Yes, the nightgown gardener is my gardening blog name, chasing deer out of my garden in my nightgown is my game.

I was going to be writing a Christmas / Boxing Day post a few days ago about garden related gifts and so on, but the local white tail tribe decided what else was going into this post.

I haven’t sprayed for deer in a week , and I was out there thinking I needed to. Well apparently I need to.

There I was letting dogs out around 9 PM and not paying attention to the rear of the shade and woodland beds and beginning of the woods, when I felt something was staring at me. Our woods are full of critters, so that’s nothing unusual, except when I looked up, there were seven pairs of eyes staring at me!

Deer! So there I was, in my Christmas nightgown, waving my arms yelling at the deer. Four scattered and three looked at me. I started chucking sticks back into the woods, and eventually they all took off.

The damn deer are very frustrating. We live next to the largest deer herd in Chester County Pennsylvania and there’s no culling allowed on that property because it’s a senior living property.

But I just wanted everyone to know that I did live up to my nightgown gardener blog name last night.

I was going to write about how odd the weather has been, and I had been walking around my garden, deciding what I was going to do in some places going forward.

I also was going to write about how am I going to stage the 28 amaryllis bulbs living in my basement after Christmas waiting to come up? I have one blooming in the dining room, another one getting ready to bloom in the family room, and a couple of other pots here and there with bulbs sending up more shoots.

And then there are my lemon trees, which are already starting to vex me and I love them so much. I have been cleaning the leaves religiously because a couple of them have started to show sticky leaves, which means I might have scale starting somewhere. Because I live in a house with so many trees and woods around it it is hard to find adequate light so I do use grow lights. But the other trick to lemon trees is keeping them watered just the right amount. Citrus trees should be watered sparingly because you don’t want to cause root rot, which is why I have a moisture meter. But the thing they love a lot is humid, air and moisture. I try to mist them every day. And I bought them their own humidifier.

Now I got Christmas related gardening gifts which of course I love and one thing is this compost maker. It’s by a company called Reencle. I have not set it up yet. I did a little on boxing today and I will let you know if it works. Because there are some people I know that make the world’s best compost and I try to do everything right but I just haven’t been able to get that pretty compost you see in gardening magazines. So we will see with my lovely Christmas toy if I will conquer the compost issue!

My friend David also gave me a beautiful Christmas hellebore. It’s living in my dining room right now with a little topiary I bought myself and a couple of Amaryllis.

I did have fun decorating my little trees outside this year and they weren’t particularly expensive to purchased from BloomBox. And my own holly tree is so beautiful this year and full of berries! Also have quite a few baby holly trees scattered around. I think my soil is acidic enough for them and the camellias, because of all the leaves that we leave in the woods and on the flowerbeds.

I have been looking in my woods again because I have been trying to plant saplings every year or so and I have lost a whole bunch the past couple of summers during our extended drought periods. I want to plant more oaks and I’m thinking about other things as far as understory trees, or even different kinds of pine or fir trees.

I also want redbuds in the woods and on the edge of the woods – and I do not have to necessarily buy those. I just have to successfully transplant seedlings from other places on the property.

The next two photos are deer damage….damn it.

When February rolls around I will prune the Ragosa roses pretty hard, and some other things that can handle winter pruning.

I’m also excited that the Galanthus Gala tickets will go on sale soon! It’s a wonderful fun event and I have to tell you I am appreciating the smaller events more and more and prefer them to things like the Philadelphia Flower Show. And the reason I love it so much, isn’t just the fabulous nurseries that are there and specialty growers, but the knowledge that is shared with such generosity and kind camaraderie. It’s on Eventbrite when it goes live and they have some wonderful speakers this year.

I have been puttering in the garden the past few days and I had missed it. When you’re setting up for Christmas inside the outside goes to the side for a little while but I like being in my garden 12 months of the year I have camellias getting ready to bloom, and some wonderful witch hazels blooming. i’m going to try to figure out how I can get more witch hazels into my landscape. I was introduced to them by Jenny Rose Carey and there are some nurseries like broken arrow, nursery and rare find nursery to get some wonderful and slightly unusual witch hazels. And speaking of Jenny Rose Carey she told me a couple of weeks ago. She has a new book coming out soon.

Well my fellow gardeners, cheers to 2024!

Thanks for visiting today.