GARDENING

LALESTON GARDENING CLUB

February is here and it’s time to sow seeds in the greenhouse or conservatory for vegetables and bedding plants. If you have Wisteria, time to prune, weather permitting of course. We often have snow at this time of year, but when or if the weather is mild there are many jobs we can get on with in our gardens, cutting back any winter flowering shrubs when flowers disappear, cutting down grasses ready for new shoots, splitting clumps of snow drops when the flowers are gone to increase stock and help naturalisation. It’s time to plan and prepare your veg plots, plan flowerbeds for the coming season. Chit potatoes and dahlia tubers can be started off in compost in the greenhouse to encourage new shoots. At present there is much publicity in the gardening press about making gardening more sustainable, using peat free compost, composting and cutting your use of plastics. This is something we should all be giving serious consideration to, as we gardeners need to do our bit to help our planet and cut our carbon footprints. There is so much information to help us to do this available on the Internet. The Gardening Club Facebook page will also be running items of interest to encourage our members to make their gardening greener and more sustainable. We hope to open our shop at the end of February and we do stock peat free compost. Watch our Facebook page for details. Happy Gardening!

Susan Ford

CEFN CRIBWR GARDENING CLUB

“The reason God made February short a few days was because he knew that by the time we came to the end of it people would rather die than stand one more blasted day of it!” - Katherine Peterson. How true! Leave food out for the birds, as it is a very hungry month for wildlife. Putting food out helps distract birds from taking buds and bulbs, bless them. Set aside sometime to put up bird boxes, don’t worry if birds don’t start using them straight away, it may take time before they select them to nest in - but what joy when they do! Prune late flowering shrubs such as buddleia, lavatera and hardy fuchsias. These shrubs flower best on growth made since the spring. It’s a fab job if you’re having a bad day, as you can be quite brutal with them. Cut them back to the ground - you may feel you’re being too harsh but it the best thing to do for a brilliant show of flowers later on! Did you know, the Romans first built Greenhouses? Emperor Tiberius wanted to eat cucumbers everyday (strange man!) so they were constructed to make his desire possible!

Chris Early

PORTHCAWL FLORAL ARRANGEMENT SOCIETY

At the time of writing we are still at alert level two and with great regret had to postpone our Afternoon Tea/speaker event, which was planned for 26th January. However we have been given the news that we will return to alert level 0 from 28th January. This means that our February, March and all future timetabled events should be going ahead. This gives us something to look forward to in these dark winter days. Our meetings in October and November were very successful and enjoyable with a good attendance at our AGM and Christmas dinner in December. Some members also created a beautiful floral Christmas tree at the Rotary Christmas Tree Festival. We hope to see all members at our demonstration and Practice nights in February. All our meetings are now being held in Arlington Road Church at 7.30pm on a Wednesday. February 9th - Demonstration by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies titled ‘The artist’s palette’. February 23rd - Practice night with a petite arrangement titled ‘Say it with flowers’. March 9th - Clive Tranter speaking on ‘Eight years with the Royal Household’. If you would like to join our group and for further details of our full programme and events please consult our Facebook page or ring 01656 222985.

Alison Thomas, Club Secretary

• Grass Cutting • Hedge Trimming • Tree Services • Turfing • Decorative Gravel • Fencing

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