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January/February Cuttings

A New Year with new resolutions - fortunately, as mine are connected with gardening, I have more chance of keeping them than I do of giving up chocolate!

Troublesome and Tough- no, not a description of me but two plants I will be looking at later on.

Firstly the winter garden. This is the time to walk around the garden and look at its structure. Look at the trees, shrubs and observe their shape. Could they do with a prune, some cutting back?  Keeping shrubs in a good shape usually means they flower better.

Fruit trees especially benefit from a prune. Looking up into the branches, if you can see branches closely crossing over each other, even touching, then some pruning is needed. Fruit trees need the air and winds to be able circulate freely through the branches.

However one shrub, the Buddleia benefits most from pruning to be done in two stages. Now cut away half the amount you would like to and then in late spring do the final prune. This has two effects. Firstly the half prune gives some protection should there be some very deep frosts. Secondly the timing of the second pruning usually delays flowering. So this can be used to stagger the flowering season especially if there are a few different buddleias in the garden. This will provide a longer flowering time for butterflies to enjoy the nectar.

This is the best time of year for winter flowering shrubs. The scent from the flowers is a delight when most of the garden looks drab. If I had to select just two winters flowering shrubs I would choose Mahonia ‘Charity’  and Virburnham ‘Bodnantense.

Mahonia 'Charity'

Virburnham  ‘Bodnantense’ flowers on bare branches. The clusters of tiny trumpet-like flowers are faintly tinged pink and their scent is very sweet. It flowers from October to March and the flowers are frost-free.

Mahonia  ‘Charity’ earns its place in the garden twice over. Firstly it is architectural in shape with long curving branches with pairs of prickly leaves. In the autumn onwards the leaves turn various shades of green-brown through to dark red.  In the summer it provides good background height and shape.The graceful sprays of pairs of rose-like flowers can be seen from December to March. The fragrance is reminiscent of Lily of the Valley.       

Winter flowering shrubs are obviously pruned well after flowering. All pruning in the winter should be done when there is no danger of frost for a day or so. 

Troublesome and Tough!

There are many plants which can be invasive but the one in the garden that I like very much and have to control is Macleaya Microcarpa - the Plume Poppy. This grows to 8 feet, has blue- grey leaves with spires of terracotta flowers, which glow in the evening sun. On light soils it is easier to keep in check but on heavier soils not so. So from invasive to tough plants 

One group is the Alliums or flowering onions; there is a good range of varieties from the very small suitable for the rockery to ones over 2 feet. Alliums look very good when planted so that their stems and flowers poke up through shorter perennials. In my low lavender hedge I have planted Alliums with pink flowers, which look very good against the purples blue of the lavender flower.  Alliums I have just planted will hopefully be 32 inches tall and have lemon-yellow flowers on sturdy, long stems. These have been planted amongst medium height grasses.

Two books which I recommend are;

Dream Plants for the Natural Garden. by  Piet Oudlf.

Also Hilliers Manual of Trees and shrubs

Very comprehensive listing, as well as general listing the book groups trees and shrubs into soil types and into which months they are seen at their best.

And finally...What seed can be sown now?  Sweet Peas. They are hardy and will do well in a cold frame. I use deep peat pots or deep black plastic root training pots. Put 3 seeds in each pot and water well. These can be planted out late spring into either the soil against a trellis or into large pots around a central support.

Alison