Well what a difference a week makes. The cold snap has finally arrived making the garden look amazing when the sun is out with the frost outlining each and every leaf and twig. Even in the depths of Winter the garden is still a thing of beauty.

Although it looks pretty, the cold can make things very tough for wildlife. Food is scarce and water sources can be frozen over. We can help by ensuring that we leave some fresh water out & food for birds that are often still fairly active at this time of year. Carries got some really good offers on at the moment to help you keep down the costs of keeping those feathered tummies full.

As I’m certainly not going to get out gardening at the moment I’m doing a bit of forward planning for the fruit and veggie garden. As with many of you my life is generally pretty hectic so I want reliable crops that will give me a good yield without taking up too much of my free time and that I’ll actually use.

Currants and Gooseberries are always easy – Many of the modern varieties are bred to be  disease resistant so I’ll be doing a bit of research on those as I also want the best flavour – Information is always easy to get on-line or I can always go and rack one of our Plant managers brains - they’re a pretty knowledgeable bunch! I research varieties every year when buying for the centres but as it’s impossible to remember everything I need to gem up a bit again. I’ll be looking at the veggie seeds this week when I’m in the Garden Centres so I’ll let you know what I decide on next week.

Plants and Plans

Allthough we should be enjoying the emerging spring plants now, as a gardener you never stop planning ahead to prepare the next seasons plants and plans. Over the next few weeks the little plugs of summer bedding plants will start to become available to plant for growing on ready to go outside in the early summer. They’re much easier to get going than seed as they already have sturdy little root sytems but you still get the satisfaction of growing the plants on yourself.

All you need is some low nutrient potting on compost such as John Innes No2, some cell trays a little larger then the plugs you are buying and a warm, light place to grow them in. As they grow gradually pot them on into larger cells and richer compost, then into individual pots and then into their final spot outdoors where they’ll be the envy of all your neighbours when they burst into flower!

I’m excited to see the summer flowering bulbs coming in. They come in dried out in packs at this time of year and are so easy to plant in a few months time once the soil has warmed up. I just love the bright colours! I’m thinking of buying some really bright Dahlias to put in pots for some impact outside on the area we’re intending on decking for summer Barbeques. I can see them now... Blooming away without needing constant attention, just good compost, regular water, a splash of feed now and again and the odd dead-heading session – A lot of flower for very little effort.

Scent In The Garden

The beautiful but chilly weather we had at the week-end got many of you out and about and thinking gardens. It was lovely to see lots of customers in the centres especially as we have some really lovely plants in at the moment. The primroses we grow on the nursery are really starting to flower their socks off. My favourites are the ‘Heritage’ and ‘Woodland Walk’ varieties. ‘Heritage’ is the classic spring yellow primrose that lasts for years if lifted and divided every so often and kept it moist all year round. ’Woodland Walk’ a really pretty pink variety which seems to be nearly as tough. Both look great planted en mass in the garden but if you only have room for pots they’ll do well there too. Deadhead regularly and they will flower for months.

It’s a great time for scent in the garden. Its thought that shrubs flowering this early in the year use scent to attract insects. They certainly attract gardeners as many are very highly perfumed indeed. The best, in my opinion, are...

Sarcococca (or Winter Box) an evergreen with tiny white flowers and a big fragrance. Viburnum x bodnatense. ‘Dawn’ is the most common form with Pink flowers on bare stems. Look out for ‘Charles Lamont’ which has whiter flowers than ‘Dawn’ and is more unusual with good Autumn colour.

Hamamelis (or Witch Hazel) With bright yellow, orange or red sweet smelling flowers on bare stems. Witch Hazels also have spectacular Autumn colour which gives them another season of interest.

Seed Potatoes

We’ve put the tinsel away in the Garden Centres & its now time to get back to what we do best... Gardening!

We’ve taken the first deliveries of seed potatoes which always means spring is on its way to me. I have just moved into a new home and have a garden of my own to play with for the first time in a few years. It needs a lot of work but to get me started I’m going to buy a few earlies to plant in potato gro-bags in March so I can move them about easily until we have the garden sorted later in the year. I can then re-use the compost after I’ve harvested them to enrich the soil in my lovely new veggie beds.