Lift your head from the newspaper and look out of the window. At the end of
winter, the scene greeting you is likely to be at best unkempt and at worst
neglected, especially if you were hit by last week’s storms. Have pity –
your garden needs you. Luckily, the Easter weekend will be with us on
Friday. With a bit of forward planning, by the end of the four-day holiday,
your garden should be looking shipshape for spring.
Traditionally, Easter kick-starts the gardening season, not least in terms of
one of Britain’s favourite leisure activities – spending money. Gardeners
sense the sap rising, and that tends to loosen the purse strings. We love to
go shopping over Easter and, for nurseries and garden centres, the takings
are as good an indicator of future success as the opening weekend of a
Hollywood blockbuster.
Unfortunately for the horticultural trade, the holiday falls early this year.
It’s just too soon to plant out the tender summer bedding plants that make
up a large proportion of Easter sales. It’s also more likely that another
spell of really bad weather could keep potential customers indoors,
scuppering what might otherwise be a windfall weekend.
Rain or not, I heartily recommend a bit of horticultural retail therapy.
You’ll be dying to get out of the house by Saturday, and a new purchase may
help to focus your efforts and galvanise you into devoting a few highly
productive hours to the garden. Take the whole family – many garden centres
now sell toys alongside trowels, and offer adventure playgrounds and cafes
to boot. If you want to avoid excessive impulse buying, however, decide what
you need before setting off.
WHAT TO BUY THIS WEEKEND
Plants
This is the bit that’s hard to resist, but for most of us it really is unwise
to splurge on bedding plants just yet – no matter how much you are tempted
by the promise of nonstop colour. If you can give them frost-free protection
in a cool greenhouse or cold frames, then go ahead and buy now, but don’t
expect to be able to plant them straight out. Given a really sheltered sunny
spot in the southern counties or a protected town garden and a bit of luck,
they might survive. Anywhere else and you could lose the lot after a cold
snap.
If you’re after some more permanent planting, spend some time researching this
week. Then you can go shopping armed with a list of plants that will fit
into the available space when fully grown, cope happily with the conditions
and really earn their place in your garden.
Few of us are immune to the charms of an eye-catching specimen, however.
Gardening is all about passion – tempered, ideally, with good sense – so by
all means give in to desire now and then. That magenta geranium, spiky
phormium or flowering cherry could be just what your garden needs. Raised
beds If, like me, you’ve decided to venture into growing fruit and veg on a
grand scale, there’s still time to construct raised beds. These give
terrific results and do away with much of the digging. Choose from
ready-to-install timber kits, untreated sleepers or brick edges. Harrod
Horticultural stocks a mail-order range of kits, with prices starting at £34
(0845 402 5300, www.harrodhorticultural.com).
Sundries
Once you’ve got the beds in, you’ll need some equipment to get you started.
Whether you opt for a reused plastic bag, a plastic water bottle or a
sophisticated heated propagator to get plants going depends on your budget
and your ethos. All of us, however, need plant labels, twine, seed trays and
vermiculite or perlite for successful propagation, staking and tying-in. A
water butt Don’t leave it until the weather warms up and a hose-pipe ban
beckons before you invest in this vital piece of water-saving kit. A couple
of hot days lead to panic buying, then you won’t be able to find a basic
water butt for love nor money.
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEKEND
Sort out the shed
In an ideal world, you’ll have done this by now. If not, there’s no time like
the present. As with any decluttering task, the experience will be
cathartic, allowing you to clear your gardening head and save time that
might otherwise be spent searching for the secateurs. Trust me, you’ll purr
with pleasure every time you open the door and see all the pots stacked and
tools hanging in an orderly fashion.
Construct compost bins
Are you still chucking apple peelings, newspaper and dead cut flowers into the
bin? It may seem surprising in our increasingly eco-aware age, but I’m sure
binners are more plentiful than composters. What a pity, letting all that
good stuff go to waste. There’s nothing like a project to give purpose to a
lazy weekend. Construct a simple timber compost bin or buy one from the
garden centre. Alternatively, contact your local council this week to find
out if they will supply one for nothing or at a reduced price. Either way,
once you start composting, you’ll become evangelical about it.
Tidy the borders
Whether they need a slash-and-burn overhaul or just a quick clear-up now that
winter’s on the wane, you’ll feel virtuous when the job is done. Cut back
any dead top growth on perennials and grasses, taking care not to nick the
emerging shoots, which should be appearing at the base of the plants. Prune
out any dead and diseased wood from roses.
While you’re ensconced among the plants, you will notice that the first wave
of weeds is already well into growth, and probably flowering. Pull them up,
using a trowel to loosen the soil. Remove the entire roots of docks
anddandelions, otherwise they will come up again.
Improve the soil
Follow the cutting-back with a bit of TLC. Whether you’re working in the fruit
and vegetable beds or tackling the ornamental areas, this is the ideal time
to work on the fertility and structure of the soil. Dig in well-rotted
manure (if it is not well rotted, the nitrogen content can burn the plants),
incorporate horticultural grit if your soil tends to be on the heavy side,
and mulch round plants with a generous layer of peat-free compost – ideally
homemade. Your efforts will be repaid with interest throughout the coming
season.
Make a planting plan for the vegetable garden
If you are an experienced veg grower, you will know the importance of rotating
the different groups – brassicas, roots, legumes – to reduce problems with
pests and disease and get the most out of the soil. Novices would do well to
read up before sowing or planting.
Write a sowing/planting/harvesting plan
Get organised now and there’s half a chance you’ll stay on top of what needs
doing when things become really busy in a month or so. I’m starting a new
vegetable garden this year – of which more later – and have tacked a
print-out of what to do when on the wall of the shed to help me keep on
track.
Keep a diary
Make the Easter weekend the date you start an annual garden log. If you take a
bit of time to jot down what was planted when and where, what proved
disappointing and what surprised you with its success, you will have a
valuable resource that will save you time and money in the future.
Sowing
By the end of March, the sowing of seeds should be well under way in the
greenhouse. You can also achieve excellent results with a propagator on a
windowsill. Heated propagators cost more, but they speed up germination
considerably.
Look at the lawn
Lawns are now growing, so they need regular cutting. If you haven’t already
given yours a mow, keep the blades high for the first couple of trims, then
lower them as you get into a regular schedule.
Plant
It’s pushing it to plant bare-rooted shrubs and trees this close to the end of
March, when many will be coming into active growth. You should, however, be
able to find containerised versions of most things, though you may have to
spend a bit more on them. This is also a good time to move established
evergreen shrubs, remembering to keep an eye on watering while they settle
in to their new home. Be guided by the temperatures where you live when
deciding what and when to plant, as well as conditions specific to frost
pockets, exposed areas and coastal sites. Your garden could be as much as a
fortnight ahead or behind the national average – decide what action to take
based on that.
Get bookish
If it is too grim to go outside (working the soil when it is waterlogged
damages its structure and does more harm than good), I love scanning
gardening books and magazines for inspiration. I always pick up tips to try
out in my own patch. The internet is an equally valuable source of
information, but I find the printed page more enjoyable to spend time with.
