Let there be light! Bulbs lay a carpet of colour for spring
From daffodils to hyacinths, bulbs herald the arrival of a new season and, says Agnes Stevenson, will often happily spread throughout the garden
Daffodils have got to be our most cheerful flower. Even during icy spells and biting winds, they continue to trumpet their bright yellow petals as a way of heralding spring.
Some of the best daffodils are to be found at Brodie Castle in Forres and at Backhouse Rossie near Cupar, which on April 9 and 10 will be hosting Scotland’s Daffodil Festival.
Both these gardens played important roles in the development of these flowers from modest trackside blooms into bold staples of the cut-flower trade and without them we wouldn’t have some of the best-loved varieties grown by gardeners today.
At the moment I only grow miniature varieties, but there is a garden near where I live that gives me serious daffodil envy. Every spring it is carpeted in wild daffodils.
These are the daffodils I want to grow and I wish I had started planting them five years ago so they would now be established. Daffodils don’t just spread by offsets from their bulbs, they also produce seeds that eventually develop into new bulbs and, given the right conditions, they will spread over a wide area.
Apart from tulips, which have a stubborn tendency to die out after flowering once, most bulbs will multiply and grape hyacinths are amongst the most enthusiastic colonisers. In some gardens these little blue flowers become rampant and have to be held in check but so far in my garden they have not proved to be a nuisance.
Dig some up, pop them into little pots and bring them indoors to bloom early. In the warmth they will grow faster and taller than they would in the garden and it is fun to watch them develop.
There is a wide array of other spring bulbs that also deserve a place in the garden, including chionodoxa, which has pink, blue or white flowers, and the Siberian squill, Scilla siberica, whose inky-blue flowers are best grown in drifts around the fringes of deciduous shrubs.
And then there are the camassias, which are native to the moist meadows of the USA and are perfect for naturalising in damp grass.
Camassias have a short flowering period but growing both Camassia cusickii and Camassia Leichtinii, which open at slightly different times, will give you flowers for longer.
I planted some last year, but disturbed the bulbs when I was moving shrubs and so I don’t know if they will reappear. Either way I’m going to add more of them in the autumn so that, eventually, I’ll have a wave of blue flowers down one side of the garden in April and May.
Camassia foliage can be slow to appear, so if you aren’t growing the plants in grass, then plant the bulbs amongst hostas which will disguise the fading leaves.
Good news for those of a green-fingered persuasion: new research reveals that an hour of gardening a week can have significant health benefits.
The British Journal of Sports Medicine study found that taking part in muscle-strengthening activities – such as lifting weights, resistance training or gardening activities including digging and shovelling – for 30 to 60 minutes each week, has been linked to a reduced risk of premature death and some major diseases.
However, pottering around with a few plants isn’t enough to make a difference. The researchers specified “heavy gardening” and said that people reap the most benefits when they participate in both aerobic and musclestrengthening activities.
Fitness experts reveal the best gardening jobs to boost your physical wellbeing…
Digging
“Digging is one of the best gardening jobs for building overall strength,” says Alice Williams, qualified personal trainer at Origym Centre of Excellence.“the motion of pressing a shovel down with your foot and turning over the soil engages a whole range of muscle groups in both the lower and upper body, from the quads to the shoulders.”
Weeding
It may not be the most enjoyable part of gardening, but weeding by hand is an effective strength exercise.
“When you bend over to pull out a dead rotten root from a flowerbed, you have to use a lot of back and leg strength, alongside grip strength too,” says performance coach and Bio-synergy ambassador Jamie Lloyd, which is similar to doing deadlifts in the gym. “Deadlifts are great, as they
tax the whole body and replicate the same movement when you go to pull that giant turnip out of the ground – a great lowerbody pull exercise that will prepare you for anything.”
Mowing the lawn
As long as you’re not cruising on a ride-on mower, cutting the grass is another great strengthbuilding gardening job.
Williams says: “It has all the same benefits of pushing a prowler sled in the gym. It requires engaging your glutes, quads, hamstrings, core and upper body all at once, making it a tough full-body workout, similar to using a cross trainer machine.”
Lifting and carrying
“Carrying bags of compost, soil amendments, stones or vegetables in front of you strengthens your glutes, quads and entire midsection,” says Lloyd, so try ditching the wheelbarrow and ferrying bits and bobs across the garden yourself.
Do be careful not to overload yourself, and always bend at the knees when lifting anything off the ground.
“You might be familiar with doing the farmer’s walk with a kettlebell at the gym,” says Williams. “carrying two buckets of soil across your garden can have the same results!”
Raking
Not only will it make your lawn look pristine, raking away fallen leaves gets your muscles moving.
“The motion of raking will work your whole upper body, but particularly the back and pectoral muscles,” says Williams.
Lloyd likens raking to “row” exercises, where you bend over and pull dumbbells close into your chest: “Rows are like inverse push-ups. Everything a push-up does for your chest and pushing ability, rows do for your back and pulling ability.”
Cardio
“As well as building muscle strength, gardening is also a great form of cardio,” says Williams.
“Without even realising it, you will find yourself raising your heart rate and working up a sweat as you dig, mow and move heavy things around the garden. In fact, raking and pruning can burn about 200 calories an hour, while mowing can burn up 300 calories.”