Happy Christmas!

As you can imagine with all this snow Dublin has been getting, there hasn't been much to do in the garden apart from feeding the birds!  Most of the work I've been doing has been indoors and now is the perfect time to do it!

So I love Christmas.. Anyone who has been to visit our house will tell you there is Christmas decorations everywhere. I’m a little bit obsessed with candles and I probably go through a box a week, and it would be more if my boyfriend wouldn’t walk behind me blowing most of them out.  We always had a lot of decorations, candles and flowers in my mums house during winter.  I've kept this tradition going now that I have my own house to decorate. I love hyacinths, preferably white ones, it wouldn’t be christmas without their smell when you walk into a room.

It’s been impossible to find the white moss we are so used to using in Sweden, here in Dublin so when my mum came over to visit i forced her to bring over a whole shopping bag full. I think it gives the arrangements a nice warm feel to them and it makes the plants and flowers pop out more then they would if they had been on a black soil background. I love when an arrangement has only one kind of flower or plant.. It gives it a nice simple look.

Adding a little Santa or Christmas tree decor makes it a bit more fun... I think so anyways, the difficult thing is to know when to stop!  We are keeping our Christmas tree very simple this year. No bobbles, only ”homemade” Santa's and hearts. I love the look of it and the fact that its nothing glittery or shiny in it besides from the ribbons.

I picked up this trick on a flower arrangement course last christmas, If you take all the soil off the hyasinth and wrap the bulb with moss you can hang it in the window or put it on a plate and leave it there, you hardly need to water it and they will always grow upwards. I think it looks cool in a window or as a table decoration.

Now its time to leave the flowers to grow and look amazing so I better go and do some christmas shopping =) Happy Christmas!

:: Welcome to my Secret Garden!

My name is Sofie, a Swedish 23 year old  living in Dublin, Ireland. My boyfriend, Donal and I just moved in to our new house. We’re renting a very charming little cottage in the village. It doesn’t look like much at the front but as you walk to the back of the house we have 2 large outdoor areas which is covered in pebbles and will be perfect for bbqing and entertaining. In the very back we have quite a large garden that right now is in a bit of an overgrown state, but with a little TLC will be perfect! What makes the garden a bit quirky is that it’s about a meter higher than the BBQ area. You walk up a few steps and a small walkway brings you up to the garden.
The idea of this blog came when I was thinking of what to do with the large space we have in the back.  Since it’s kind of a big project I thought it would be good to document the progress of turning this large space into my little (not so) secret garden.

I love gardening, every chance I get to make up someone’s garden I’m there.  I don’t know much about different names of flowers, when to cut apple trees or when to plant different vegetables. So, I’m expecting to learn as I go along and read my way through any questions I might have on the way.
Just outside one of our ”french doors” we have 6 old animal troughs. as the grounds were once used for farming.  I want to transform them each into separate herb pots. Each trough with different herbs. It’s accessible from the kitchen so we can use it in our daily cooking.
Donal works as a food writer and photographer, so he uses a lot of herbs, fruit and veg so we are going to try to make a part of the now dumping ground into a thriving vegetable patch with onions, broccoli, wild strawberries, tomatoes, apple trees and lots more.

The other half of the garden I want to make into a perfect mix of a wild and romantic garden with a good mix of  different flowers, bushes and lovely roses. I need to find a good variety of flowers so there is something new happening (different colours and flowers) all year around and not just during the spring and summer periods.
My plan is to post new pictures on the blog at least weekly so I can see the difference in the garden and the progress me and the place is making over the year.  Hopefully I’ll get some tips and feedback from you to make the place even better!
So, secret or not, the transformation of the garden starts today!! Enjoy the ride ☺