IT’S MULCH OF A MULCHNESS
In the countryside, the soft green growths of hawthorns are a wonderful sight - first patches, then spreading over entire hedgerows.
A large garden is well suited to the magnificent Magnolia x Soulangeana which opens its big cup-shaped flowers. Growing to 25ft (8m), a mature tree is an awesome sight in March and early April.
When you’re not admiring these, there are plenty of jobs to do, including growing seeds of annuals and first-year-flowering perennials, pruning roses, and feeding and mulching borders, which is very important at this time of year. Keep the fleece handy to protect tender young growths on frosty nights.
There’s nothing quite like your own bed
HALF hardy annuals raised as bedding plants are generally easy enough to grow from seed at this time of year, on a warm windowsill. However, there are always those ‘difficult’ few and I have listed some of these, with tips on how to grow them:
Begonias - Mix the tiny seeds with silver sand and broadcast over pre-moistened seed compost. Snapdragons always seem to germinate well and then wilt and sulk in the weeks after. I find that scattering seeds over plug trays (to eliminate transplanting) helps, as well as growing them cool and fairly dry. If you have trouble germinating Pansies and Violas, try keeping the temperature below 18 degrees celsius. Others, such as Petunias, need temperatures of around 20-25 deg C.
NARCISSI (or Daffodils) need no introduction, so here are some gorgeous varieties guaranteed to brighten your garden:
1. N. bulbocodium only grows up to 6ins (15cm) but its petticoat hoop shaped yellow blooms are intriguing.
2. N. papyraccus is a Meditterranean variety which has pure white fragranced flowers and reaches 15ins (38cm).
3. N. ‘King Alfred’ is one which everyone knows as the large yellow trumpet daffodil. They look superb in clumps or drifts.
4. N. ‘Pink Pageant’ has a wonderful peachy tissue paper centre and pale lemon outer petals on its double flowers.
5. N. ‘Pipe Mayor’ - golden petals with large warm orange cups.
6. N. ‘Erlicher’ has small clusters of double creamy-white blooms resembling miniature rose flowers.
7. N. poeticus is a lovely wild form with swept back whitish petals and a small yellow central cup.
8. N. ‘Palmares’ produces an arresting display of shiny pale-golden and peach blooms with fascinating split ‘cups’ which are sometimes frilled.
You’re going to be Mezereum-ised
FRAGRANT Daphne Mezereum opens its purplish pink, highly fragrant flowers as spring arrives on its bare twigs. They love a humus rich soil in dappled shade. Slowly grows to about 5ft (1.5m) tall.
Tovey’s Tips
1. Mulch around shrubs and herbaceous plants, adding a generous scattering of rooster pellets. Additionally, dress around slug-prone plants such as Hostas and Delphiniums with gravel or grit.
2. On the subject of slugs, other methods of protection include Slug Stoppa granules (or other similar brands), crushed eggshells, beer traps and bonfire ash. Refrain from using harmful slug pellets.
3. Remove perennial weeds and all their roots before they get out of hand. Later in the month, apply a lawn weedkiller (but only if your lawn is badly infested).
4. Deadhead Pansies and Primroses regularly. Plant up tubs of these together with bellis and dwarf tulips for a stunning spring display and start feeling weekly.
5. Think ahead to next winter’s colour and prune Dogwoods severely to around 10cm even though they still look stunning. This will be a good investment.
6. Delay cutting back and tidying Fuchsias and Penstemons until April as the old stems will protect the new shoots from damaging frosts.
7. Plant out young herbaceous perennials, such as Delphiniums. Feed and water well.
Come here, you little Sweet-ie Pea
NOW is the ideal time to sow sweet peas indoors on a window sill. They do not require a great amount of heat to germinate and are easily grown if three or four seeds are sown a centimetre deep in a three or four inch pot.
The young plants can be grown on in a frame or plastic greenhouse until mid or late April and then planted out into a rich, deep and well prepared soil. Each pot can be set about 15cm apart. The tall varieties look stunning when allowed to climb up trelliswork or a willow obelisk.
The plants will respond well to an application of chicken manure pellets, and a daily drench of water during hot, dry spells. Prolong the production of blooms in summer by picking them for the house two or three times a week, and feed them twice weekly with high potash tomato feed.
Nice to see them, to see them, nice
FORSYTHIAS are a welcome and very familiar sight in March, their vibrant yellow blooms are instantly recognisable and will cheer anybody up after the relative drabness of winter. They are very easy to grow in any fairly sunny position on a reasonably well-drained soil.
The secrets of the best success is to prune them fairly hard after flowering at the same time the leaves come through in April. Many people tend to just shear them over a couple of times during the season and end up with a very floriferous twiggy plant at the top and large bare trunks underneath. A plant in such a state is better lopped right down to around 50cm and will re-establish very quickly with the same ‘summer shearing’.
We’re in for a frosty March
MARCH will begin largely dry with variable sunshine and a return of night frosts. I would say at the moment the month, as a whole, looks like being somewhat dominated by high pressure. This means there should be a fair amount of dry weather, which will only be interrupted by a changeable third week. There may be some changeability at the end of the month, although there will be little in the way of rain. So generally pretty good gardening weather overall, like the last two Marches.
Showering April with even more varieties
APRIL brings out the Frittilaries and species tulips along with the waxy candlelit Magnolias. Rockeries produce frenzied colour and in a woodland border we look forward to the bleeding hearts of Dicentra. We shall be sowing seeds of hardy annuals to bring a burst of natural colour to summer borders and controlling weeds.
See you next month!
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