Gardens & Homes
With expert Agnes Stevenson
They’ve been battered by wind, swamped by rain and buried by snow, but my daffodils are finally flowering and I couldn’t be happier. March is when it all begins to happen, when the occasional burst of sunshine powers up spring and all those things that just a few weeks ago were no more than a bud on a branch or a whisper of green have suddenly blossomed forth.
If you haven’t already started off your dahlias, then start now. I have a friend who is helping hers break early by “chitting” them in trays on the underfloor heating in her kitchen.
Meanwhile I’m pinning my hopes on a cheap and cheerful propagator to do the same thing. Switched on, but with the lid left off, it should provide the gentle heat that the tubers need to start into life. And once the green shoots appear I’m going to cut some off and pot them up so that, come summer, I’ll have even more dinner plate-sized flowers in the garden.
And that’s the thing about early spring, once it arrives you begin to anticipate all the pleasures to come, from the first flush of cherry blossom, the taste of early peas and the scent of roses when warmed by the sun.
March is the month, too, when you can start sowing seed, confident there will be sufficient daylight to prevent them becoming weedy. Talking of weeds, mine don’t seem to have had the memo about the cold weather, because they are coming on a treat.
Serious digging is still off the menu until the ground starts to dry out but it’s time to start clearing moss from the walls and cleaning pots where they’ve been splashed by mud. And if we ever get two dry days in a row, I’m going to dig the little bistro table out from the garage, where it has spent the winter, and sit outdoors with a cup of coffee in an insulated mug and just enjoy the season unfolding around me.
I also like to use this table for displaying pots of small treasures, such as crocus and species tulips. Seen up close, their delicate beauty becomes more apparent and once they go over, these little stars can go back into the border for next year.
I’m still trying to work out the planting scheme for under the trees.
I have mahonias and variegated hollies ready to plant here, as well as a dozens of hydrangeas. What I can’t decide is whether to add some scented azaleas and viburnums or to keep these for elsewhere.
At the moment, while everything is still in pots, it’s a bit like a game of chess as I move the pieces around, but once I start digging holes there will be no going back.