vi: Sage Advice
Spring cleaning Callum Halstead Every year, at some point in March I find myself questioning how, once again, I have managed to drift through more than two months of the year without having made any significant progress on any early season jobs. None of the wreckage of winter has been removed, no seeds ordered, none of my more tender plants provided with any form of adequate frost protection... and so on. Part of the reason has been the lack of evening light, but really it’s getting past the point in the year when I can still use that excuse. I could have been much more proactive than I have been, but the good news is that it’s not too late to get to work on most of these jobs and, while the frost damaged plants will probably bear the scars of my neglect for a good few months, they’ll get over it. I’m more in the mood for gardening now. I like to get out into the garden earlier in the year to see the Snowdrops (Galanthus spp.) and other heralds of spring emerging from their long rest, but this doesn’t usually translate into much in the way of action. Now, however, I am ready to get going. Ready to fill gaps in the borders, to change a few plant combinations that didn’t work last year or that I’ve grown tired of, and— like many keen gardeners — ready to buy more new plants than I have room for. 28
When shopping, it’s easy to be seduced by the eye-catching plants placed conveniently close to the tills alongside the chocolate and paracetamol. Each of these items can, in its own way, doubtless help you to feel much better; but, where plants are concerned, you have to be wary about whether what you are buying is actually suitable for planting out before the weather has properly warmed up. Frost damaged and dead plants are in no way a gateway to happiness. Rather disappointingly, many retailers— including some garden centres —abuse our natural desire for a bit of greenery at this time of year, using it as an opportunity to sell plants that they know are unlikely to survive outside the cosy temperature-controlled glasshouses that they have been grown in. I’m sure that this is one of the main reasons why so many people believe that they are bad plant parents; they wrongly blame themselves for their glossy new plant’s swift decline, when in actual fact they were sold something that never stood a chance of surviving in the first place. Until the shops cease with this ridiculous and quite disingenuous sales tactic, what is needed is a little bit of education. Enter the smartphone. What we are mainly concerned with at this time of year is ‘hardiness’— that is, how well-equipped a
