In the garden January
IT may be cold outside but there is plenty of gardening you can do with your feet up inside at this time of year. Nowis the best time to see the overall structure and shape of your gardenwhich means you can assesswhat you already have and plan on howto improve it.
You don’t have to spend a fortune and your garden can be any sizewhether in the country or in a town. Have a good look through the seed catalogues for summer flowers you can growfrom scratch and flick through gardening books and manuals for ideas and easy to implement garden tips.
If you’re thinking of growing your own fruit and veg then it’s a great time to plant seeds indoors for some early crops such as lettuces, summer brassicas such as cabbages and cauliflowers, spinach and salad onions.
A job for January is to get seed beds ready and nowis also the time to prune currant and gooseberry bushes.
A simple garden solution for January is to bring colour to container evergreens.
It’s a good idea to invest in a basic collection of container evergreens – box, conifer, holly and bay – that you can customise through the seasons by adding bedding plants around the base of each bush.
You can create a mix of containers that look great grouped together or scattered through the gardenwith a variety of colourful plants decorating them such aswhite cyclamen for winter, lavender blue pansies in spring and white and pink daisies in summer.
Another plant great for instantwinterspring colour and perfect for containers, windowboxes and borders is the Primula.
The majority bloom in the spring, but they have been known to flower through mild winters.
There is awide range of colours available from bright yellowto pastel reds and blues and they can growin most soil types and be planted in sun and semi shade.
They can be used very effectively in bedding schemeswith tulips and otherwinterspring bedding plants or planted alone in blocks of colour.
When planting Primula in containers, use multi-purpose compost and ensure that they never dry out – and remember to dead head the plants regularly as thiswill encourage a longer flowering period.
January’s garden checklist …
� Clean and oil garden tools
� Scrub pots so they are disease free and don’t
infect newplants
� Sharpen secateurs
� Take the lawnmower in to be serviced
� If it snows, shake it off evergreens, hedges and conifers to stop theweight causing any damage
Treat timber fences, archways and sheds withwood preservative
Bring mature shrubs to life by pruning older branches as close to the stem as possible Keep container plants protected from frost and check to see if they needwatering Remember to put out food andwater for birds