Readers’ gardens
I’m full of optimism, enthusiasm and plans for the garden over the coming months. This’ll be the year we sort out vegetable beds and conquer successional sowing, make a cut flower patch and actually pick the blooms to enjoy in the house, and the whole garden will resonate with the happy buzzing of honey bees – and they won’t sting me!
The vegetable beds have got completely overgrown so this year they’re being given priority and we intend to adopt a ‘no-dig’ approach. The area is rough grass and the more we dig and rotavate the soil, the more the grass grows. We’re going to cut the grass very short, lay down thick cardboard and cover this with as thick a layer of compost as we can. It’ll take time to improve the soil but it’ll be worth it.
Surrounding this area is a willow ‘fedge’ planted some years ago. My husband has spent a couple of afternoons tidying this up, weaving in some of the whippy growth and cutting out thicker stems. I’ve set to work making plant supports from the offcuts – wigwams for sweet peas and ‘hats’ to support perennials.
After lying under several inches of snow last month, everything in the garden was looking very miserable. The borders look much better now with everything cleared away and it’s encouraging to see new growth starting to emerge.
The first snowdrops are flowering along with a very early hellebore. The paths through the spring borders are being re-edged with logs and will then be covered with a deep layer of woodchip. We’ve put up a temporary fence around this area to protect blooms from the dogs – it worked last year!
Read more about the garden at www.talesfromacountrygarden. wordpress.com.