Creatively tend to garden growth
Chit seed potatoes now
Not all gardeners bother chitting (sprouting) their seed spuds before planting, but it does help potatoes get off to a good start especially if the weather is chilly and wet.
Buy seed potatoes up to six weeks before you intend to plant them. Arrange them in a single layer in a shallow tray and leave them somewhere warm, but out of direct sun, indoors for a couple of weeks until the eyes have formed 2-5cm sprouts. Don’t let them grow much longer or else you are at risk of knocking them off as you bury them. When the time comes to plant (which is as soon as the risk of frost has passed) rub off any titchy sprouts, leaving just the three or four strongest growing ones.
Dig over where you plan to plant your spuds now too, to a spade-depth, add compost (not too much, or you risk potato scab) and a light dressing of general NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) fertiliser.
Creative clipping
Topiary is the process of creating structure and sculpture by clipping evergreen shrubs, trees and hedges. It can be grand and formal, but you can also opt for more natural and whimsical shapes when tending and taming the excess growth in your garden.
When shrubs swell over the paths and trees begin to block views or gobble up light, reach for the pruners and express your artistic vision.
Small-leaved, dense shrubs like Melanesia astonii, Lonicera nitida, teucrium and coprosmas take to this treatment well, but may need clipping several times a year to maintain their shape due to their rapid growth.
Try it with flowering shrubs too. Azaleas, choisya, forsythia and chaenomeles will all take a trimming and still flower well.
Prune climbing roses
With climbers, the initial emphasis should be on training. For optimum flowers, the strong young canes should be trained as near to horizontal as possible. Bending the branches makes the plant send up flowering shoots all along the branches instead of just flowering at the top.
Some of these side shoots can be tied to a trellis, wires or whatever you use for support so the rose will spread upwards and sideways.
When the plant has at last developed a structure of strong climbing shoots, the lateral growths can be cut back by about two-thirds each year. Always prune just above an outwardfacing bud-eye, making a clean cut at a 45-degree angle.
Rosa ‘Alberic Barbier’ is a hardy evergreen rambler.