Expert Gardening Advice

Flower Power of March Gardening

There is nothing better than the smell of flowers in your garden. Picture your childhood days and what do you remember most about running around in the garden. The smell. March is the month to create that smell. In our hurried, stressful world, we’re often looking for ways to relax and enjoy the things around us. Your own flower garden is a terrific way to do that. As the saying goes, you can improve life simply by stopping to smell the roses.

And those roses smell even better if you grew them yourself!

You’ve probably noticed that some people just have a knack for growing nice, healthy flowers while the rest of us seem to mostly grow weeds. Often the difference between a lush, wonderful flower garden and a gnarly weed bed are a few simple factors. Do the right things and you’ll find growing beautiful flowers is easier than you imagined.

1. Plant flowers that do well in your area. Temperature, rainfall, and more that determine your local climate will favor some flowers, while making others almost impossible to grow. For example, if you endure the super hot summers of Texas or Arizona, you will have to grow different kinds of flowers than people in cooler New York or Utah.

To some degree, you can check the backs of seed packets to know which plants grow in your area and what time of year to plant. Gardening guides can also help. Your best bet is often to talk to someone who knows plants. Usually you can find these people working in smaller stores, greenhouses, and nurseries. It’s usually not hard to identify who these plant experts are, as just about everybody in town knows about them and repeats their advice.

March gardening

It’s time to get down to your local garden centre and get those seeds bought ready to plant in march.march is a very important time for gardening.be prepared to clean out the old and plant the new.

Buying Plant Seed – Plan Ahead
When buying seeds it is easy to get carried away by thoughts of flower beds filled with row upon row of glorious colour. Do not forget that the plants need to be raised in frost free and light conditions until as late as May when the weather warms up sufficiently to plant them in the garden. Consider carefully how much space will be available, particularly in April when the tiny seedlings will have increased in size considerably.

Seed – Where To Buy
The easiest method of buying seeds is to visit your local garden centre or do-it-yourself store. The great advantage of this method is the amount of choice. The main garden centre online retailers for seeds are listed below:

www.poplartreegardencentre.co.uk

http://www.vegetableseed.net/

When To Start Seeds By Plant
The internet sites above will give details on all seed types. To summarise for the novice, see the three principal seed sowing times with recommended easy-to grow seeds.

Great Mothers Day Giveaway

mothers day

Closing date for Mothers Day Prize is 5pm 20/03/10

This Mothers Day giveaway is Sponsored by Poplar Tree Florist. For more details visit www.poplartreeflorist.co.uk

What is Mothers Day?

mothers day flowers

In most countries, Mother’s Day is a recent observance derived from the holiday as it has evolved in North America and Europe. When it was adopted by other countries and cultures, it was given different meanings, associated to different events (religious, historical or legendary), and celebrated in a different date or dates.

Some countries already had existing celebrations honoring motherhood, and their celebrations have adopted several external characteristics from the UK holiday, like giving carnations and other presents to your own mother.

The extent of the celebrations varies greatly. In some countries, it is potentially offensive to one’s mother not to mark Mother’s Day. In others, it is a little-known festival celebrated mainly by immigrants, or covered by the media as a taste of foreign culture (compare the celebrations of Diwali in the UK and the United States). In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Mothering Sunday falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent, exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday (14 March in 2010). It is believed to have originated from the 16th century Christian practice of visiting one’s mother church annually, which meant that most mothers would be reunited with their children on this day. Most historians believe that young apprentices and young women in servitude were released by their masters that weekend in order to visit their families.[30] As a result of secularization, it is now principally used to show appreciation to one’s mother, although it is still recognized in the historical sense by some churches, with attention paid to Mary the mother of Jesus Christ as well as the traditional concept ‘Mother Church’.

Nine years after the first official Mother’s Day, commercialization of the British holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become and spent all her inheritance and the rest of her life fighting what she saw as an abuse of the celebration.[1]

Later commercial and other exploitations of the use of Mother’s Day infuriated Anna and she made her criticisms explicitly known throughout her time.[1][31] She criticized the practice of purchasing greeting cards, which she saw as a sign of being too lazy to write a personal letter. She was arrested in 1948 in the U.S.A. for disturbing the peace while protesting against the commercialization of Mother’s Day, and she finally said that she “wished she would have never started the day because it became so out of control”

Mother’s Day continues to this day to be one of the commercially most successful British and U.S. occasions. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother’s Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States

We still think that the best gift you can get a mother on mothers day are flowers. You can send them anywhere in the UK from a site like here and why wouldnt you want to brighten up the day of that special person in your life.

March Gardening

march gardening

Have a good tidy up and finish those odd construction jobs because you are going to be busier still later in the year.
If you have any horticultural fleece, you can peg that onto the ground a week or so before you plant. The small rise in temperature of the soil can make a big difference
Sowing, Planting and Cultivating

If the weather permits you can plant your onion and shallot sets. March is usually the right time to establish an asparagus bed if you are starting from crowns. Mid March should let you start planting those early potatoes you’ve had chitting and talking of root crops, you can plant Jerusalem artichoke tubers now.

What Are Seeds?

Just like people, seeds and bulbs have needs that must be met in order for them to thrive and grow. Show kids a variety of seeds and bulbs, explaining that this is where most plants come from. To help kids understand more about planting seeds and bulbs, allow them to grow some of their own in paper cups filled with soil. Be sure to poke holes in the bottoms of the cups for drainage. Give kids the responsibility for watering and observing the growth of their plants. You could even have them draw pictures of the plants as they grow.

There’s nothing better than watching a child’s curiosity grow right alongside their favorite plants.

What is a seed?
Most plants come from seeds. Seeds come in all shapes, sizes, and types. They can be small, like radishes, medium, like marigolds, or large, like sunflowers. Seeds from flowering plants have seed coats to protect them. Seeds remain dormant (asleep) until they are given soil, water, and light. Although warmth is usually required for a seed to germinate and grow, this varies depending on the type of seed. Not all seeds are dependent on sunlight for germination. However, the amount of light does greatly affect it. Explain how different plants require different light and why.

They begin to awaken as water is absorbed. As this water is taken in, the seed’s protective coat expands, eventually splitting open to allow oxygen inside. The plant’s root is the first to emerge from the seed and anchors the plant within the soil. The root also enables it to absorb much needed water and nutrients. Next, the young shoot begins to grow, and soon afterward, it will develop its first real leaves. Once the seedling has sprouted its new leaves, the plant is able to begin making its own food. This is done through a process called photosynthesis.

Pruning

Don’t prune roses until next month, as it will encourage growth and frost can burn new cuts. However, now is an ideal time for planting. If you are planting roses where they have been growing before and want to avoid replant disease, the addition of mycorrhizal fungi is said to avoid the problem by increasing the uptake of nutrients – see www.rootgrow.co.uk, who stock the product. The granules contain fungi that coat the roots, helping them absorb minerals and water.

DEADHEAD AND PRUNE If you haven’t pruned the grapevines, do so immediately, as they will bleed if left too late. Once you have a framework of primary limbs, prune laterals back to one or two buds. The same principle applies to wisteria, which should be pruned this month. Buddleia and summer-flowering clematis should also be pruned, reducing last summer’s growth to within a couple of buds of the old wood. Prune hard to about knee height and retrain clematis on to their support, as the buds will be away as soon as weather warms. Hydrangea paniculata and H “Annabelle” can be pruned in the same manner as buddleia, but the mop-headed hydrangeas flower on the previous year’s wood and should be thinned by a third to encourage new wood. Hydrangeas can also be deadheaded now by taking the flowering heads back to a strong pair of shoots.

Clearing debris From The Garden

DEAL WITH THE DEBRIS Waste material from the beds is gathered up and put on the compost heap rather than burned, as many of the stems are still home to insects that will crawl from the heap when they hatch. The beds are raked clean in readiness for spring mulching and to make way for the bulbs.

ROOT OUT THE WEEDS Weeds become visible with the clear-up, so take your time to winkle out buttercup, nettle and couch. Bindweed might be more of an issue, as it delves deep when established. Where it is getting a hold, dig out plants that might be affected, carefully fork out and burn the white roots, and replant anything displaced by the upheaval. There is plenty of time for plants to get their feet back in again before spring, but work in some goodness now to improve their opportunities for the year ahead.

GET MULCHING I like to leave mulching until the ground is a little warmer, but where bulbs are coming through it is timely to work in a 5cm layer of weed-free organic matter before they grow any more. Never mulch on weed-infested ground, as you will simply be creating a better environment for the weeds.

Chitting Potatoes

Chitting Potatoes

vegetable garden

There has been talk about whether it is necessary to chit potatoes but it is too early to plant them and if left in their bags, seed potatoes will produce long sprouts that will break off at planting time anyway.

Chitting is simply placing the potatoes in a frost free place with indirect light and will produce short strong shoots, getting them away to a faster start. You can use egg cartons or seed trays to keep them in. Don’t forget to label them so you don’t get confused as to variety come planting time.

I read that spraying with seaweed solution at fortnightly intervals while chitting will improve the crop but I didn’t notice any benefit myself.

With main crop potatoes, I reduce the number of shoots to three, or four on larger seed potatoes, so that they produce larger potatoes rather than masses of smaller ones.

Greenhouse Preparation

february garden

General Jobs in the Garden

If you have finished all the major tasks, such as digging over, creating leafmould heaps etc you will not have a lot to do in February but if like most of us you are scrambling to keep up, this is your last chance before spring.

Double check the greenhouse, ensure the glass is firmly secured and replace any cracked panes etc. If you’ve not managed to give it a thorough clean, now is the time before it is pressed into service.

Check last year’s potato bed for any volunteers (left over small potatoes) and remove them to avoid passing on disease problems and blight.

You’re going to be using your pots and seed trays next, so this is a good opportunity to wash out and sterilise them so you seedlings will get off to the best possible start. If you havent got any then dont worry. They are very cheap. An unheated propogator will certainly help and for an extra £2 is worth every penny

This years potato bed will benefit from a good application of compost or rotted manure that can be forked in or rotovated in to get them away.

You can cover soil with dark plastic sheeting, fleece or cloches to warm it up for a couple of weeks before you start to sow and plant.