Gardening Tips
Your fortnightly gardening tips for indoors and outdoors |
 |
This may be a cold, wet month, but the garden is still
there and changing all the time. Clumps of daffodils are marking their place by pushing
their first sheathed noses to the surface. There is life down there. Winter flowers are
now on their own, not fraternising with the last lingering guests from the autumn party.
With winter weather outside, it is time to take a stroll around the garden to pick as many
different flowers to bring inside as possible. There are flowering quinces on the wall, a
selection of heathers in full bloom, the odd early spray of wintersweet, a camellia bud
that is just opening, a clutch of hellebores as Christmas and Lenten roses and
green-flowered species the winter-flowering honeysuckles, small but scented and worth a
close look. Branches of winter-flowering cherry, and odd things that shouldn’t be
there, wallflowers are showing colour months before they will be in proper bloom. And how
curious that so many of these winter flowers have such generous scents- something we
realise more fully when we bring them inside into the warmth.
HOLLIES.
Hollies are invaluable plants for hedging and for providing a wonderful background of
evergreen colour for other shrubs and herbaceous plants. Few things are more windproof, so
they are very useful for breaking the force of gales and providing welcome shelter. They
come as males and females on separate plants, do not be misled by the given names
‘Kings’ can be female and ‘ Queens’ male. Hollies grow more quickly
than most gardeners believe, the twelve months after planting they can spend sizing up the
situation and getting ready to surprise later.
WALL PLANTS.
With today’s smaller gardens, it makes sense to use the walls of the house as garden
extensions. The warmth helps many, the support provides the habitat for many climbers and
clamberers, and clothing the walls or parts of them will integrate the house with the
garden and can enhance both the appearance and possibly the value of a property. Once
planted and given the necessary support, if any, wall plants will repay you with
trouble-free- and, in many cases, maintenance-free –colour and interest throughout
the year if you choose carefully. For convenience, wall plants can be divided into
four groups: free-standing ones that enjoy the shelter, climbing ones with
‘self-adhesive’ devices, twiners seeking support by twisting around wires,
trellis or other plants: and climbing and scrambling kinds needing definite support. |
|
| Embarrassing
Stories |
|
| I haven't got a garden so rely on my tumble
dryer. A couple of months ago we were in our usual morning rush. I handed my 5-year-old
son his coat straight from the dryer and off we ran to school. We walked into the
cloakroom and squeezed between the other children and parents when my son announced my
knickers were stuck to his coat! Everyone turned round to see my underwear on the Velcro
of his coat! |
|
|
|
