Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your festivities all went well, and that you are now as excited as I am about the new gardening year🤩.
Deep snow, ice and storms notwithstanding, let’s get going with some plotting and planning, as well as tending the houseplants, feeding the birds and ordering seeds….
Changing it up
January is a fabulous time for planning how you are going to make your
Was the summer bedding in the right place? Does one area need more oomph? After last summer’s drought, can I install more water butts somewhere? Do I need to re-design an area that has become too shady? How can I bring more butterflies into my space? You’ll have a load of your own questions, and you’ve got a couple of quiet cold months while you enjoy trying to address them.
And there’s almost always a solution out there. I was asked the other day for some ideas about how to jolly up a shady, narrow paved space between a house-wall and a fence. Not a promising situation, I grant you, but what about deep planters or pots filled with bulbs for spring, summer or autumn, foliage plants such as heucheras or ferns, and shade-tolerating climbers or wall-shrubs such as pretty ivies, Itea, Garrya or Jasminum nudiflorum for the fence/wall? Staggering them at intervals on either side of the narrow space would make it seem wider.
I know Laura is at present engaged on a much bigger project – creating a small woodland
My point is that you can have real fun re-designing areas in your
Happy houseplants
No, I’m not a houseplant person as such, but I do know that millions of people are, and that it’s through the winter months that houseplants need a bit of special attention. By and large (I found out the other day that that expression comes from sailing! – look it up), you should move them away from cold windowsills and try and group them together. Sitting them together on groups of pebbles can increase the humidity of the air around them in centrally-heated rooms. Many grow much more slowly in winter so reduce watering, and wipe the dust off them regularly. I learnt the hard way about checking them every so often for pests like mealy-bugs, aphids, scale insects and white-fly – had to throw the whole plant out because I left it infested for too long – oops.
Did you take part in our Christmas Amaryllis challenge? All we 3Growbags failed to have any of our bulbs in flower on Christmas Day, I’m sorry to say, but I did manage to persuade one of mine to do its thing for New Year’s Eve. Here’s a good tip – to ‘big up’ flowers in the house, place the vase or pot in front of a mirror – double bang for your buck. With the case of an Amaryllis, covering up the bulb and stem with a lower flowering plant can help too – in my case, a still-flowering Pelargonium.
If you’d like a bit more about houseplants, I put together a short piece a while ago on how to look after some plants commonly given as festive presents. The link is at the bottom.
Gardening shorts
- I am a huge fan of buying little plug plants that you then pot on before putting them out in the
garden , as in this week’s feature pic. Thegarden centres and online outlets are full of great spring bedding offers for these – really good value! Get them now and grow them on ready to fill your beds and pots with gorgeous spring colour.
- If it’s frosty outside, try not to walk over the lawn – your feet are likely to snap the frosted grass blades. But do knock heavy snowfalls off any hedges because the weight can cause the hedge plants to splay out sideways and spoil the hedge.
- Do wrap up warmly and go out when you can to enjoy the sights of a cold winter’s day. This can be a sad and worrying time for many people for all sorts of reasons, but a walk through a
garden or the countryside can often be cheering. The low sun can create sparkling scenes that you won’t see at other times of the year, perhaps, and the simple combination of fresh air and exercise can release endorphins and serotonin which can help to lighten your mood and reduce stress in these troubled times of ours.
- Climbing hydrangeas like H. petiolaris are a joy in early summer, but can grow vigorously when they’re happy. Now is the time to cut their stems away from guttering and roof tiles.
- Sort through your seeds and assess what you need to replace/buy for this year’s displays and harvests. Don’t forget to order your seed potatoes if you haven’t already done so – some of my favourites sold out last year, so I’ve put my order in early this time!
- Keep feeding the birds in your
garden . We gardeners play an important part In helping the wildlife of the UK – have a look at Caroline’s summary of a new major RHS Report on the State of Gardening in the UK. The link is below.
The Royal Horticultural Society has published its inaugural report on the State of Gardening in the UK – a benchmark to be updated every three years. This is what Caroline made of it…
Here is the link to the piece about caring for festive houseplants
A great choice for a smaller
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