ball-shaped flowers ranging in colour from reddish pink to white to deep purplish blue.
They can look great as short-term feature pots around your alfresco area or planted into shady spots in the garden.
Varieties like Magical Revolution are ideally suited to this where they can be used as a living bunch of flowers as an indoor plant while they are in flower before moving them outside to the garden or a large patio pot.
They have been known to flower continuously for up to 150 days giving you great value for money.
Another one to keep an eye out for is Hydrangea Deep Purple.
It features unusual dark purple flowers and distinctly dark green foliage with thick strong stems capable of supporting their oversized blooms.
Deep Purple tolerates a reasonable amount of direct sunlight, but will perform better in part shade, and is perfect for large pots and urns or planted out in a cooler spot in the garden.
New Guinea Impatiens are always a good way to add a vibrant bit of colour to our summer gardens and varieties like the Clockwork series are well worth keeping an eye out for.
Coleus plants are another way of adding a touch of the tropics to shadier gardens making a striking impact with their foliage rather than their flowers.
They are a low-maintenance, fast-growing plant that thrive in partial shade to bright light and are excellent in pots as well as the garden.
They are best treated as an annual in our region, as the first heavy frost will bowl them over quickly.
They can also be grown as indoor plants, but for best results, you will need to keep pinching the flowers off them to keep them bushy.
With this busy time of the year, it does not leave much time to play in the garden, so with what little time you have, by adding these bits of colour you can feel like you have achieved a lot.
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