SPRING MARCHES IN GARDENING BY JANET HEATH
20 To advertise call 01244 350398 Hoole Roundabout March 2011 23
This is the time of year when plants get going as do the weeds! Time to go over the whole garden digging out those unwanted weeds and plants such as forget me not or poppies which appear to have seeded themselves everywhere.
Leave some in where you want them but remove those that have seeded themselves between paving slabs. Mulching all borders with a layer of well rotted manure 2 inches deep around all your plants each year would help to keep weeds down, add nutrients to the soil, retain moisture and improve the soil structure. The worms will take it down into the soil eventually.
Also do your final pruning of shrubs and take out the dead
foliage from perennials. Rose bushes should be pruned in March so cut out spindly growth and prune back main stems quite hard to an outward facing bud. Then give the roses a feed of rose fertiliser and mulch around the roots with a layer of well rotted manure or compost.
Start planting vegetable seeds under glass or on a windowsill. Towards the end of the month, you can plant out your first early seed potatoes provided they have little shoots about half an inch long. Dig a trench 9 inches deep and put a layer of well rotted compost in the base of the trench. Plant our potatoes about 1 foot apart and cover over with soil. If you only want a few plants, potatoes can be grown in large pots or plastic bags.
Look out for the first flowers of spring with the daffodils and crocuses, flowering current Ribes sanguineum, and forsythia. The winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum can be trained as a wall shrub if kept clipped and will have lovely yellow flowers in mild weather throughout winter. If you like foliage plants look out for the unfurling buds of the various types of euphorbia. Some are small such as Euphorbia amygdaloides Purpurea with dark red foliage whilst others will make a plant about 3 feet in size with blue grey/green foliage and yellowy green bottlebrush bracts. Smaller perennials such as Primula Gold Lace will also make an appearance with their chocolate brown petals edged with yellow.
Why 60
Janet Heath, Garden Mentor Tel 01244 318258
www.gardenmentor.co.uk aren’t To advertise
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