Not sure about you, but I’m beginning to long for some brighter, warmer, drier spring days! Caroline in the far north has had cold but lovely sunny weather, surely there is something better on the horizon for us in the south?
Still, there are tasks to be getting on with in the meantime, such as putting in some plants to help the early insects, planning the veg garden, and pruning some shrubs…
Helping the early insects
Some of our precious insects are starting to stir – I hope you’ve got a few plants in your garden that will provide nectar and pollen to sustain them until the main spring season gives them a host more choices. Did you know that a mild winter will cause more bees to starve than a bitterly cold one? They end up using their stored honey much faster than if they were in deep hibernation.
But there are certain plants that will give insects (and thus, wild birds) valuable food sources at this early stage of the year.
Snowdrops are first on this list, with their nodding flower-heads often full of golden pollen. Also winter aconites, which open their cheery yellow flowers wide on mild days. providing a real lure for the first bees of spring. Heather is also extremely valuable to insects, and witch hazels can delight both the bees and you with their showy and scented flowers. Crocuses, hellebores and violets can all help. And trees like willows, poplars and alders will also produce clouds of pollen early in the year, which bees can feed to their new larvae.
Don’t forget the often-overlooked winter jasmine (J. nudiflorum), and if you can bear to have a properly wild corner, please do let some dandelions bloom – the little critters will love you for it!
So why not have a look round your garden now, and make a note of where you might be able to put in a lovely patch of crocuses or aconites when it comes to bulb-planting time in the autumn. Remember too that some of these lovelies like the snowdrops are better planted ‘in the green’ (i.e while they still have foliage above the soil) so you could get your bespoke early nectar bar going right now!
Crop rotation
It still feels much too early to be out in garden doing very much but you can certainly PLAN! Lots of successful veg gardeners swear by a fairly simple organic technique to lessen the impact of pests and diseases in their crops.
Have you heard of a technique called ‘Crop Rotation’? It’s rather a neat plan that’s been worked out to avoid growing the same crops in the same soil each year. Certain crops attract certain diseases and pests, and these can build up in the soil over time, putting the following year’s crop at risk. How about trying to minimise this problem.
Vegetables come in groups which have their individual problems. . Brassicas like broccoli, cabbages, kale etc. can attract various kinds of rot as well as clubroot. Legumes like beans and peas are subject to downy mildew and pea thrips, amongst other things. Onions, shallots and leeks might also get mildew as well as bulb eelworm and white rot. With potatoes, it’s scab, blight and eelworm, and root crops like carrots, parsnips and beetroot might get root rot, parsnip canker etc.
Crops like potatoes like lots of rotted manure and other organic composts added to the soil before planting. After that, the legumes (peas and beans) have the useful habit of fixing nitrogen in the soil if you leave the roots in when you’re tidying up at the end of the season. This essential soil-element can be enjoyed by brassicas like cabbages, etc. The next year, the onions and roots can go into that space. Then you’re back to lots of rotted manure etc. to put your potatoes in there for the following season. If you’re only planning a 3-year rotation, put the legumes together with the onions and roots.
For obvious reasons, perennial veg like asparagus doesn’t fall into this rotation scheme. Neither do cucurbits like marrows and courgettes etc. which tend to be grown wherever the gardener has got a sunny and fertile space.
If you have the room, I definitely think it would be worth giving this technique a go – what have you got to lose? And you may gain a lot.
Forcing the issue
Last week, we 3Growbags were entertaining you with our various plans about topiary, ‘ruins’ in gardens etc. and now I’d like to tempt you with another ‘Victorian’ concept: forced flowers.
No, I don’t mean you have to start creating hot-beds, bell cloches and all the other paraphernalia involved in producing pineapples in February or melons in March. But just by siting a slightly tender plant in a protected area of the garden, say, by a warm wall, we are, in a way, ‘forcing’ the plant to perform better. When you really think about it, all our conservatories, greenhouses and cold frames are a way of ‘faking’ things a bit, aren’t they. Perhaps we ought to call it ‘boosting’ rather than ‘forcing’ which sounds a bit brutal!
Just by bringing certain outdoor plants inside into a cool room at this time of year, we can enjoy their flowers or blossom several weeks earlier than if they were left outside. And you’ll still have the ones left outdoors to enjoy later! Here are a few ideas for suitable plants:
Pussy willows (Salix) – a few branches brought inside will open their buds into delicate catkins. I have worked the same trick with Forsythia or Cornus mas in the past too. Bring twigs of Sarcococca inside and enjoy the scent of their delicate flowers. A bit later on, try it with flowering quince (Chaenomeles)and cherry trees, to encourage their flower buds to burst into bloom inside. Even lilac (Syringa) and Magnolia branches can be brought inside to flower earlier once their buds have formed.
Hyacinths are well-known for being brought inside to flower earlier, but these are generally what is known as ‘prepared’ bulbs – they have been chilled below zero for a number of weeks to trigger them into precociously early flowers. But I have certainly brought hyacinths in from the garden in pots in February to enjoy early colour and scent. You can do the same with lily of the valley (Convallaria), pansies and violets. Remember to keep them cool, deadhead them regularly and put them back in the garden when they have finished flowering.
Gardening shorts
- Brussels sprouts seeds can be sown now – they will germinate even at low temperatures. Sow them in a seed tray of multi-purpose compost, cover them lightly with compost and then tamp it down. Water the tray well, and your seedlings should be up in a few days.
- I experimented with rooting some plants in water in late autumn last year. The salvias sadly rotted before they rooted (though I shall definitely try again with those) but the thyme and rosemary worked well and are now growing on confidently in pots in a sheltered area outside, so that was certainly worth an hour of my time! We have a video of the process I used on our our YouTube channel – link is at the bottom.
- You can cut back shrubs such as Fuchsias, Santolina and Lavatera now to stop them getting leggy and ugly. If you live in a cold part of the country it might be better to leave this job for a few weeks so that new growth is less likely to get damaged by hard frosts.
- Valentine romance is in the air! It seems an appropriate moment to point out that Laura shows how to grow your own mistletoe in your garden so you’ll have the requisite plant for future festive smooching in future! Just click on this link to get chapter and verse on the technique for growing this rather strange plant.
Here is the link to my video about rooting cuttings in water.
We’ve joined up with bird food specialists Happy Beaks to offer this fantastic prize of bird boxes, bird table and bird food. It’s free to enter! Entries close at noon on 5 March
Where do they appear from? Iris reticulata are in a class of their own and real stars of February. Louise explains why…
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