In Your Garden

Monthly gardening ideas & tasks by

Andrew Staib of Glorious Gardens

Revamping your garden for Spring March is a great time for taking a long, hard look at your garden. Asking some simple questions with some gardening principles in mind will help you create a stunning garden for Spring and Summer. This winter we have had heavy rainfall and then strong, long-lasting frosts so it could be you have lost perennials with root rot or more exotic plants that haven’t liked the frosts freezing the cells in their leaves and stems. You may not know until next month how much you have lost.

Garden Focal Points

In the Winter and early Spring, a garden is obviously pared down to its structural bones. Then Spring starts and shoots begin to push up. If you have some solid points of focus in your garden it can make the new Spring growth that much more delicate and magical. Large pots at the end of a path, interestingly shaped hedges screening or dividing different areas and water features like circular bird baths sunken into the middle of a low-lying perennial bed reflecting the sky. Also, you can create woodland paths through your shady areas so that you are encouraged to enter into these parts of your garden. You can use bark chips or shingles edged with wooden planks bent into curves.

You can also think about mowing your lawn selectively this year, letting some areas grow long and mowing paths can take different routes each year.

Farmers are being encouraged to leave 5% of their land to be rewilded. You can do the same with your lawn.

I always ask my clients before I visit them to create a mood board of images online that they love. Often when all these images are laid out together people can see a pattern of what draws them, and good design decisions can be made from this.

Bulbs

They obviously come into their own in Spring. Tulips are my favourite because they are so unashamedly colourful. If you are lucky, they will continue year on year but be prepared to have to replace them each Autumn. It is not too late to buy English bluebells and Snowdrops ‘in the green’. This means that they have finished flowering this year, but you are able to purchase the whole plant, bulb and stem, which when planted will guarantee a good survival rate ready for next year’s display.

Crocus are fantastic, scattered through the lawn and by the time you are ready to do your first mow of the season their blooms will have faded and you can mow around and then eventually mow up their fading foliage.

If you have any space at all in corners and along the edges of paths think about Miscarii armeniacum. Their miniature purple bunches of grapelike blooms will delight you.

Plus, it’s not too late to plant some Gladiolus and Ranunculus around any water features you may have.

March is also the time to look at where you want colour to appear in your beds. If you make sketches showing where the bulbs come up, then in Autumn you will know more for next year. Don’t forget to leave stakes in the middle of bare earth to remind you to plant Dahlias and Nerines in late Spring ready for late Summer.

Sowing seeds

You can now sow directly into you veg bed, all the hardy vegetables like spinach, lettuce radishes and beetroot. Ideally with some protection you can even save hundreds of pounds and sow seeds for Geraniums, Bergenias and Antirrhinums. You can sow Poppy seeds, Nasturtiums and Forgotme-nots straight into cleared areas of the beds directly outdoors.

Smaller shrubs and plants

If you don’t have acid soil, why not plant up some big pots with acidic soil and plant Rhododendrons and Azaleas. They are the great trumpeters of Spring and once they have finished flowering the whole pot can be moved to a shadier corner of the garden. Other shrubs that have a good Spring presence are Hydrangea quercifolia and the 90cm Philadel-phus Miniature Snowflake.

Smaller plants

A rare and very striking plant usually only used by designers is Amsonia hubrisctii. It has delicate white flowers in the Spring with phosphorescent yellow foliage in the Autumn.

Crystal Ponds

Other plants for you to look up (Go to Google then click on ‘Images’) are Iris Acoma and Iris reticulate Harmony, the delicate Puschkinia scilloides, Sanguiaria canadensis, Anemone nemorosa, yellow Trillium with its white marble foliage and miraculous ability to disappear by June.

Feature Trees

Depending on the size of your garden you can make a tree calendar. This is making a list of all the months that you want your trees to shine as a main event. There are great trees for Spring, and I have chosen smaller trees that should go well in even small gardens.

Amelanchier Ballerina - coppery foliage and large white blossoms, Hawthorn Prunifolia has wonderfully large white blooms and can be pruned into any shape you want. The Rowans are delicate in the Spring and Sorbus vilmorins has crimson berries that turn almost white. There is also a nice Cherry tree that is very compact and vertical called Prunus amanogawa.

The Weeping Silver Pear tree is both bright and silver in the Spring and with its weeping habit can become a feature tree in its own right throughout the season. As well as the small magnolias and Cornus Porlock you might want to think of the smaller apple trees such as Discovery on a small root stock or the upright Ballerina. Lastly there is the wonderful Cercis canadensis, Witch Hazels and traditional fragrant Syringa vulgarise.

What to do this March

March is a great time to explore woodland. Try visiting Angmering Park Estate Trust, Burton and Chingford Pond, Petworth House Woods, Slindon and The Warrens.

March tasks

• Do a last tidy up and cut old perennials

• If you think the frosts this year have taken a plant beyond repair hold off a bit- it’s amazing what April can do, and you will often find plants sprouting again from the base.

• Finish pruning your Roses and Wisterias.

• This month, start to prune to the ground your deciduous ornamental grasses before new green blades appear.

• Hardy shrubs like Cornus, Salix and Cotinus can be cut right back as well as Buddlea.

• Anything that has flowered during the winter can be pruned back into shape now like Winter Jasmine, Winter honeysuckle and Mahonia.

• After your Snowdrops have flowered you can lift them out of the ground and separate them and then replant them in different areas of the garden.

• If you have a greenhouse, you can start sowing leeks and onions.