December Update

DECEMBER

A sleeping garden and a winter wedding.

December feels chocked full of obstacles for the keen gardener and florist - Christmas can take one’s energy more than appreciated, whilst uncertain temperatures make working the soil an ever growing guessing game. However, with a eye always on the weather forecast, planting within a few days of temperatures above freezing makes planting possible, and gives me the much needed push to keep going and carry on . The real end of the growing season comes in to sharp focus, and I’m hugely grateful for growers down in Cornwall with bigger infrastructure, meaning I can still source flowers and foliage grown here. All this coupled with the shortest of days, it’s felt a challenge, but after breezing through the winter solstice with a winter wedding for one of the most lovely couples so far, longer days and brightness firmly lay ahead.

At the field, bare roots are heeled in, ready to be moved to their permanent homes when time allows over the next couple of months. Fruit bushes, flowering shrubs and of course a few roses (how could I not add more!) all wait patiently under a warm layer of wood chip.

In the garden, the stinking hellebore - Helleborus foetidus - hits is stride, with its simple flowers and jurassic foliage cloaking a corner of the garden studio, with the more delicate Helleborus x hybridus starting to push its buds through the mulch. Rose hips adorn the fences, as I’m reminded that there’s still much beauty to be found on the sharp and cold mornings.

Left: Helleborus foetidus. Right: Helleborus x hybridus ‘Harvington Double Pink’

The Connaught in Mayfair is a firm fixture on many a list of best luxury hotels in London, so I was thrilled when a brilliant couple got in touch a year ago to ask if I could do the floral design for their wedding. Keen theatre goers with a huge amount of trust, it was truly a dream assignment to create something special for them, alongside the gifted and super organised planner Natalie Hewitt.

I presented them with a winter garden, transforming the aisle with established evergreen shrubs - Nandina domestica and Abelia x grandiflora, Cotoneaster franchetii and Sarcococca confusa, all courtesy of the superb nursery close to the field, Chichester Trees and Shrubs. For floral impact, buckets of Cornish heather, ranunculus and hellebores, with graceful nerines and scented winter viburnum from our garden came together with clematis vines and twisting Trachelospurnum jasminoides again harvested from home for movement and dance.

Creating on this scale requires a team, and how lucky I was to be joined by 4 brilliant friends and artists. To be able to fulfil this brief whilst still having time and space to think and make actively creative choices on the day was down to having the right team around me, and I’m very grateful to them, so a big thank you to Leigh, Krystal, Freddie and Danny for coming on board with this project.

Above: aisle design. Below left: bar arrangement. Below right: table centre arrangement

Finally a huge thank you to all of you who’ve subscribed to this newsletter last year and taken the time to send me a message, either expressing your enjoyment of reading it, sharing tips and tricks or letting me know you’ve planted something in your own garden because of what you’ve read here, it really means a lot.

Wishing you a brilliant 2026.

Thanks for reading.

© Andy Monaghan. All rights reserved.

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