February is a thoroughly miserable month: the ground is too muddy, the rain too chilling, the light bleak and most people are feeling fed up: really the only good thing about it is that it is shorter than the other months.
But, as that ghastly month closes, if you look closely then spring is visible everywhere. We have buds fattening as quickly as a troupe of bun-loving chubbies and the pointy shoots of bulbs push themselves through the cold soil. These are stark reminders that soon things will need to be done. Spring is a bit like a rollercoaster: you get very slowly winched up through the long days of winter until you teeter on the top. Then suddenly it is downhill rush as everything starts sprouting and growing and flowering and, unless you are careful you will run out of time to complete all those things that need doing before the spring.
Aaaaaarghhhhh!
I am always in a panic at this time of year – there are so many things that need to be done. All before the end of March. So, the time has come to make a list.
Things I need to do before spring:
(i) A huge pile of manure has just arrived and I need to get that shovelled onto the borders.
(ii) I have to get supports into the borders before things start growing – luckily we live in some woodland so I can coppice some hazels.
(iii) Order vegetable seeds – actually this bit has been done already by my very efficient wife. This year it is a relatively modest order as we rather pushed the boat out last year so have plenty of leftovers that are still viable.
(iv) Plant the seeds that my very efficient wife has ordered.
(v) Divide grasses and some herbaceous plants.
(vi) Prune and tie back climbing roses.
(vii) Cut back willows and dogwoods – although this can wait a bit.
(viii) Plant bare-rooted trees – last chance motel, ladies and gents.
(ix) Prune fruit trees – done most of them but have a few to finish off.
(x) Find and plant something to plug the gap in the borders where I dug out a veronicastrum in a fit of pique.
Better stop writing and start doing. Anything interesting on your last-minute panic lists?
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February 28th, over an inch of rain, March 1st, early frost followed by sunniest day for a very long time. Wonderful! I was out in the garden first thing, armed with my to do list, a lengthy document, cleaning the pond pumps, replacing the filters and UVC lamps, weeding, sorting out the climbers and a dozen other things. Brilliant start on the list, but the best bit of the day, sitting in the morning sun on a bench, with a cup of coffee, admiring the crocus display, as courting birds twitter overhead. After such a bad winter today has been very rewarding
So true i have been waiting for this day all winter beautiful.
Pears, pears, pears! I finally ordered two minarette pears from Ken Muir today, after much faffing and wandering off on quince tangents. Bad weather is no excuse, I should’ve done it ages ago but couldn’t bring myself to go for minarettes, afraid they’d look like those bizarre, over-fruiting, containerised midget trees in magazines. But I shall train mine at a jaunty angle side-by-side on my sunny wall, and hope for the gracious cordon effect.
Interestingly also spent my lunch hour Vitax-ing all the roses while removing our cat’s and dog’s little presents from around the garden. Out with the old poo, in with the new. Go, March!
Sheila Averbuch — Stopwatch Gardener
Dear James, I have to finish applying wood preservative to my trellises before allowing anything to grow up them. I started the job last September and have done 2.5 trellises so far. I also have to fix a hole in my pond liner. These are two very boring, horrible jobs and I’ve been hoping they would just go away. But they haven’t. Kate
Just had a wander round my garden, looks like ive lost a few plants and even my ceonothus and red robin look like they have bit the dust, the ground is frozen solid along with the pond and water butt, a little snow on the ground ,its an open aspect garden so gets no protection but i must say the dog woods look lovely and the few snowdrops. I am hoping it warms up soon!!
cant wait new allotment this year getting it turned over this saturday gotta take out all the grass rizones put compost in any plant my petit puio onion sets sturnon dill allantic pumpkin and start other stuff off in the greenhouse
Sounds great Michael, hope to get planning and organising my greenhouse this weekend.
Yes a great day on monday 1st and tuesday 2nd March Made a new garden patch already for planting Re planed a few plants they did not mind bless them. sorted out green house sowed some seeds What a great time in all in the two days spent 12 hours in the garden.Better then being indoors been really great
I would like to know whether I should cut back the fronds of my evergreen ferns. Can anyone give me advice?
We also serve who only sit and eat.
i have to walk on my lawn to get to the boaders,the ground is stilll very soft under foot.its slow to dry out due to heavy clay so am limeted to what i can do at this time of year.i’m hopeing for a longer dry spell,we had some snow yesterday but today looks promesing.
My spirits are as gloomy as the weather. The garden looks as though a bomb has hit it – and it has – in the shape of a 7 month (now) yellow labrador whose mission in life is to chomp, chew and dig up every plant which is clearly there for his personal fun and frolic! He got up on my alpine trough and dug out every plant, bar one. (Husband was in loco parentis that day!) My son-in-law asked why we’d taken off the pebbles from the water feature!! That wasn’t us actually! He made himself ill by diging up the fritilaria bulbs and eating them (be warned). The trellis we put up round the veg garden has been devoured – we do feed him, honestly! Our last lab (black – perhaps that’s the difference) hardly went on the borders but our beloved yellow hooligan hasn’t got the message yet. Maybe he’ll be better when we get out into the cold and start gardening with him. Just as well we love him! What on earth can I do this year to cultivate a garden that is Bertie proof?
I’m really enjoying this weather – planting snowdrops in the green and trying to eradicate brambles when my back won’t take any more bending. The conservatory floor is covered in broadbean, garlic, shallots and onion plants in pots waiting for me to plant out when the soil is warm enough. Bee – I would only cut down any bedraggled fronds on your fern. They can look so good at this time of year, the polysticums. Dryopteris can be tidied up now by cutting back the old fronds.
Relocated to the northern tip of the Netherlands last summer from the damp South Wales coast, and after almost two fully frozen months of snow and subzero temperatures I was beginning to think the spring would never come, but it arrived sometime last week with blackbird’s song and robin’s twitter. Turning over the muddy, bleak soil and saying hello to the snoozy ladybirds this afternoon has never filled me with so many smiles. I hope it warms up a few degrees more so I can get my magnolias in the ground and see my welsh daffs standing along side my our dutch tulips.
looking forward to seeing my alium taper idea works can see the shoots coming up got globetrotter centre then a slightly smaller variety circling round and then even smaller 1 again should resemble a wedding cake lol
I’ve had some time off this week… Monday went to the garden centre and now for the next few days am looking forward to tidying my borders and starting to prepare for a new veg patch at the top of the garden. Lots of plants to move to accomodate it but it will be worth it!
I agree with my fellow bloggers – how wonderful it is to be able to get out in the garden again. I too have made lists – so far have filled two pages of a shorthand notebook and only half way there. I have spent three days clearing and cutting down the dead leaves and stems of the perennials in my flower beds and have the acheing muscles to prove it. Also sown some veggie seeds. Now I want to move some of my established evergreen shrubs, would it be a good time to do this?
Thanks to this post, I spent a very happy lunchtime out pruning my climbing roses – thanks James for giving me the idea on such a lovely sunny day
Ked, don’t try and change your garden if it was fine for your black lab – change your yellow one. I don’t mean trade it in for a black one, just teach it how you want it to behave in the garden.
Life is all fun at that age and whilst you don’t want to stop that, you do want to get some training in.
i love reading everyones bloggs as i’m fairly new to gardening i’m able to use all your good advice so i’m hopin you could help me, i’vebought persian buttercup bulbs and please don’t laugh but which way up do you plant them?? i think it’s spikey side up my hubby who is as daft as me said plant them on thier side!! please help they look lovely on the packet.
Ked,i have the same problem with a young rescue dog i got three weeks ago.he’s a border collie cross[i suspect with a mule 'cos he's as stubborn as]so at the moment he only goes in the garden under supervision.i am still waiting for the ground to dry enough to walk on without causing too much damage,a couple more days like today should do it.the thing to make me smile today was seeing the crocus basking in the lovely sun.
I have two large beautiful phormiums which have suffered terribly with the prolonged cold weather. They are looking very sad with drooping outer leaves and very untidy now. Is it okay to trim off the drooping leaves around the outside, and would it harm the plants?
Ked, I did get a giggle about your hooligan of a yellow labrador pup.
I have got bullmastiffs, and you sure see if they run over the borders, by the BIG paw marks left behind!!!!!!!!!!
I am in NZ and today it is 28 celseus outside. Too hot to garden actually so I have got a fan going beside me and sitting enjoying reading Gardeners World.
Hopefully we are going to get rain on Sunday and Monday, which will be great as the garden is drying out, and it is so tedious, each evening, standing watering with the hose – even with a
cold glass of wine in the other hand !!
One advantage is though, that you do notice heaps of things in the garden when you are having to water regularly as you are observing your garden each evening. Hope spring bursts forth for you all over in the UK real soon.
My seed potatoes have arrived and are now standing like soldiers in trays in the conservatory(unheated) to chit. Now all I have to do is dig in the green manure plants in readiness for planting them. Yesterday in the Botanic garden where I am a volunteer, the phormiums were very droopy but we only cleared away the weeds under them. They recovered last year after the bad winter and will do so again – as long as the leaves have colour they are photosynthesising so I would not cut them off. The snowdrops have been joined by the most magnificent display of crocuses. A bad winter has meant that the spring flowers will all be flowering together – some tete-a-tete daffodils are already flowering, as well as pulmonaria and aconites and what a season it is for bloom and no blind bulbs.
LAURA CORS – pointy end up
Hi
Ive been making lists of what id like to change in my garden, its a bit of a blank canvas with open views of fields which i dont want to lose, can anyone recommend any garden design/ideas books to help me incorporate my blank canvas into the views???? Longshot this i know, i just dont know where to start .
to michael bubb thanks very much for your reply, i’ll have a lovely display now thanks to you.
bunnysgarden – John Brooks is the guru of garden design so look out for his books at the library. Why not copy the shape of your design in miniature to echo the shapes you see in your view?
Great to read your dog/garden comments! Two bull mastives!! Heavens! Labrador paws are half the size. I agree about training him of course but it’s hard when he goes out in the dark and I can’t see what he’s doing. I knew he’d bitten off some of the jasmine I have (had!!) growing up my pergola but, when we went out today (the first sunny day for ages) I found the blighter has bitten off EVERY STEM from about 3 inches from the ground! I have to catch him at it to make it clear it’s NOT OK! We’ll get there though and hopefully the jasmine will reshoot.
We are quite new to gardening so still have alot to learn, can we uncover the palms and ferns as we protected them with a fleece cover over winter?
Do I cut all grasses back to ground level? I don,t know the names of all of them, but I think I have some Zebra grass, at the moment it is very tall with fluffy seed heads. Others are green and red and still look quite green.
My daughter bought a strawberry plant “red gauntlet” over the weekend. I have a small garden thats gravelled. Does anyone know if its ok to put this sort into a hanging basket.
We know need to have sun. TWEEDY your daughter can now put her strawberries in her basket.
i think on page 16 of this months gardeners world magazine has got advice on grasses ok alga
i have some 4ft high cordylines that the snow completly flattened.any ideas as to what i can do????
i have got the local school cuming to my allotment on the 16th of march i am going to show them how to grow veg and flowers that go together up to now i have got a pollytunel full of veg and flower seedlings for them to take back with them i just hope it gose well thanks joey nothwood kirkby allotments liverpool
To happymarion
Thanks very much, i will go looking for him to get some ideas, as its open fields and forest at the end its a blank for pretty much anything i guess.
My photinia Red Robin looks to have been bitten too badly by the cold weather (we aren’t used to too much frozen ground here in the south!) The last leaves on the ends of the branches have drooped and there doesn’t appear to be any budding appearing – should I remove it now or should I leave it a while longer? It’s a shame because it was a lovely large bush. If I have to remove it can anyone suggest something to replace it? I want it all foliage, scent the works
choiysis its a mexican orange blossom scent like fresh lemon foliage turn white yellow green new growth white can grow quite large think u need to put erasouis compost in tho likes it acidic
choiysia sorry small floser 2
THE FIRST GARDEN GREEN HOUSE WE HAD WAS POLYCARBONATE,,,GIVE IT TO THE LOCAL SCHOOL ,,,,,I PURCHASED A MUCH MORE PROFESSIONAL ON THIS TIME GOOD HEATING STAGING Ect,,, now really gona ENJOY IT….EVEN WITH THE Mrs,,,
I’ve noticed that many of my Spring bulbs particularly the daffoldils are coming up blind this year – is this anything to do with the vile Winter and has anyone else got this problem?
Hi all
I am new too gardenning and have just bought a house with good size garden. Although is is a complete blank canvas. I have made some borders ready but need advice on the best kind of flowers and plants to have to start with. There isnoting in the garden at the moment, Any suggestions would be greatly recieved?
Blimey Becksah, that is quite a big question!
Not something that can really be answered in the comments layer of a Blog.
Four things:
Go to the library, borrow some books.
Take out a subscription to Gardeners World Magazine.
Get a copy of the National Gardens Scheme Yellow Book and go and visit local gardens
Talk to other local gardeners
Go to some of the many flower showsthat begin in April with the RHS Cardiff Show. In particular try and get to Gardeners World Live in Birmingham (16-20 June)
Cheryl in New Zealand how does your garden grow?
Have had my own garden for a year now and am loving growing fruit, veg and flowers.
Planning to move to NZ in about 4 years (North of South Island) and am wondering what how it compares to gardening in the UK?
I have two very sad looking hebes having been badly snow damaged during the winter. Will they survive – should I prune the worst off?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Am i too late to prune my roses and my fuscia bushes?
Thanks James, I have imersed myself in books and ideas on whta I would like.I will hopefully be going to a couple of shows too! One question if you could answer. I have noticed my garden grass is not very good with drainage after the rain. What would you recommend? From a very greatful and still learning beginner!
I have just spent 5 weekends transforming my front garden, i must say with hard work, it is looking lovely i used boarders and pebbles and i’m just waiting for the rain to subside so i can plant my grasses and plants. this is my new hobby can someone please tell me if it is too late to prepare the soil for my plants
Tanydd: Never too late. Glad you are enjoying yourself.
Hello, I bought a pot grown Cydonia “Vranja” and it started to look a bit ‘down in the leaf’ so i quickly planted it, gave it some fish, blood and bone and a good watering but the leaves are even more droopy now than they were before…I’m concerned that the plant is dying and wondered if you would have any advice for me?
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
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