Being a creature of habit I start sowing seeds on Valentine’s Day. Any earlier and my mean streak hits in and I don’t want to heat the greenhouse unnecessarily. Peppers and tomatoes all go on the hot bed. I have already put mousetraps baited with peanut butter and poison down to reduce the chance of feeding the little blighters.
If you are growing the tomatoes outside later on, don’t sow until the beginning of April – they would be too big to plant. Pepper I put in 3.5” or 9 cm pots as soon as they have three leaves, and the same with tomatoes. I still use peat-based compost as I haven’t found a decent substitute.
I use clover multi-purpose for seeds with the addition of 25% vermiculite. This opens the compost up and makes the transplanting of the seedlings easier as the compost is so open and falls away with breaking any roots.
For any geraniums that have overwintered I shake off a lot of the old compost and repot into the same size pot with fresh compost containing a good amount of slow release fertiliser.
In the garden it’s not too late to cut off the leaves of hellebores. The reason for doing this is that they suffer from leaf spot and you don’t want it on fresh leaves and flower stems.
Any dogwood or willows that are grown for coloured stems can be cut down to ground level. Buddleia can also be cut down to ground level if they have become straggly or to about two foot if you prefer to have some height.
Ornamental grasses can be cut down now. A hedge trimmer makes light work if you have a few and while you’re at it you can also give the same treatment to Michaelmas daisies, Japanese anemones or other tall-stemmed perennials that haven’t already been trimmed.
A friend of mine who grows a lot of rose, prunes his with his hedge cutter and he’s a good showman so it can’t be that bad!
It will soon be grass cutting time, so it’s worth dragging the mower out of the shed and making sure it works. If it is a rotary with a grass box, you can chew up all the ornamental grass pruning and old herbaceous stems, having chucked them on the lawn. The bits will take up less room on the compost heap. Of course if it doesn’t start, then at least you have an opportunity to get it fixed in good time.
We have a busy schedule for 2017, starting with a talk on Wednesday 1st February on Design and Landscape Principles in your Garden by Rupert Keys and Ruth Gwynn of Keyscape Design who have won a number of RHS medals. Our March event will see Neil Cook, Head Gardener at Hanbury Hall telling us how he created a garden from a blank canvas (we’ll have the opportunity to see it in the flesh on 23rd April with a club trip).
Our Spring Show will be on a Sunday this year as a first – the 9th April; and highlights will include our Open Gardens on 18th June and Bob Flowerdew on Wednesday 5th April. So look on our website, or get a programme from me or one of the committee members so that you can get those dates down in your diaries.
Pete Chamberlain
01386 861438
www.bishamptongardeningclub.org.uk
If you are growing the tomatoes outside later on, don’t sow until the beginning of April – they would be too big to plant. Pepper I put in 3.5” or 9 cm pots as soon as they have three leaves, and the same with tomatoes. I still use peat-based compost as I haven’t found a decent substitute.
I use clover multi-purpose for seeds with the addition of 25% vermiculite. This opens the compost up and makes the transplanting of the seedlings easier as the compost is so open and falls away with breaking any roots.
For any geraniums that have overwintered I shake off a lot of the old compost and repot into the same size pot with fresh compost containing a good amount of slow release fertiliser.
In the garden it’s not too late to cut off the leaves of hellebores. The reason for doing this is that they suffer from leaf spot and you don’t want it on fresh leaves and flower stems.
Any dogwood or willows that are grown for coloured stems can be cut down to ground level. Buddleia can also be cut down to ground level if they have become straggly or to about two foot if you prefer to have some height.
Ornamental grasses can be cut down now. A hedge trimmer makes light work if you have a few and while you’re at it you can also give the same treatment to Michaelmas daisies, Japanese anemones or other tall-stemmed perennials that haven’t already been trimmed.
A friend of mine who grows a lot of rose, prunes his with his hedge cutter and he’s a good showman so it can’t be that bad!
It will soon be grass cutting time, so it’s worth dragging the mower out of the shed and making sure it works. If it is a rotary with a grass box, you can chew up all the ornamental grass pruning and old herbaceous stems, having chucked them on the lawn. The bits will take up less room on the compost heap. Of course if it doesn’t start, then at least you have an opportunity to get it fixed in good time.
We have a busy schedule for 2017, starting with a talk on Wednesday 1st February on Design and Landscape Principles in your Garden by Rupert Keys and Ruth Gwynn of Keyscape Design who have won a number of RHS medals. Our March event will see Neil Cook, Head Gardener at Hanbury Hall telling us how he created a garden from a blank canvas (we’ll have the opportunity to see it in the flesh on 23rd April with a club trip).
Our Spring Show will be on a Sunday this year as a first – the 9th April; and highlights will include our Open Gardens on 18th June and Bob Flowerdew on Wednesday 5th April. So look on our website, or get a programme from me or one of the committee members so that you can get those dates down in your diaries.
Pete Chamberlain
01386 861438
www.bishamptongardeningclub.org.uk