Winter Garden Tips

Winter Garden Tips

witch-hazel

You can start your  gardening on New Years Day or as soon as your hangover is cured. Do not have too many resolutions or you won’t keep any of them. I find it is a good idea to know roughly what you want to achieve in the year without being too specific as to how. For my part I have decided to have more soft fruit and ‘Shock and Awe’ type garden features.

Steps for January

Fruit

  • Prune apple trees and thin out the fruiting spurs. In my case buy cordons or ballerina trees.
  • Cut out any dead or diseased wood and spray trees with winter tar oil wash to deter insects. Leave the plums till later.
  • Remove any big buds on black currant bushes.
  • Cover a rhubarb crown with a forcer to get early, thin, pink stems.
  • Plant any new trees or shrubs – I want a dessert gooseberry
  • Tie up raspberry canes and check for loose ties on trees and wall trained fruit.

Vegetables

  • Order any seeds from a reputable supplier and sprout potatoes in a box with the rounded rose end upper most
  • Sow some broad beans when it is mild
  • Lime the vegetable patch that grew brassicas last year. Do not lime your potato patch.
  • Plan where crop rotation is going to be.

Flowers and Shrubs

  • Tidy the borders and plant lilies and Antirrhinums
  • Ventilate your cold frame
  • Check frost protection for new young shrubs
  • Spray roses and the surrounding ground against black spot and mulch Rhododendrons

Lawns

  • Service the lawn mower ready for spring
  • Keep clear of dead leaves Rake mossy areas

Greenhouse and Indoor Plants

  • Clean staging and fumigate the greenhouse
  • Take cuttings of late flowering chrysanthemums
  • Keep houseplants on the dry side in the best light
  • Pick sprays of Daphne & forsythia to flower indoors

General

  • Don’t rush into doing anything too early but be prepared for your busy period
  • Do any construction work except concreting during a frost
  • Sow leeks and onions in boxes and even some lettuce and peppers in the warmth.
  • Look closely around your garden there will be treasures to uncover. Hellebore niger, Winter Jasmin and Witch Hazel (above) are all flowering

February Tips

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Garden Tasks for February

  • Finish Planting trees and shrubs. The earlier trees and shrubs can be planted the better
  • Prepare Soil. If the soil is not frozen it is a good time to prepare the soil through digging where necessary.
  • Finish Pruning of Roses or other shrubs
  • Towards the end of February, you can start dahlia tubers and similar tubers such gloxina and Begonias indoors.

Vegetable Garden in February

  • Sow early crops under glass. Early vegetables can included mustard, cress, parsnips, broad beans and lettuce.
  • Towards end of the month you can start thinning out seedlings
  • Prune Autumn fruiting Raspberries. Autumn producing raspberries want to be cut back to 6 inches as they fruit on new growth.

crocus

A bed of crocus

Things to Enjoy in the February Garden

  • Early bulbs – snowdrops, crocus, early daffodills.
  • Early primulas –
  • Early pansies
  • Camellia Japonica
  • Daphne

flower
Related

Bamboo Uses and the Environment

Bamboo Uses and the Environment

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There are over 1400 different species of bamboo in the world, 900 tropical and 500 temperate.  Bamboo is a useful component of landscape design, providing shade, wind breaks, acoustical barriers and aesthetic beauty. Bamboo beer, bamboo shoots as a vegetable and small implements are products from the bamboo.

Environment Considerations

In its natural habitat bamboo is very environmentally friendly
Bamboo is the fastest growing plant on the planet, with some species growing over 4ft in just 24hours!
Bamboo can be continuously harvested which is beneficial to the health of the plant.
Bamboos anti-erosion properties are key to it’s reputation as a soil conservation tool. Its roots bind the soil and the stems reduce rain run-off.
It is widely believed that if bamboo were better farmed it would be a renewable source of food, building materials and erosion prevention as well as keeping gardeners supplied.

In Happy Mount Park Morecambe this clump of bamboo is used in a children’s adventure play area to add one more use to the growing list of uses.

Purple Pansy Please

Purple Pansy Please

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Winter pansies start to come into their own in February and March. It is also a great time to stock up on new pansies for the coming year.

Increase Your Pansies.

  • Kinder pots of seedlings are available for sale in many garden centers but they are usually only available for a few weeks. You need to prick them out and grow on so they are labour intensive but you may get as many plants as you would from your own seed packets.
  • Plug u grow are slightly larger pansy plants that also need protection and growing on until planted out.
  • Seed packets are available mail order or at many retail outlets. Purple rain smaller F1 spreading pansy Bingo a deep purple and Karma may fit your colour schemes.
  • In spring small and large trays of pansies are offered in ready to plant out modules. Thompson & Morgan search for seeds and plants

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Dahlia In Containers

Dahlia In Containers

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Dahlias are not the first flower you think about when looking for container plants. The large flowers from tuberous roots are very thirsty, very hungry and can grow 4-6 feet tall. So I would leave the dinner plate varieties alone unless you have an enormous pot or barrel.

Annual Dahlias may be the answer and there are many colourful mixes available to grow from seed. Mostly they are single flowered annuals and are less fussy than the larger varieties.

  • Bambino mix grow to 12-18″ tall miniature semi-double flowers that are recommended for bedding, pots and containers. Sow in February or March.
  • I like the idea of Bishops Children which are seeds to grow as offspring from the Bishop of llandaff and various cathedral cities which have red-purple dark leaves and red to orange flowers. They are mid sized dahlias from seed and you may grow a great flower.
  • Double Extreme is an attractive dwarf selection, producing a mass of high quality double and semi double flowers in an rich colour mixture.

If you want to try larger flowered varieties, preferrably in their own space with lots of compost and mulch the Thompson Morgan have a selection.

Enjoy growing Dahlias and let us know how you get on with containers. Read about Cactus flowering Dahlias.

Note
Dark leaved Bishop’s children Dahlias are looking very good as Autumn comes to an end. Children will be surprised the leaves are not green and the flowers remain so colourful read more
See a mosaic of Pink Dahlias with top ten pointers

Fertilizers for Growth

Fertilizers for Growth

Growmore Fertiliser

Feed Your Plants

Plants need food at the right time and in roughly the right quantities to deliver the best results for you in terms of flowers, leaves or fruit. Fertilizer is a concentrated form of food as opposed to bulky conditioners and organic manures. On bottles or boxes of fertilizer you will often see the N P K ratios where N = Nitrogen, P = Phosphates and K = Potassium.

Nitrogen encourages leaf growth so it is useful for Lawns, Houseplants, Spinach or other leafy vegetables. Good leave coverage is also important for photosynthesis so virtually all plants need nitrogen but too much can make a plant ‘soft’.

Phosphates are needed for healthy root growth in seedlings and beetroot or parsnips. Onions are big feeders on super phosphates or bone meal.

Potassium in the form of potash encourages flowering, fruiting and good colour. It is an essential component for feeding Tomatoes and other heavy feeders like Roses and Sweetpeas.

Bought Fertilizers

On my Baby Bio plant food bottle the NPK ratio is 10.6- 4.4 -1.7 which shows it is formulated for house plants which are often grown for foliage hence the high nitrogen content. Roots are also important in houseplants whilst flowers are often preordained at the growers prior to sale. If you are trying to get your plant to flower for a second or subsequent time you may want to use some tomato feed occasionally.
My other household fertilizer is a concentrated tomato feed 26- 17 -52 which is much more skewed to flowers and fruit. The higher these figures the greater the concentration of fertilizer and the more dilution you may need.

Organic fertilizers like blood, fish and bone and bone meal, hoof & horn and guano have a place in most gardens particularly for organic culture. Growmore is one of my staples for fertilising the garden prior to planting out and has equal proportions of NPK usually about 7-7-7.

Applying the Feed

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Seeds to Grow Next Year

Seeds to Grow Next Year

Book Cover
This list of seeds is just a short selection of those I may grow this summer  January is a good time to read seed catalogues

Flowers

Alyssum Carpet of Snow the dwarf spreading variety that grows 8cm high . I bought by weight to get a quantity that will fill parts of the garden with that strong floral fragrance in late summer.

Alyssum Royal Carpet a deep violet I have not tried before – just a packet for fun.

Antirrhinum Tall Cut flowering to about 2 feet tall and useful for cutting. My first choice La Bella F1 were sold out so I will try again next year.

Aquilegia Alans Delight bought to give to a friend called Alan who admired my Aquilegia and has just started an allotment

Gaillardia New Giant Hybrids a two foot tall mix of this desirable perennial.

Helenium Helena a perennial to flower in the first season, bought for cut flowers

Vegetables

Courgette Green Bush for cutting when small a family favourite amongst the vegetarians

Courgette Tuscany F1 as it is resistant to mildew and I am worried about another damp summer

Parsnip Improved Marrow from an organic collection of canker resistant strain

Broad Bean Witkiem Manita for early beans to be sown in February

Broad Bean Masterpiece Long Pod as a contrast to the other beans

Hedges of Laurel

Hedges of Laurel

laurel-hedge

The large leaves of the evergreen  spotted laurel, Acuba japonica crotonifolia, are not one of my favourites but my wife likes them. This could be because she comes from the seaside where they tolerate the salty winds.

Tips and Other Laurels

  • Cuttings can be taken in summer April to August – seeds are poisonous
  • The gold-blotched and finely-speckled leaves  show the best colour in full sun but will tolerate shade.
  • Flowering periods are usually April to May this is a versatile evergreen shrub for almost anywhere in the garden. Slow-growing, it will only reach 5-6 feet after ten years.
  • Laurels thrives in most soils, including dry ground near hedges and trees.
  • Shrubs may be  pruned to create hedges or left to grow unchecked.
  • The dwarf cherry laurel Prunus laurocerasus “Otto Luyken ” is a dense evergreen shrub. It has upright dark green glossy narrow leaves. It has spikes of white flowers in the Spring followed by cherry-like fruits.
  • They are related to the Portuguese laurel, Prunus lustianica, with their red winter stems.
  • Prune laurels carefully with secateurs to avoid damaging the leaves.
  • The Laurel or Acuba crotonifolia is either male or female with the latter bearing berries.

spotted-laurel

Different Pots for Plants

Different Pots for Plants

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Unusual plant pots can make a different and eye catching features. These old steel capped boots should have had holes in the soles and the alpines are a good choice of plants for this display.  I like the moss beginning to grow on the right boot, I bet the old gardener didn’t let the grass grow under his feet.

Old gardening equipment can be recycled and called into service for a second time. An anodized watering can can be suspended from a tree used as a pot, or more creatively as part of a water fountain in a continious pouring action.  I am envious of the old wheel barrows that have been called into service as a mobile plant pots sometimes with a range of plants you wouldn’t expect to see close up. The extra height makes for less bending and the barrow can be repositioned whenever required. Perhaps they should sell modified barrows just for eye-level plant displays. They would work well on hard landscaped gardens or to show off special plants.

My wild life garden pond is an old plastic dustbin buried in an out of the way spot and disguised by Hellebores.

Whilst not an unusual plant pot I grow all sorts of seasonal plants in pots to be burried in gaps or lifted as I wish. I have a lot of tulips growing in this manner. It also helps to keep plants in a defined geometric shapes and this can be an added attraction.

Give your imagination free reign and let us know what new garden features you come up with.