Winter is a time for planning new ideas. Can you make your garden easier to maintain? Does your lawn have tight corners that you could eliminate? Could you get rid of grass altogether? Small lawns could be turned into gravelled areas, while large lawns could warrant a larger mower, even a ride-on option.
How about some shrub borders with mulches underneath? December and January is the time to feed fruit trees to encourage good fruit in the summer months. Sulphate of potash is the best – 2-4oz per square yard (50-100 gms per square metre), and while it is expensive, it works! Flowering shrubs would benefit as well.
If you haven’t cleaned up the leaves yet, make sure they aren’t covering low growing plants like polyanthus, heucheras, tiarellas etc as they could easily start rots of one sort or the other.
Other things to do include check that greenhouse heaters are working; prune open-grown apples and pears and harvest leeks, parsnips, winter cabbage, sprouts and remaining root crops. You can still plant deciduous trees and shrubs and take hardwood cuttings
Why not have a peek at other people’s gardens for plants that look good at this time of year and make a mental note. Too often we think of gardens as a summertime picture but in fact there are plenty of decorative options during the winter months especially with some hardier varieties of flowers being developed over the past few years.
Let’s hope that winter is kind to us this year without losses or damage and we have a good start to 2014.
If you have access to a camera, or Santa’s been especially kind and bought you one, why not get out and about and get snapping for the Summer Show photographic section; you have four subject categories to choose from: a summer scene; gardening in action; statuary and canals and rivers. You can download a programme – as well as find out what we’re doing for the rest of the year.
RHS members are entitled to up to 12 packets of seeds for just £8.50 – see http://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/Seed-list/seed-list up until March.
Our first trip of the year will be to Colesbourne Park to see the snowdrops – why not come along? – we’re a friendly bunch and you’ll find a warm welcome awaits you. And for March we’re looking forward to our no-nonsense gardener, BBC broadcaster and author Christine Walkden with tickets just £8 for non-members and £6 for members.
Don’t forget to come to our monthly Garden Club meetings. You can always find someone to solve your garden problems, besides having an interesting talk by one of our speakers – it might even be me!
Cheers
Pete Chamberlain
How about some shrub borders with mulches underneath? December and January is the time to feed fruit trees to encourage good fruit in the summer months. Sulphate of potash is the best – 2-4oz per square yard (50-100 gms per square metre), and while it is expensive, it works! Flowering shrubs would benefit as well.
If you haven’t cleaned up the leaves yet, make sure they aren’t covering low growing plants like polyanthus, heucheras, tiarellas etc as they could easily start rots of one sort or the other.
Other things to do include check that greenhouse heaters are working; prune open-grown apples and pears and harvest leeks, parsnips, winter cabbage, sprouts and remaining root crops. You can still plant deciduous trees and shrubs and take hardwood cuttings
Why not have a peek at other people’s gardens for plants that look good at this time of year and make a mental note. Too often we think of gardens as a summertime picture but in fact there are plenty of decorative options during the winter months especially with some hardier varieties of flowers being developed over the past few years.
Let’s hope that winter is kind to us this year without losses or damage and we have a good start to 2014.
If you have access to a camera, or Santa’s been especially kind and bought you one, why not get out and about and get snapping for the Summer Show photographic section; you have four subject categories to choose from: a summer scene; gardening in action; statuary and canals and rivers. You can download a programme – as well as find out what we’re doing for the rest of the year.
RHS members are entitled to up to 12 packets of seeds for just £8.50 – see http://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/Seed-list/seed-list up until March.
Our first trip of the year will be to Colesbourne Park to see the snowdrops – why not come along? – we’re a friendly bunch and you’ll find a warm welcome awaits you. And for March we’re looking forward to our no-nonsense gardener, BBC broadcaster and author Christine Walkden with tickets just £8 for non-members and £6 for members.
Don’t forget to come to our monthly Garden Club meetings. You can always find someone to solve your garden problems, besides having an interesting talk by one of our speakers – it might even be me!
Cheers
Pete Chamberlain