News

As always, we love looking after gardens we have created, and each year it’s even more of a treat to visit and see how things are coming along from their infant stage. Some people like the idea of looking after their own gardens but are not quite sure where to start, and so we offer “open learning” sessions where you are invited to work with us, and we can explain what we are doing as we go along. Alternatively we offer the “wave a magic wand” approach for people who would really rather not know about the nitty gritty, but just want to enjoy a beautiful garden.

IN THE GARDEN

Assuming you like to get out there yourself, here are a few things you might like to be thinking about on the garden front:

Firstly – all that snow! how to cope with it if we get yet more, and what will it do and/or have done to your existing plants?

Snow is heavy, cold and wet and acts like a big blanket for the ground. For trees and shrubs it can break branches through sheer weight, so it’s a good idea to knock or shake snow off favourite specimens before the snow damages them. If branches do get damaged, cut them off as cleanly as possible. However, aside from the brutal snapping of branches, the snow doesn’t do as much lasting damage as frost, so although the garden might be looking a bit of a mess right now, hopefully a good percentage of it will revive with warmer spring weather. Don’t give up on apparently dead plants till all risk of frost has gone, April at least and possibly even May.

However some bulbs and tubers that don’t like wet will probably pay you back by keeling over – Dahlias in particular, possibly the more tender plants such as Hedychiums (gingers) and Cannas and so on. Traditional garden advice would be to lift and store these bulbs/tubers over the winter anyway, but we’re so used to mild winters we’ve all got a bit lazy about it. The only thing to do with a slimy mess of bulb is to throw it away and start again.

Now is definitely the time for pruning fruit trees, before they start into leaf again. It’s also a good time to lift and divide ornamental grasses that have outgrown their space, and to cut back all deciduous grasses before the new growth gets too tall. Don’t touch the evergreen grasses yet though – they need to be actively growing before they are pruned. (Deciduous ones are those that have turned brown by now, in case you were wondering.) Late flowering clematis can be pruned back to just above a strong pair of buds, and Wisteria should have its first prune of the year too.

If your roses weren’t pruned in the late autumn, they’ll need pruning now instead – don’t panic about this process, I think it brings more people out in a cold sweat than any other gardening activity. Years ago the RHS ran a trial on rose pruning and found that those bushes chopped horizontally with a hedge trimmer bloomed just as well as those cut lovingly by trained horticulturalists. The bushes themselves wouldn’t look so great, so I’m not recommending the savage slashing method, but just reassuring you that whatever you do you’re unlikely to cause lasting damage. Ideally, cut back the stem diagonally to just above a strong bud facing out from the bush. Keep the bush a nice sturdy open shape. That’s it. Climbers and ramblers don’t need much pruning unless they’re blooming out of sight, in which case prune them back to something more manageable.