THE GARDENING YEAR BEGINS

THE GARDENING YEAR BEGINS

The garden ticks over quietly during the long winter months, but by mid February numerous wee jobs begin to crop up. After our very mild winter there is a temptation to get ahead of the game, as garden plants are taking full advantage of all the unseasonably mild spells. We could get caught out if a late frost occurs, but then if we hold back we could miss a golden opportunity.

I suppose it depends on how much you wish to gamble.

My sowing plans are determined by previous year’s experiences, though it is hard to remember what a normal year looks like. Soil conditions have been perfect as it is quite dry on the surface and early digging and leaving the soil rough over winter has allowed the soil to break down to a fine tilth very easily.

Outdoor jobs

Compost was spread on borders in late autumn. This has allowed early flowering bulbs such as snowdrops, aconites and crocus to appear without any disturbance. Other flowers such as pulmonaria, anemone blanda, and narcissi are now beginning to appear.

Fruit tree pruning is now getting completed, though I am keeping a lot of shoots of apple and pear back for grafting as I now have some great varieties that I want to reuse.

Redcurrant bushes got their winter pruning taking all the young sideshoots back to spurs and tipping a few young main shoots which will replace a few older branches after fruiting.

I keep two rows of early strawberry Mae, but to give a succession I put one row under tunnels to bring on an early crop. Strawberries need a winter chill period to ripen up fruiting crowns, but by mid February they should be ok and now milder weather is here a tunnel will hasten on the fruit.

My roll of polythene purchased over twenty years ago from LBS Polythene for strawberries is not yet finished. It has been excellent value, though appeared dear at the time.

Now is the time to give the peach tree its spray of Dithane fungicide to prevent peach leaf curl, which would destroy the leaves in spring and summer.

Indoor jobs

Tomatoes, broad beans and onion seeds can now be sown. I have a cold unheated greenhouse so the seed is sown in trays and kept under a table in the living room. As soon as germination appears they are brought onto a sunny windowsill in good light to keep them strong and short jointed. The tomatoes are grown in seed trays then pricked out into cellular trays, the beans are space sown individually in cellular trays, and the onions are sown in small clumps in cellular trays where they remain till planted out. Once germination is complete the onions and beans are put in the cold greenhouse to harden off, but the tomatoes are a wee bit more tender and stay in the warmth on a windowsill until the greenhouse warms up.

Check begonia tubers and if the buds are beginning to swell now is the time to box them up into compost and start them into growth. They are another plant that I start under a table in my studio where it is dark but warm. Once the young shoots start to grow they are brought into the light, then eventually taken to the greenhouse when the weather warms it up. Do not plant them deep, they just need enough compost cover to keep the whole corm moist.

Geranium cuttings taken in the autumn were rooted on a window sill, and then potted up in January. They are now putting on some growth so pinch out the tips to make them branch, but if they have good strong growth then use the pinch out shoots as cuttings to increase the stock.

They root very easily.

Sweet peas germinated a few weeks ago have now sent up shoots with a few leaves on. They are best pinched back to one or two leaves to encourage fresh young shoots to break from the base.

Busy Lizzy cuttings were taken in autumn and put into small jars of water where they will happily root. After a couple of months the rooted plants were potted up and are now in flower as an attractive house plant, though they are an excellent source of new cuttings to increase stock.

Plant of the week  

Crocus is one of the earliest flowers to create impact when planted in large drifts. They are very easy to grow and spread by seed and young bulbils. They are quite dazzling in mass displays. There are numerous species, though my favourites are Blue Pearl, Snow Bunting and Cream Beauty which flower about a week ahead of the larger flowering hybrids. Yellow Mammoth is the best for pure colour, but Joan of Arc (white), Pickwick (striped) and Flower Record (purple) are all very colourful especially when randomly mixed together.

Some species flower in autumn such as Crocus sativus which is used for the production of saffron by harvesting its red flower stigmas.

Crocus planted in tubs for early spring displays can be replanted in borders after flowering where they will continue to flower every year.

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DUNDEE’S WOODLAND HERITAGE

DUNDEE’S WOODLAND HERITAGE

I was always aware that Dundee had a lot of trees in and around the town. I grew up in St. Mary’s. We were surrounded by woodlands and farmers fields, though slowly new housing blocks replaced a lot of the fields. The woodlands of St. Marys and Templeton woods were our playground all year round. That was a healthy way to start life in a rural environment, with the Sidlaw Hills only about  an hours walk away. Once my gardening life kicked in I began to learn what all about the different kinds of trees and where they came from. Whether it was Baxter Park, Victoria Park or Camperdown Park, they all had a very interesting history that explained how our wealth of great trees came to be planted.

Over two hundred years ago Dundee was beginning to prosper due to the expansion of the jute mill industries, whaling and ship building. This brought great wealth to the town and many people began to build big houses in both the west end and Broughty Ferry. It was fashionable to show off your wealth by acquiring rare exotic trees to enhance the gardens and estates of the land owners.

At this time plant hunters were travelling all over the world to bring back new specimens to try out in the UK. Very popular trees included the Monkey Puzzle, Cedars, Giant  Redwoods, evergreen oaks, weeping ash and elm, sweet chestnut and walnuts.

Many of these initial plantings have survived to this day and can be found all over the town.

Parks and estates

Mature specimens of walnut and sweet chestnuts can be found in the approach to Ninewells hospital where the land had been part of the Invergowrie House estate.

Jute barons had mansions and estate land outside Lochee where you can still see avenues of lime trees, cedars, monkey puzzles and giant redwoods.

Excellent specimens of weeping ash and a Corstorphine Plane can be found along the Perth road from the Bonar Hall to Blackness library.

Baxter Park and Caird Park were donated to the town and feature many rare trees including a weeping oak, elms and lime trees.

Victoria Park and Balgay Park were acquired by the town and hold some less exotic but very mature and attractive specimens of beech, oak and robinia.

Camperdown and Templeton woods

Thanks to the naval success of Admiral Adam Duncan at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797 we can now enjoy his estates and woodlands. These were planted by his son, the 1^st Earl of Camperdown’s  head forester David Taylor. He introduced numerous Wellingtonias, Sequoias, Western Hemlock, cedars, sweet chestnut, weeping ash, oaks, sycamore, Douglas firs and beeches. He also found and nurtured the dwarf weeping elm, Ulmus glabra Camperdownii, which is now propagated and planted all over the world. There are beautiful specimens all over Dundee, but the original tree is still growing at Camperdown Park protected in a fenced enclosure.

Recent plantings
The Dundee Parks Department have continued to enhance the town with additional tree specimens. Dawson Park has a fine avenue of flowering cherries, Riverside Drive has upright oak trees, Camperdown has a mature flowering Eucryphia Rostrevor beside the Pinetum, and the Botanical gardens boasts many types of Eucalyptus and other trees from around the world.

Plant of the week

Betula jaquemontii, the white stemmed birch tree, has always been one of my favourite trees for the small garden. It has the cleanest bright white bark than any other birch, and retains its pristine appearance as the bark matures and peels off, revealing a warm orange white surface which slowly turns to a dazzling white. It makes a perfect lawn specimen and adds height and colour to a heather garden or the coloured stem border. It can be grown as a single specimen or as two or three trees in a clump. If you wish to be really extravagant and you have space, a drift of twenty to thirty trees is a very impressive site. All birch trees grow very easily in Scotland.

Painting of the month.

Templeton Woods is one of my larger oil paintings of a good local winter landscape. A few years ago our winters were quite mild and a decent covering of snow was becoming a rare event which is disastrous for someone who loves painting snow scenes. This snow arrived overnight and realising it could all be melted by lunchtime I was out early with the camera all over Templeton woods and Camperdown Park. I caught the early morning sunrise casting its warm glow over the frozen woodlands. As a horticulturalist I just loved this spot as it shows the full cycle of freshly planted beech trees, younger birch copse, mature spruce trees and the old mature stand of Douglas fir trees.
This painting will be on show at my winter art exhibition in my studio at 17a Menzieshill Road in Dundee on Friday, Saturday and Sunday 2^nd to 4^th March 2012, open from 11am to 5pm each day.

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Planning this years garden

PLAN THIS YEAR’S GARDEN

Now is a good time to look ahead and make plans for this year’s garden and allotment. It is always interesting to try new varieties of fruit, flowers and vegetables, but once you have found the perfect variety there is no good reason to change it. My allotment is just too small to keep trying small rows of new vegetables when I prefer to use the space for my tried and tested winners that I know will give me a good crop.

This year I made sure I got my packet of Suttons Hytech onion seed, as it has been outstanding, and broad bean Giant Exhibition. Last year I tried the dwarf broad bean The Sutton and it was very short in height, a very poor cropper and not many seeds in each pod.

My row of perpetual strawberry Malling Opal has been dug out. It hardly grew, produced no runners and one row of twelve plants gave me less than six berries. I will go back to Flamenco which was a great variety.

The garden centres are now getting the new seeds, bulbs and corms in so it is a perfect time to sort out this year’s crops. I have had a batch of fifty mixed tuberous begonias bought about twenty years ago. They increase slowly every year as the tubers grow large and I split them in spring. However I needed to add extra colours as the white and yellow colours have not bulked up as quickly as the red, pink and orange colours. Found excellent tubers for 0.99 pence each. Pretty good value I thought. I have also purchased some fuchsia plugs for hanging baskets and a hardy one called Snowcap for the border.

Allotment

It is very wise to plan a four year rotation for vegetable crops to prevent any build up of pests and diseases. I also integrate my chrysanthemum and gladioli beds, and strawberry patch, which I move every three years, into the rotation to extend it further.

Crops can be grouped according to their needs and although everyone has their own variation, it usually follows as potatoes, brassicas, heavy feeders and root crops. My rotation is slightly different as I have no space for potatoes, but grow a lot of pumpkins, Swiss chard and Cape Gooseberries.

Each year I compost one section quite heavily for onions, leeks, beans, sweet corn, courgettes and pumpkins. Pumpkins and courgettes need very heavy composting to retain ample moisture throughout summer. I also compost heavily for my sweet corn as I grow them quite close together to assist wind pollination, and make sure they do not need to compete with adjacent plants for  feeding.

Another section gets a normal spread of compost for my brassicas, cape gooseberries and salads but the area I grow root crops in does not get any compost otherwise roots may split.

The brassica patch gets some lime in winter as they do not like an acid soil.

I grow sweet peas in the same place each year and this row always gets double dug and loads of compost. The sweet pea seeds have now been sown in cellular trays two to each cell and will germinate on the windowsill. Broad beans have also been sown but at one per cell in cellular trays. They will all be cooled down after germination and hardened off as they prefer cooler temperatures.

Garden

The two previous hard winters killed out some shrubs, so this bare patch has been dug over and will be sown with annuals which enjoy a dry sunny border such as Livingston daisies, Star of the Veldt and Shirley Poppies.

Greenhouse

Tomato Alicante, Sweet Million and Gardeners Delight are my regular foolproof varieties planned for the greenhouse. They will be sown on the windowsill in mid February then pricked out into small pots. They need warmth but I try to grow them cooler otherwise they will be ready for planting before the greenhouse has a chance to warm up.

Plant of the week.   

Helleborus niger is also known as the Christmas rose and belongs to the buttercup family. It occasionally flowers at Christmas if weather is kind, but more likely in February. I have a pure white flowered strain, and as it is evergreen soil splashing onto the blossom is not such a problem, though I usually remove some older leaves and thin out the crown to allow the flowers to be seen.

There are several species in cultivation and many varieties with flowers varying from white to purple and green, and some with spots and mottling.

They need good rich soil that is fairly moist but must be free draining. They enjoy a woodland fringe position with dappled shade, but in Scotland they will be very happy in full sun.

Once the clump has been growing for several years it can be dug up, split into several pieces and replanted to increase stock. Top dress annually with well rotted compost.

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A Good Time for the Roses

A GOOD TIME FOR THE ROSES

February is often blessed with drier weather and clear sunny days as the days get longer, and although we nearly always get a covering of snow, it is very refreshing to find a good gardening task to keep you active and enjoying a bit of fresh air. We seem to be back into mild winters so roses will take advantage of this and will want to start growing, so do not delay the essential task of pruning. Once this is completed we can do our soil cultivations, feeding, planting and replacements and tying in climbers to their supports.

If you go by the book you should not prune during frosty weather, but if you don’t have a book don’t worry about a wee bit of frost or a covering of snow. The roses will be fine and clearing out the old wood, removing weak growth and trimming over vigorous shoots will keep the bushes healthy. Rose pruning on a frozen soil was always an easy task as the soil never got muddy or damaged and I’ve never seen any ill effects on my bushes.

Pruning

Floribunda, hybrid tea, patio roses and other types of a similar nature all get the same treatment. Start by removing any dead wood and weak non flowering shoots. Then try to cut back any older shoots if they have a younger shoot growing up from the base which can be retained to replace it.

If the bush is vigorous and has a lot of stems thin some of these out especially in the centre to allow air to circulate freely when it is in full leaf. Finally cut back all remaining shoots to an outward pointing bud taking off about one third of the shoot. This is a generalisation as all varieties have slightly differing growth patterns, but the principles are good for most bush types.

Shrub roses are different and do not need intensive pruning as they are usually planted where they have plenty of room to grow, so just cut off straggly shoots to keep the bush tidy, otherwise let it grow as it wishes.

Ramblers are often trained along fences or up walls. They flower on long shoots produced the previous year. After flowering these shoots are removed right back to the base and the new young non flowering shoots are tied in as they produce the following years flowers.

Climbers are pruned the same way as bush roses, but are allowed to form a semi permanent framework against a wall or fence. This framework continually has older wood removed to allow younger shoots to replace them but over several years.

Replanting

There are always new varieties to try out and nowadays with precious little chemicals available to the amateur to control diseases many of our previous great varieties are not worth trying as they are too prone to blackspot, mildew and rust. I have thrown out many of my favourites such as Golden Showers, L D Braithwaite and Blue Moon as blackspot virtually wiped them out. Rose growers say we should spray every two weeks throughout the growing season, but we do not have access to the same chemicals as commercial growers, then what if we are on holiday, or suffer wet summers where the spray just gets washed off by the next shower before it has a chance to work.

There are many varieties with strong healthy foliage, so grow these and forget the others. Roses with strong colours are back in fashion so let us hope the breeders are giving us healthy new rose varieties.

If you are replacing roses from an existing border you need to remove the old soil and put in fresh soil to prevent rose sickness. Always cultivate deep and add compost or manure to the ground before planting.

Cultivation and Feeding

After pruning give a dressing of fertiliser then add a heavy mulch of compost to conserve moisture and keep down weeds. Worms will slowly incorporate this into the soil where it will break down and improve the soil fertility. Roses have a lot of feeding roots near the surface so I prefer not to cultivate existing beds other than for weeding.

Plant of the week.  Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis)

By tradition it is the snowdrops that let you know winter is ending and spring is just around the corner. However we can no longer use them as our guide. Last year’s winter was so long and cold that snowdrops didn’t flower till mid February, while this year it has been so mild that they started to flower in December, but it is still really fantastic to see the first garden flowers appear.

A few years ago I wanted to paint them as they stretched above a carpet of snow into the sunshine. I have a large drift of snowdrops planted among my red stemmed cornus. I needed to take a photo looking up into the flowers, so had to lie on a sheet of cardboard over the snow with the camera at ground level to get the perfect picture.

Neighbours thought I had gone loopy, but my photos resulted in some excellent paintings.

Snowdrops enjoy growing in a woodland setting with moist soil rich in humus, but need good drainage. They will grow in sun or shade and are easy to propagate by splitting up overcrowded clumps and replanting into drifts just after flowering.

The best local places to see them are at Cambo Estate, Kingsbarns in Fife, and Gagie House at Duntrune just north of Dundee.

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