- If you haven’t planted your garlic yet, (folklore says to plant it on the shortest day of the year) you still have time, but do not delay. Garden Centre garlic should be certified virus free but you will pay more for this. Supermarket garlic should be okay but you are taking a risk because apparently health giving garlic will repel vampires but not viruses.
- Brassica plants (cabbage, cauli and broccoli) can be planted now for late spring harvest.
- Lettuce plants for spring salads can be planted under cloches. It is still too cold to plant them in the open without the protection of a cloche.
- If you have a frostfree spot, new potatoes can be planted for late spring harvest.
- In the home orchard, apple trees should be pruned now along with grapevines. To spur prune grapevines, take them back to two growth points from the main trunk, removing all weak and spindly growth. It looks drastic but grapes respond to heavy pruning.
- Lawn care: it is a good time to oversow bare patches in the lawn or to sow fresh lawns for spring. Ideally they are best done in autumn, but there is still time to get them established before summer.
- In the ornamental garden, now is the time to dig and divide clumping plants. Do not delay this task because they will be going into growth very soon. Summer flowering perennials and hostas like to be divided and replanted into soil which has been freshly cultivated. They will reward your efforts with plenty of fresh vigour.
- Pruning hydrangeas is another task to be finished as soon as possible.
- Daffodils are coming through the ground. Be wary with the Round Up because they don’t like being sprayed at this stage.
- Spring is only about six weeks away. The buds are already swelling on the cherry trees and magnolias, and the snowdrops are in full flower.
Author Archives: Abbie Jury
Soil compaction
When our children were little, we used to read them a small book called “Noisy Nora”. Her refrain was, ‘ “I’m back again,” said Nora, with a monumental crash.’
I am back again, dear Readers, although perhaps not with the monumental crash.
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Gardening as a treasure hunt
I just love bureaucrats. They are such a wonderful source of ridicule. Farming readers will be busy jumping through the same hoops as nursery people and even section maintenance operators – undergoing mandatory courses in agrichemicals in preparation for the January deadline after which one won’t be able to buy many basic chemicals unless one has the magic certificate.
Mark obediently trotted off and did his course last year (if only I could remember where I filed the certificate….). In principle you can’t argue with the logic of attempting to educate people in the safe use of chemicals. There are dangers and pitfalls in their usage and countless tales of abuse and bad effects. So while Mark prides himself on being a relatively safe operator, he didn’t really complain.
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The winter garden
Winter struck with a vengeance this week. There can’t be much more to blow down. Leaves, twigs, branches, the odd small tree, every container plant – they are all lying around waiting to be cleaned up. Then it turned so cold that I didn’t feel like venturing out between showers. Next came the frost and it remained cold. Sometimes our long autumns lull me in to a false sense of security and I never fail to be surprised by a wintery blast.
I was rung by a journalist working on a story about winter gardens and it made me focus on what we strive for in the winter garden. Despite my reluctance to brave the cold, we garden for twelve months of the year here. In spring it tends to be a pretty tree and shrub garden with the addition of lots of spring bulbs. In summer we aim for the lushness of the subtropical look with touches of the English herbaceous tradition. In autumn it is the detail of the autumn bulbs along with the splashes of colour on the plants which colour up well (the metasequoia was a breathtaking orange this year).
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From guerilla gardening to perennials and spring
It must be a sign of the times, dear Reader, that I am going to inflict a website on you. Being rural and suffering from very slow dial-up (roll on unbundling), I am not a great web browser but when rain drove me indoors I clicked on www.guerrillagardening.org.
The site is fast and friendly and details the night time guerrilla gardening activities of an ever growing band of enthusiasts who are taking over neglected and unloved urban areas. The greatest effort is in London so far but it appears to be a growing movement. Even the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are reportedly trying to keep their sanity by growing plants from seeds saved from their meals.
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