Monty’s month
January is a time of fresh starts and the garden reborn. My two worst months are thankfully past and, despite it being the middle of winter, the garden is beginning to stir. Aconites, snowdrops and, increasingly as the climate changes, iris, crocus, hellebores and winter-flowering shrubs will bloom, and fill both garden and gardener with hope.
But the weather can be harsh and there is one January job that I save for either very cold or very wet weather – pruning the greenhouse ‘Black Hamburg’ grapevine. This has two horizontal stems from which I have trained vertical rods or cordons. It is from the sideshoots of these cordons that the new growth will carry the coming year’s harvest. The permanent framework, when freshly pruned in January, looks like a row of widely spaced railings about 1.5m long and 1m apart. Although this seems extremely wide, it ensures better ventilation and better grapes.