What is Santa's....

... favourite pizza?

(Does Santa even eat pizza?)

Well, it's nearly year end, and time to reflect on how the year went, and what new projects we plan to tackle next year.

I always encourage my Clients (and students) to take photos of their gardens at intervals, and to make notes in their Garden Journal about what worked well, what was a bit of a flop, any noticeable gaps in the garden and so on, on the grounds that when we finally get time to think about these things - and winter is a great time to think about them - we have invariably forgotten all the details.

One in particular that I am keeping an eye on is a Client who lives sideways on to a fairly quiet road, well, more of a lane really: they have a large bank of conifer hedging (ok, a MASSIVE bank) up by the house, as well as further down the garden, but there is a section in the middle which is deciduous trees, and every year they comment that in winter, when the leaves are down, they are annoyed by seeing traffic through the gap.

But they don't want to fill it up with conifers.

But they don't like seeing the traffic.

It's a bit of a conundrum.  So far I have encouraged them to plant a couple of decorative hollies in the area, on the grounds that they are evergreen, but not conifer - and they are not as "dense" as the unlovely Leylandii, but they do offer some privacy.

I was there for  tea and mince pies just before Christmas, and we all stood and regarded the gap: you could still see the traffic - although in defence of the hollies, I did point out that they have only been down a couple of months, and have hardly started to grow yet.

We decided that, once Christmas was over, they would take the corpse of their (real) Christmas tree and ram it into the ground in the middle of the gap, just to see what it would look like.  I thought this would give them a chance to get used to seeing "conifer" in the gap without going to the expense of buying and planting, and without making the long-term commitment before they are sure.

It is also an excellent way of getting the dead tree outside before it drops leaves everywhere, allowing it to die in its own time instead of having to trot it down the dump, thus filling the car with dead leaves and getting scratches all over the head lining. By the time spring arrives, it should be pretty much dead and brown, and thus much easier to chop up and dispose of in the green waste bin, bit by bit.

And hopefully by then, they will have decided whether they are going to fill the gap with conifers - or not!!

OK then, brace yourselves, here it is:

What is Santa's favourite pizza?

One that is deep pan, crisp and even.