TIM’S TOP TIPS

ARTICLE

TIM’S TOP TIPS

TIM WILDERSPIN, HEAD GARDENER AT ORJ SOLICITORS, LOCAL HISTORIAN AND INEXHAUSTIBLE FOUNT OF FACTS, ANSWERS READERS’ QUERIES ON GARDENING AND ANYTHING ELSE THAT ARRIVES IN HIS POSTBAG. YOUR SAVINGS MAY BE AT RISK IF YOU FOLLOW HIS RACING SELECTIONS.

Tim Wilderspin

Blow the cobwebs away with a post Christmas gardening workout! Shape shift that festive flab and get a washboard stomach doing the best exercise with no gym fees!

January and February is the ideal time to dig, feed, mulch and prune your garden and get it ready for the year ahead. Providing the ground is workable for digging, leave the soil in rough chunks and the weather will do the rest breaking the soil down in time for sowing in a few weeks time. Also dig in your farmyard manure and well rotted organic matter. Now is a superb time to order your potatoes, onion sets and shallots.

Pruning

Now is the time to prune deciduous shrubs and fruit trees before the spring sap starts to rise and the buds start breaking through, cut out anything that is diseased or damaged and any branches that are crossing.

Bulbs

Is it too late to plant bulbs in January you ask, well the answer is no, as long as the soil is workable and the bulbs are in good condition you can go ahead and plant to your hearts content and look forward to a spectacular display in Spring. If your daffodils get overcrowded dig them up and divide them giving you more daffs for free! After flowering let them die back naturally, it’s best not to use the tie method.

Roses

The best time to prune roses is in February/ March when the leaf buds are visible. Make sure you feed them in March before they flower with a good granulated rose food and mulch with plenty of farm manure, please note always wear gloves. A regular deadheading regime is required to encourage repeat flowering with more wonderful blooms. If you want to grow roses in pots make sure you check the variety as some roses do not adapt well to the restrictions of a container so it’s best to get it right.

Garden Birds

Now is an ideal time to set up a nest box, if you make your own please do not use wood preservative on the timber as this will put the birds off nesting. You could, if you prefer, buy one or two from any local garden centre. Erect you box on a tree or fence in a quiet location of the garden. If you have an old jug, kettle or teapot place them in a shrub or tree with the spout down for drainage and they may become a new home for your local birds, in particular robins love this type of home and if you can find room in your garden for some ivy (divisive I know!) it really is a 5* hotel for our feathered friends. Oh and of course don’t forget to feed them. ■