Your Garden

nce again we welcome in a New Year, and let us hope that it will be more peaceful than the last one. As far as the weather is concerned January is regarded as a time for snow and hard frosts. In recent years of course we haven’t had much snow, but it is still something to be wary of. Although a heavy fall will protect lots of little plants growing underneath, it can do a lot of damage to conifers. On some days this month gardening is impossible, but there will be the occasional day when we can get out and about.

Ø Keep an eye on your cold frame, removing any garden pests that are attempting to spend the winter there, and put a cover over if a hard frost is expected. Keep your pond ice free, and the garden borders tidy. I prefer to leave fallen leaves on the ground, where they can be dragged down by earthworms. Keep an eye out though, because leaves can also form a shelter for hibernating garden pests. Leaves lying on a lawn should be removed regularly.

Ø If you grow rhubarb, you will soon be thinking of upending a bucket over a crown or two, to force an earlier crop. There is something else you can try. Before the rhubarb shows any sign of growth, dig up a few crowns complete with roots, and leave them on the surface for a week or two, and then replant them. They will get frosted, which, according to members of at least three generations of my family, will greatly improve the flavour of the rhubarb.

Ø If you are over-wintering dahlias or chrysanthemums, you can start them into growth this month. Mid-month onwards should be suitable, but do watch temperatures. Dahlias need a temperature of 60F (16C), but chrysanthemums will be happy with around 45F (7C). Put the plants into trays of moist peat or potting compost. Keep the trays moist, but do not allow the compost to become too wet. As the young shoots reach about 2 inches (2.5cm.) long, they can be taken as cuttings.

Ø From mid-month onwards you can think about sowing seeds of pelargoniums and begonias, with petunias and antirrhinums towards the end of the month. This timing is in no way critical; you can leave it until next month if you prefer. Remember that it is expensive to heat a greenhouse just for a few pots of seeds. You should manage very well on a windowsill indoors, but again, you need to watch the temperatures. A simple alternative of course is to buy the plants as seedlings in two or three month’s time, although by then a greenhouse can be full of other things!

Ø If you are thinking of putting in some climbing plants, conditions are not likely to be suitable for planting, but this is a good time to prepare trellis, or whatever, for the plants to climb up. Trellis is fairly expensive to buy, so be sure to treat it with preservative before you erect it. If you are handy with tools it is cheaper to make your own trellis, although time consuming. Mind you. in January you should find plenty of time!

Ø And finally, towards the end of the month, try potting up some lilies. Use a deep pot, and plant the bulbs near the bottom, covering them with about two inches (5cm) of compost. Add more compost gradually as the plants grow. Keep the pots in a cold frame or a cool greenhouse. When the weather improves, you can either plant them out in the garden, or let them flower in their pots.

Enjoy your garden Garden Gnome

Rounded Rectangular Callout: Happy New Year to Everyone

uring the month of February, the weather tends to change very quickly, alternating between frosts and mild periods, so don’t rush into a lengthy job without considering the possible effect the weather might have on it. Even if you are worried about falling behind, remember that it is still early in the year, and there is plenty of time to catch up. Nature seems to have a wonderful knack of playing catch-up. If you can’t get into the garden, console yourself with the fact that the slugs and snails are having a rough time of things!

Ø If you intend to sow vegetable seeds outdoor in the early part of the year, try warming up the soil by pegging a sheet of polythene over the appropriate section of the ground about two or three weeks in advance of sowing. Start the sowing with early peas, broad beans and shallots, following later with onions, parsley, and parsnips. Use a sheltered part of the garden if possible.

Ø If you have a warm greenhouse, or a warm bedroom windowsill with good light, you can sow french beans, shorthorn carrots, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, lettuce and leeks. You can also sow a variety of flower seeds, including antirrhinums, lobelia, and sweet peas. Remember that all of these will need pricking out into boxes in due course – you might need another warm light windowsill!

Ø Rounded Rectangular Callout: His Hostas are slow in coming ! Gardeners with a heated greenhouse will no doubt have better facilities for these operations, but they will also be starting into growth dahlias, chrysanths, and fuchsias, in order to take cuttings later on. I think most gardeners prefer to take cuttings to make new plants each year, rather than to grow on the old ones which tend to get leggy. You can sometimes improve old fuchsias by cutting them back severely at this time, then repotting them in new compost ( John Innes 2 or 3)

Ø Plants that have been overwintering in a cold frame will be starting into growth, but the new shoots will be tender and need protection against the sharp frosts so common this month. Keep protection handy so that the cold frame can be covered at short notice!

Ø Take a little time to examine the shrubs in your garden. This is a good time to reposition shrubs and garden perennials. Those that are too spreading can be lifted and divided. Replant the healthy younger outside shoots, discarding the old hard middle. If you have not already done so, mulch those shrubs whose new shoots have not yet emerged. Dogwoods, whose brightly coloured stems will have been giving you pleasure all winter, can now be cut back hard, to the ground. If you have not done this for a year or two (or three), I suggest you cut back only half this year, and finish the job next year. If you have a wisteria, you will have shortened the side shoots last summer. Now you can finish the job by pruning back the sideshoots to about 1 inch (2.54cm.) This is also the time to think about pruning summer flowering clematis, also clematis tangutica. They should be cut back hard.

Ø You can continue to plant lilies in pots. I suggest five of the same variety in each 10-inch pot. I gave you detailed instructions last month. Also try sowing anemones in pots for early display outside in March and April. Before planting, soak the dry tubers in water for 24 hours.

Ø And finally, if birds usually attack your spring flowers, try spreading black cotton between pegs, to act as a deterrent. Get the cotton in place before the flowers open.

Enjoy your garden

Garden Gnome

Rounded Rectangular Callout: Have a bit of patience

ith February out of the way we can take comfort that Spring will not be far behind. All in all we haven’t had a bad winter from a gardening point of view. We have been warned that we can expect hotter Summers and wetter Winters, and certainly all our water butts are full! During the Winter we have had the unusual pleasure of seeing some flowers in bloom, including several which really had no right to be blooming at all. The amount of rain which fell means that we must not be in too much of a hurry to tramp around the garden. Working on wet ground at this time of year will do more harm than good

Ø If your lawn is not waterlogged, now is the time to give it a good raking to remove thatch, using a spring-tined rake. You will find it easier to remove perennial weeds by hand whilst the ground is soft. Alternatively you can use a selective weedkiller on them. So long as there is no frost about, you can give the lawn its first cut of the season. Set the mower blades as high as possible for this first cut. After cutting you can give a dressing of spring-formulated lawn fertiliser

Ø If you are planning to grow dahlias this year, choose a sunny site and dig it over this month, removing any perennial weeds and digging in plenty of compost or FYM if you can get it, particularly if you have a light soil. You can plant out the tubers at the end of this month, or early next if the weather is cold. Alternatively of course you can plant up the tubers into trays or boxes now and put them into the greenhouse with a little warmth. When the tubers have sprung into growth you can take cuttings, planting them out at the end of May or early June.

Ø Buddleias, beloved by butterflies, should be pruned back now to within a few inches of the ground, and to a nice pair of fat buds, removing any thin or dead shoots completely. Also dogwoods that have delighted us with the winter colour of their stems should be cut back to ground level, if you have not already done so. It is the new stems, which grow during the summer that will provide the vivid colours next winter. If, like me, you leave old flower heads on your hydrangeas to give protection, now is the time to remove them. Cut the stems back to a pair of fat buds. Also santalinas should be trimmed back to avoid them becoming leggy.

Ø Gladioli, which like plenty of moisture, can be planted this month or next or even early May. Make a planting hole about four inches deep and put a layer of sand in the bottom. Put in the corms about six inches apart and sprinkle some bonemeal around before replacing the soil.

Ø Hybrid tea roses should be pruned this month. The fashion used to be to prune them hard, but this is only really required if you intend to exhibit them. If you prune less hard you will get somewhat smaller flowers but many more of them Always prune back to just above a bud, and remove any dead or straggly shoots.

Ø Vegetables can be started off this month, but only if the weather is open. Start with onion sets and shallots, and follow with Brussels sprouts, summer cabbage and leeks. The latter three are usually sown in short rows and transplanted to their final positions in late April or May. The seed packets will give you full details. Seeds that can be sown where they are to crop include broad beans, carrots and parsnips. Broad beans are usually sown about one inch deep in a double row eight inches apart. Sow carrots and parsnips in single rows, and thin them out as they grow.

And finally, don’t be in a hurry. At this time in the garden, the weather is more important than the calendar. Enjoy your garden

Garden Gnome

his month is usually a very busy time in the garden. Care taken with work done now can have a considerable effect upon your garden for several months to come. So don’t rush things just because the gardening books suggest lots of things for you to do. Hasten slowly! And remember April showers can make the ground very wet - keep out of your garden if it is waterlogged. Here are a few of my suggestions for you to consider.

Ø The flower garden. Hardy annuals are usually sown where they are to grow, and this month you can try calendulas, cornflowers, lavatera, love in a mist, and clarkia. There are plenty of others, so have a browse round the seed packets at your garden centre or nursery. The packets will also give you full cultural details. If you didn’t find the opportunity in March, there is still time to divide up perennials such as hostas, chrysanthemums, geraniums (no, I do not mean pelargoniums!) and astrantias. Always discard the old centres, and use the new growth round the outside. If you have a large clump of snowdrops – the flowers will probably be dying down by now – you can divide them up if you wish to do so. In a few years you will have an even bigger clump! Deadhead winter flowering pansies and primroses as the flowers fade. Also deadhead daffodils but allow the leaves to die down naturally (don’t tie them together or in knots). All your spring-flowering bulbs will appreciate a dressing of bonemeal, about a handful round each plant will be fine.

Ø The vegetable garden. You can sow broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, peas, spinach, Brussels sprouts and cabbage. preferably in straight rows, so that you can see which is which when the weeds start to grow. You can also sow lettuce, but it is usual to sow a pinch or two of seed at fortnightly intervals. This is supposed to give you a succession crop instead of having hundreds ready at once, but it is surprising how the later sown lettuce catch up with the others! Also if you transplant lettuce they tend to bolt (run to seed). Carrots are best sown sparsely, to avoid too much thinning out, which disturbs the soil and thus encourages carrot root fly.

Ø Flowering shrubs. After flowering, berberis, forsythia and winter-flowering jasmine should be pruned to allow new shoots to grow from the base. Up to 1/3 of forsythia shoots can be pruned right back to avoid overcrowding. Camellias seem to have done well this year, despite the loss of a few flowers to the hard frosts of late Feb/early March. Camellias prefer an acid soil, and appreciate an occasional feed with a specialist food such as Miracid. Your herbaceous perennials will appreciate a top dressing of a general fertiliser such as Growmore, fish blood and bone, or the relatively new pelletted chicken manure. There is still time to divide up your herbaceous perennials if you wish.

Ø Greenhouse. If you grow your own bedding plants your greenhouse will now be pretty full of half-hardy seedlings which will stay there until the end of May, at least. If you intend to grow a summer greenhouse crop of tomatoes, you can sow seed now, although you may find it easier to buy a few young plants at the nursery, especially if you only want half a dozen or so. There are plenty of varieties to choose from, My wife and I happen to like Alicante and Moneymaker, or for growing outside, Shirley. Don’t put plants outside until the end of May. If you intend to use growbags, buy them now, but beware of any that seem to be very cheap. They just might be some left over from last season and the fertiliser inside will have lost its potency.

Ø And finally, don’t forget to clean out your pond. The oxygenators will need cutting back and also perhaps some of the other plants. Try not to disturb things too much, especially if you have frogspawn or tadpoles around. They are not as easy to see as the fish!

Enjoy your garden Garden Gnome

n the month of May you can expect everything in the garden to be growing strongly. This includes weeds, so one of the ‘must do’ jobs in May is that of weed removal, using either a hoe or a hand fork, according to your ‘patience level’. You will probably already have treated the lawn with a selective weedkiller, but there are likely to be some resistant weeds that need removal by hand. The lawn grass also will be growing strongly, but beware of cutting it too close – a medium setting on the mower blades is preferable to shaving the grass, which would suffer if we had a dry spell.

Hedges can be trimmed now, keeping a good lookout for birds’ nests. You can use hand shears or a powered trimmer on small-leafed hedge plants. Large-leafed plants are better pruned with secateurs, thus avoiding cutting leaves in two, which looks horrible. Holly can also be trimmed now, using secateurs. If your holly is variegated, remove any green-leafed shoots completely.

Early flowering shrubs should be pruned as the flowers die off. Each of the flowered branches can be cut down to a bud just above their point of origin, thus avoiding cutting into old wood. However, if a shrub has been neglected, cutting out old branches completely will encourage others to grow, but this sort of drastic pruning is best done over a year or two.

In the flower garden you can sow asters and hardy annuals. Biennials such as wallflowers and sweet williams can be sown thinly in a bit of spare ground, transferring them to their flowering positions in the autumn. If, like me, you love foxgloves, now is the time to sow them, very thinly in the place where you want them to grow, because they do not like to be transplanted. Once you have foxgloves in your garden you will always have them. Most years you have to thin them out to avoid overcrowding. During the month you can plant out dahlia tubers kept from last year. You may have taken cuttings from them in March and April and these can be hardened off ready for planting out towards the end of the month – but wait until early June if in doubt. Sweet peas sown earlier should be growing nicely, but when they are about four inches high pinch out the growing shoot just above a leaf joint. This will produce more shoots, making denser growth and giving you many more flowers

In the vegetable garden, you can sow beetroot, cress, lettuce (only a few seeds, remember), peas, radish, french and runner beans. I prefer to start runner beans indoors, transplanting outside in early June

In the greenhouse, continue to pot on seedlings as necessary, in readiness for hardening off later in the month. When you have a bit more room inside, set out the tomatoes you intend to grow in the (unheated) greenhouse. You can use a growbag, or plastic container, or plant them direct into the greenhouse soil. If you intend to grow tomatoes outside, try to plant them in a sheltered spot, but in full sun, and preferably not before the beginning of June.

Garden Gnome

UNE is usually described in gardening books as ‘early summer’, and summer is supposed to be the time of year when we sit in the garden and dreamily watch the butterflies dancing round the roses. In practice of course we see the greenfly, the earwigs and the weeds; one usually feels much happier sitting in someone else’s garden! However the rush of gardening jobs in May has now subsided, but of course there is always something we can find to do. So here are a few ideas.

Ø Hanging baskets, which you filled last month (didn’t you?) can now be put out, but please check that the wall brackets are firmly fixed, they may have loosened over the winter. Baskets are heavy when full and you must handle them carefully – to avoid damage to yourself! Once installed they will need watering at least once daily. Water retaining granules and slow release fertiliser can help considerably, but of course these are put in as the baskets are being made up.

Ø Flower garden. By now all your half-hardy bedding plants, whether home raised or bought in, should be hardened off and can be planted in their summer homes. If, like me, you have raised a series of plants from dahlia cuttings over the last couple of months, they should now be ready for planting out in the garden. You can put the old tubers out too. Incidentally, tall dahlias need staking – use 1 inch square stakes At this time of year roses are susceptible to blackspot and mildew, so keep a good look out and spray accordingly. Climbing roses may need to be tied in to avoid damage from wind. All roses will benefit from a mulch of well-rotted manure or compost Lawn mowings can also be used. Agapanthus also will appreciate a similar mulching. If you have any seeds of half-hardy annuals left over, you can sow them outside now. They will give you a good show of flowers in September – and probably surprise your friends! This is also the time to think about sowing biennials to flower next year (sweet williams, wallflowers, canterbury bells, etc.). Sow in drills as thinly as possible, and transplant to their permanent positions in the autumn. Remember to deadhead all flowers regularly to prolong the flowering period.

Ø Shrubs that finish flowering in the next month or two should be pruned promptly. Examples are kolkwitzia (beauty bush), deutzia, philadelphus (mock orange), and weigela. Cut out the flowered shoots as close to the base as possible to encourage new shoots, but avoid cutting into old wood if possible. If you wish to increase your stock, you can take cuttings of any of these plants over the next few months.

Ø Hopefully, fruit and vegetables are growing strongly this month. Keep the hoe going to sort out the weeds. Raspberries are shallow rooted, so they will appreciate a mulching. Strawberries will benefit from a high potash feed. This is the time to take strawberry runners if you wish to increase your stock, or to replace the oldest plants after this year’s crop has been picked. Peg down only the first little plant of each runner, and cut off the rest. Remove completely any runners not needed. There is nothing quite so tasty as a lettuce fresh from the garden, but it is very important to give them plenty of water at this time. If they become dry, they will run to seed and become useless.

Ø And finally, don’t forget your houseplants. They can get very hot at this time of year. If so, try moving them to a west facing window for a few days.

Garden Gnome