Getting Ready for SPRING... Wendy Simpson of Craigievar Gardeners offers seasonal tips to help you get the best from your patch, large or small... This winter’s storms will have wrought havoc in many of our gardens. The first thing to do is to prune back damaged trees or shrubs in order to make clean wounds. Then, assuming you have cleared up the debris, prepare your borders and vegetable patches by digging in a 5-cm layer of compost or well-rotted manure. Apply mulch around trees and shrubs and feed hedges with a slow-release fertilizer. Cut back any cornus or salix that have provided your winter colour. Then, on to the fun stuff. Now is the time to split clumps of snowdrops to encourage them to spread. Split overgrown clumps of perennials and disseminate them. Insert supports for perennials as they begin to grow because it’s much easier to do it now than later! This is your last chance to prune apple and pear trees. You can also prune your roses, but don’t be tempted to do this until any danger of late frost has passed. Prune raspberry canes by cutting out dead or spindly canes and tie the rest of them into row supports. Prune hydrangeas by cutting each stem back to a healthy bud. Cut back buddleia and late-flowering clematis. Clear ponds of weeds and winter debris. Prepare your vegetable beds so that you can sow as soon as the soil temperature reaches 6°C. Start with onions, shallots, carrots, leeks, spring onions, beetroot, spinach, lettuces and rockets. Leave potatoes until mid-April. Plant summer-flowering bulbs like gladioli and lilies in pots so that they are ready to plant out as soon as any danger of frost has passed. Plant nerines for autumn colour.
If you have a heated propagator, sow seeds for pelargoniums, begonias, delphiniums, foxgloves and antirrhinums in it. They need a longer and warmer startup.
9
