Gardening

Notes from a Small Garden

As I write these notes the sun is shimmering through the grey morning mist, and as I look through the window into the garden, I am thankful to my family and friends for the gifts of early bulbs over the forty years and more that we have lived here. The aconites which fill a big border to the left, were given to me by Marjorie Hilton who lived in the Gables in the High Street. I loved going to see her with our three young children when I was a young mum. The snowdrops which are making such a splendid show come from many sources, including my parents’ garden in Nottinghamshire as well as kind friends in the village. I am thrilled to see that the large snowdrop, ‘Sam Arnott’ only planted last year and a gift from a Veg Club friend, is doing really well. However, by the time you read this the snowdrops will be almost over. March is the perfect time to lift and divide them green and then replant them where you want them to flower next year. I used to plant them in clumps, being in too much of a hurry to get them in the ground but now I am content to replant two or three at a time. This allows them to spread more naturally in swathes. One of my main tasks in the garden in March is to prune the roses. When we first moved here, I wanted to plant romantic old-fashioned roses with those beautiful shapes, colours and scents reminding me of the rose gardens we had visited all over the UK. And indeed, they were beautiful and many did very well for us but after a time, they succumbed to mildew and rust and began to get very spindly, despite me trying to prune them as the great rose specialist, Graham Thomas advised. Over the last twenty years I have been replacing them with David Austin’s English roses. See www.davidaustinroses.co.uk where there is a plethora of advice about successful rose growing. In this garden, the English roses have done really well and our soil seems to suit them. Some plants are more robust than others, but their great advantage is having a second or even a third flowering, and some flower continuously throughout the summer. Most are heavily scented. I love their colours and shapes and the way they remind me of the old Dutch Masters’ still life paintings. And their names! The Pilgrim, the Angel of Lichfield, the Shepherdess to name only a few.

But how to prune these continuous flowering roses? First, decide the structure and height you want. Take out dead, diseased and old and weak stems and prune the strong stems by a third to encourage new growth and repeat flowering. An established bush can be pruned to the shape and size that looks best where it is in the border. Robust plants can take more pruning back, but a first year rose needs a bit more care until it gets really established. Last year the roses here were particularly spectacular, due I think to a good amount of winter rain and good horse manure kindly given to me by a neighbour.

Other Jobs for March:

 Weed and dress pots with fresh compost  Plant shallots, onions and early seed potatoes  Weed seed beds in the vegetable patch and keep weeds under control generally (easier if you keep doing it!)  Manure the vegetable beds  Towards the end of the month start direct sowing into the soil hardy annuals like Californian poppies, nigella and cornflowers March is often such a beautiful month with sunny and windy days, when you can spend the whole day in the garden if you are lucky. How I look forward to March, on a cold February day. Good gardening, as always.

Julie Juliedraper@dumbflea.co.uk

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