Springing into action to ready the grounds for opening
The garden team are busy preparing the gardens for spring opening on April 1. We’ve been creating more rustic fences, cutting our deciduous beech and hornbeam hedges, winter pruning our apples, and tying in the hornbeam that’s grown over the entire length of the oak pergola in the collector earl’s garden – this should look stunning later on in spring.
In a couple of weeks we will be planting bare-rooted roses, some are being added to our Harlow Carr rose hedging that leads to the rose garden, others within the gardens. Fortunately, we are having some additional help this year from some of the English Gardening School students, at the Chelsea Physics Garden in London; they come three times a year for practical horticultural, a top tip is to always ensure that the day you plant is frost free and your soil isn’t frozen.
To plant your bare-rooted roses dig a hole large enough for the roots to grow down and outwards, soak your roses in a bucket of water for at least eight hours before planting, place the plant over the hole, sprinkle the roots with mycorrhizal fungi otherwise known as Root Grow allowing for some of it to fall into the hole, then plant the rose, water it in and cover, firming down the soil. Avoid using bone meal as this will negate the fungi – this can be added several months later as a top dressing.
If you are preparing a new garden or adding plants to an existing garden the key to a good garden is to know what soil you have in your flower beds. To help you with this you can buy a simple soil test from any garden centre. It measures numerically on a scale of one to 14. The solution turns yellow to orange for acid soil; green for neutral and dark green for alkaline. On the numeric scale the acid soils have a pH of below seven, neutral is seven and alkaline is above seven.
This will dictate what plants will do well in your garden.
Before mulching make sure the flower beds are well weeded and prepared by turning the soil over. In our organic kitchen garden we have been using our well-rotted cow manure, an unpleasant and rather smelly job, but it will ensure that we get excellent crops this year; we will continue to top dress the beds over the next few weeks.
Mulching has many benefits as it can raise or lower your pH and will provide nutrients for plants, retain moisture over the summer months and forms a barrier against weeds, encourages helpful earthworm activity and can help to insulate the roots of vulnerable plants from the winter cold. Types of compost and soil
conditioners: Leaf Mould is fantastic for the soil, it’s also known as ‘black gold’ by gardeners. Well-rotted manure can be bought from garden centres, local farms and stables. In the organic kitchen garden it provides our fruit and vegetables with nutrients as it decomposes. We recommended that you wear gloves when handling and apply to borders in spring.
Mushroom compost is most useful on acid soils if you wish to raise the pH, but not recommended for neutral, alkaline or chalky soils as it has a high pH. Bark chipping looks good and improves soil as it rots down. It’s sold in different grades. Generally, the finer the material, the quicker it rots, but it will take some nitrogen out of the soil as it rots.
Cocoa shell is ideal for flowerbeds. Avoid if you’re a dog owner – its strong chocolaty smell is irresistible, but will upset their stomachs. Gravel and grit are great around tricky alpine plants. The coarse material will prevent rotting at the base, as the rain will run through it.
Spring plants to look out for at this time of year are snowdrops; ‘Galanthus plicatus’ are one of my favourites, believed to have been brought back to Britain between 1853 to 1854 by soldiers from the Crimean War. Eranthus, also known as ‘Winter Aconites’ with their bright yellow flowers, look stunning with snowdrops and planted around trees. It’s not surprising to learn that they are part of the buttercup family and originate from southern Europe and can be found right across to Turkey.
Everyone’s favourite spring flower has to be the daffodil or narcissus. With so many varieties to choose from these days it’s great to get out and about see which you like most. What’s wonderful is that you can choose which ones with different flowering times, from February to April. Our early ones are ‘February Gold’ and in March a key one is ‘Dutch Master’ and our lovely white ‘Thalia triandrus’ look fantastic with our tulips in April for our Tulip Festival. Tips from the garden team: ○ Check all new planted trees and shrubs have not been lifted by frost or rocked by the wind; re-firm the ground around them if necessary
○ Cut down autumn flowering raspberries to the base as they will fruit on this year’s growth. You can also plant bare-rooted raspberries at this time
○ When weather permits plant fruit trees, trees and shrubs when the ground is not frosted
○ Prepare your flower beds; add manure and soil conditioners to help retain moisture during hotter months
○ Cut back overgrown shrubs and hedges before bird nesting season starts
○ Prepare seed beds by warming up soil using cloches
○ Winter wash the apple trees to kill off woolly aphids.
○ Start preparing areas for lawns in anticipation of sowing grass seed in March/April
○ Start preparing your trenches for runner beans.
○ Start ‘chitting’ your early seed potatoes
Happy gardening!