Meldreth Matters, February 2022

Notes from a Small Garden It’s a glorious morning as I write this in the first week of January, so full of cheer with the robins and blackbirds singing their hearts out. One of the members of the Veg Club has generously given us a window bird feeder. The tits and robins found it quickly, perhaps not surprisingly as the crab apple ‘Everest‘ is next to the window and is still bearing the beautiful round orange red crabs beloved by small birds, especially blackbirds.

Happily the aconites are now pushing their yellow heads up, whereas the first snowdrops were up before Christmas. And I can report that the snowdrops planted in the churchyard last spring and around the stocks are coming up and should be a picture by the time you read this.

Soon the evenings will be lighter, lightening our spirits as spring arrives.

There’s a lot to do in the garden during February; all in preparation for the new gardening year. Most cutting back needs to be done whilst the plants are dormant. So its a good time to cut back vines to within one bud, ivies and Virginia creeper; the latter always gets out of hand as it tumbles over our garage in and out of the barge boards. My husband would like to get rid of it, but I’ve always loved it even though I have to admit its glorious autumn colouring seldom lasts for more than ten days. Winter pruning of apples and pear trees can continue and now is the time to prune fruit bushes. Cut the autumn raspberries down to the ground and prune the blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries; take out any damaged shoots, lower shoots and other old and woody ones, and thin out the bushes so that air can reach into the middle. Shorten long stems to maintain a good shape.

Prune wisterias, mahonias, winter flowering jasmine (how well this has flowered this year), the lovely smelling Viburnam ‘Bodnantense’, and cut late summer flowering clematis down to nine inches.

By the end of the month, it’s will be time to cut back the dogwood (cornus) family. This winter I have loved the red stems of cornus alba ‘Sibirica’, and cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter fire’. The latter has orange and yellow stems and is particularly eye catching.

The RHS recommends cutting all the shoots back to two buds, about six inches above the ground. I usually leave one or two stems to keep a more 18