Crocus.co.uk

🌲❄ How to make a succulent tablescape ❄🌲 Decorate your #Christmas table without impacting the environment with our living tablescape. Use succulents, sedums and other small house plants to create a stunning natural display that will last long after Christmas. The plants can be used all year, and our Crocus Collection bronze and copper trays are designed for longevity to last you for years to come. HOW TO MAKE A SUCCULENT TABLE DISPLAY 1⃣ Fill your copper or brass plant trays with peat-free compost. You can also add a small amount of grit for extra drainage. 2⃣ Choose a range of small #succulents, such as our Echeveria Starter Collection or Sedum Morganianum. 3⃣ Place in the tray and get the layout. Place different succulents near each other to create texture. 4⃣ Backfill with extra compost. 5⃣ Top with sphagnum moss. Are you planning on creating any outdoor displays this year? #christmasdecorations #houseplants #christmas2023 #christmasdesign #beginnergardening #howtovideo #fyp #floraldesign #floraldesigner

December is an excellent time to revitalise your garden and prepare for the colder months. ❄️ Here’s 5 jobs you can do this month: 1. Refresh window boxes and containers. With the growing season ending, refresh your window boxes with winter-hardy plants, evergreens, and seasonal colors. Incorporating festive elements ensures your garden remains vibrant, welcoming December and beyond. 2. Festive garden lighting adds a magical touch to your outdoor space, but let’s keep wildlife in mind. Garden designer @lucywillcox quotes “When planning your garden lighting you should also consider the affects of the scheme on wildlife. Animals and plants depend on the natural daily light cycles. And periods of darkness maintain natural life systems such a reproduction, sleep and protection from predators. Darksky.org has been raising awareness of this for many years. In a time of a biodiversity crisis we need to be much more conscientious about our role in helping wildlife in our gardens. The most effective way to help with the ‘Dark Skies movement’ is to think about creating beautiful mood lighting. Use lighting to mimic the light the moon would cast, a really lovely down lit effect which help less disturbance to natural wildlife patterns.” 3. Indoor plants need a little extra love in December. Remember to adjust watering schedules, boost humidity, and give them as much natural light as possible to keep them happy and healthy all winter long. 4. Don’t forget our furry and feathered friends this winter. Frosty days can make it hard for wildlife to find food, so putting out bird feed is a simple way to help. Opt for seeds, nuts, and suet to keep their energy up and your garden buzzing with life. 5. Mulching in December is a winter garden essential. A good layer of mulch helps insulate plant roots, protecting them from frost and temperature swings. It also locks in moisture and improves soil health over the colder months. Plus, it’s a great way to suppress weeds before spring arrives. What jobs are you doing in your garden this month? #gardenjobs #december #decemberinthegarden #mulching

Join Bex Partridge to reinvent the Christmas Wreath this year. ✨ It’s not just your front door that deserves to be dressed with a festive wreath. Bex is guiding us through an incredibly simple but dramatically beautiful project to reinvent the Christmas Wreath format, by suspending it above your dining room table, creating a stunning centrepiece to crown your festive feasts this season. Bex has used Crocus’s Hanging Rattan Wreath as the base for this installation - click on the link in Bex’s bio to purchase the base. She’s foraged Old Man’s Beard from the local woodland and dried honesty from her garden, but you can use whatever foraged and dried seed heads you can find. Strings of ivy wound around the base, is also a simple alternative To recreate Bex’s design, forage some Old Man’s Beard and leave it to dry somewhere inside, enabling the seed-heads to fluff up. When dried, wind the Old Man’s Beard around the wreath base, tucking the end in to secure in place - you can use as little, or as much of this as you like depending on the effect you want to achieve. It also works well, to leave a couple of the ends of the vine trailing down. Next take your dried honesty, or other foraged finds and tuck these into the wreath base intermittently, until you’ve achieved your desired effect. It really is as simple as that. Follow the link in Bex’s bio to purchase the wreath. #floraldesign #christmas #wreath #hangingwreath

Cymbidiums are a show-stopping addition to any space; making an ideal Christmas present for those you love. 🎁🪴 Shop now with 20% off selected lines and free delivery over £50. 🧡Cymbidium 'Ginger Bread' 💗Cymbidium 'Sinterklaas' 💛Cymbidium 'Jingle Bells' 🤍Cymbidium 'Icing Sugar' 🤍Cymbidium Sarah Jean ('Ice Cascade') #cymbidiums #orchids #houseplant #houseplantgift #gifting #christmasgift

🎄✨ What's your Christmas style? ✨🎄 When you sit down to dinner, what's your perfect arrangement? 1⃣ Woodland tablescapes filled with natural plants, natural colours and rich greens. 2⃣ Scandi style filled with cosy gold and green tones. Simple but perfectly festive. 3⃣ Classic Christmas with felt animals, warm candles, gold and red. Add a few gardening nods for a Crocus touch. Whatever your table style is this year, we hope it's filled with love and joy, surrounded by loved ones. #christmastable #christmasdinner #tablescaping #christmasdesign #christmashome #interiordesign #christmasstyling

Looking for a thoughtful gift for the gardener who has it all? 🌟 Here are two trowels they’ll love: ✨ Copper pointed trowel: This slender, pointed trowel is sharp, light, and ideal for tight spots. It’s the ultimate all-rounder for tackling weeds, planting bulbs, and tending containers. ✨ Sneeboer transplanting trowel: With a sharp tip, bevelled edges, and a wide scooped blade, this transplanting trowel makes digging, transplanting, and potting a dream. Known to be loved by head gardeners everywhere. Both are practical, beautiful, and made to last. Which one will you choose? 🎁

🎁 When wrapping your presents this year, take a moment to make them as thoughtful as the gift inside. Opt for a simple, stylish, and eco-friendly approach by using recyclable kraft paper, tied with biodegradable natural twine, and adorned with a sprig of dried flowers from your garden. It’s a beautiful way to celebrate sustainably—kind to the planet and effortlessly chic! 🎁 #christmascountdown #christmasmorning #christmasparty #christmascrafts #christmastradition #homedecorinspo #decoratingideas #decorinspo #christmaswrapping #ecochristmas #driedflowers #twine #kraftpaper #wrapyourpresents #christmaspresents

🎁🌱 Just a reminder for your loved ones 👀🎁 For the loved one 👇 If you know the gardener who has everything, and you are continually stumped at what to buy them, then luckily, we’ve put together our top list of gifts for the hard-to-buy gardeners in your life. THE PERFECT GIFT FOR SOMEONE WITH EVERYTHING 📔 Gardener’s leather journal There is nothing more handy than a sketchbook to plan your garden for the next year. This beautiful book has 60 pages of plain paper for sketching, recording seasonal changes, and storing pressed flowers. 🐌 Copper rimmed cloche Decorative and functional, these wirework cloches can be used to keep deer, rabbits, squirrels and birds away from your precious plants. Their base has been encircled with a rim of copper, which will also help protect plants from slugs and snails. 🪛 DeWit corkscrew weeder Named a “Best Buy” by BBC Gardeners’ World magazine, the ingenious DeWit corkscrew weeder takes the bending and backache out of weeding. The tool lets you clear dandelions, docks and other stubborn tap roots from lawns and borders in no time. 🌱 Planting tray/trug With two strong handles and a generous depth, it also makes an attractive and practical tray to display and transport potted plants and a useful trug come harvest time. ♠ DeWit forged iron trowel The trowel of all trowels. This super heavyweight hand-forged trowel looks like something from the Iron Age, but what it lacks in finesse it makes up for in strength. Forged from a single piece of boron steel, bevelled for sharpness and tapered to a point, it packs an incredible punch in even the heaviest soil and can withstand any rough treatment you throw at it. #christmasgifting #giftingforgardens #britishgarden #gardengifts #whattobuy #ukgiftingbusiness

🌷 Defending Your Spring Blooms: Squirrel-Proof Tips! 🐿️🌼 Ah, the joys of planting spring bulbs, only to find pesky squirrels eyeing them like a buffet! 🌱😅 Unfortunately, squirrels LOVE bulbs. They’re the treat they have been waiting for all year, and you’ve kindly placed them all around the garden to eat. Fear not; here’s your guide to safeguarding those precious blooms. 🌷✨ 1️⃣ Mulch Matters: A generous layer of mulch over your bulbs regulates soil temperature and makes it less appealing for our furry friends. Think of it as a natural deterrent! 🍂🌰 2️⃣ Wire cloches: Create an underground fortress by covering your bulbs with wire cloches. Choose ones that have stakes to ensure the squirrels can’t lift them up. 3️⃣ Repellent Sprays: Give your bulbs a protective spray of natural repellents like garlic or pepper-based solutions. Squirrels find the taste less than appealing, leaving your blooms untouched. 🌶️🚿 4️⃣ Plant Bulbs Deep: Dig a bit deeper when planting your bulbs. Squirrels may be persistent, but burying them a little further down makes the treasure hunt less enticing! 🕳️🌸 5️⃣ Distract with Treats: Set up a separate feeding station with nuts or seeds to divert their attention. Satisfy their cravings elsewhere, away from your precious blooms! 🥜🐿️ What are your squirrel-proof ways of saving your bulbs? #GardenTips #SpringBlooms #SquirrelProof #BritishGardening #BloomingSolutions #FlowerPower 🇬🇧✨

🍃❄ Winter scented shrubs ❄🍃 While the garden landscape may feel quiet, these fragrant shrubs step into the spotlight; filling the air with their captivating scents. Here's five of our favourites you can shop now: 💫Lonicera × purpusii 'Winter Beauty' Clusters of white, tubular flowers with prominent yellow anthers cling to bare branches in the depths of winter and fill the air with a heady fragrance. The scent from this deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub will stop you in your tracks. An invaluable addition to the garden in winter. 💫Sarcococca confusa Sweetly scented, pure white flowers from December to March and lustrous, dark green leaves. This wonderful, winter-flowering, dense, evergreen shrub is perfect for a shady border or woodland garden. To fully appreciate the fabulous, vanilla-like fragrance plant in moist, well-drained soil close to an entrance or path. 💫Chimonanthus praecox Small, sweetly scented, sulphur-yellow flowers stained purple inside appear on bare branches throughout the winter months. This vigorous shrub will usually take a few years to start to flower, but they are well worth the wait and they will make a lovely specimen plant for a sunny, well-drained mixed or winter border. 💫Viburnum × bodnantense Dawn Dense clusters of fragrant, dark pink flowers on bare stems from November to March and toothed, dark green leaves. This upright, deciduous shrub is perfect for perfuming winter walks. To fully appreciate the deliciously scented flowers plant in a moist, well-drained border close to an entrance or path in sun or partial shade. 💫Hamamelis × intermedia 'Pallida' In winter, this deciduous shrub has clusters of sweetly scented, sulphur-yellow flowers clinging to bare twigs. In autumn, the bright green leaves turn spectacular shades of yellow, orange and red. The tiered branches of this award-winning variety of witch hazel contrast well with the vertical stems of dogwood. It is a lovely specimen plant for a sunny winter border or woodland edge, where its fragrance can be appreciated. #shrubs #winterscent #wintergarden #Sarcococca

Time for a Christmas decoration refresh? 🎄 ✨ Explore our range of beautiful beaded and felt decorations to add a touch of magic to your tree this year. #christmas #christmas2024 #christmasdecor #christmasdecorations #xmasdecor

Send this to someone who can relate 🌱 🪴 #houseplants #plants #plantlover