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Garden Jottings

March 2024

How lovely it is to see bulbs pushing through the soil with Helebores and Snowdrops making a bright early display with Mahonia and Daphne adding colour and scent to the borders.

I hope that you planted tomato seeds and purchased seed potatoes too last month as I did not have time to submit my Jottings to jog your memory. Tomato seedlings can be potted into 4” pots. Do not pull them up out of the soil, but gently tease them apart with a small dibber or plant label and handle them by their leaves and not their stems. Do not press the soil to firmly down as their fine roots need to be able to grow freely. However, small plants will soon be available to buy to grow on indoors.
Seed potatoes should be paced in egg boxes or seed trays with one end upwards to encourage shoots to form. Keep them in a light cool position.
Around the end of March/early April (traditionally Easter Monday) make furrows 18” apart with a layer of compost in the bottom, place the potatoes with their sturdy shoots upwards 12” apart. Potatoes will still grow even if they have not been chitted but will be later to crop. If you have a small vegetable plot, an early type of potato is the most beneficial as you can not beat new salad potatoes from the garden. Charlotte are a good variety to grow.

Onions should be planted in a raked but well-firmed soil bed, it is traditional firmly tread all over the soil to firm it first. Plant sets (small bulbs) 6” apart in rows after adding some Growmore fertilizer to the area. Garlic can also be grown in this way. Trim any long wispy ends of the sets as Blackbirds see them as nest material and will pull them up! So firm them in well and cover with netting until they are well rooted.
Mark out areas of the vegetable plot which should have been rough dug to allow rain and frost to break it down. Now fork it over and amalgamate any annual weeds, removing Docks, Nettles and Bindweed to the bonfire. Brassicas number 1 Root Crop 2 Beans and Peas 3 are the main groups of crops to try to rotate moving each type to the next position each year, although you can pop lettuce and radish along rows of slow growing plants.
Don’t forget to grow some herbs along the edge of the vegetable plot or even flower beds or plant up pots to stand in a sunny spot near the kitchen door. Chives, parsley, thyme or oregano all make pretty decorative edging.

If you have Brassicas you have grown from seeds indoors last month, and if they are sturdy plants, they can be planted out provided you have hardened them off outside for a few hours each day to acclimatise them. However, there is time to grow sprouts, purple sprouting broccoli, broad beans and spinach indoors.
Carrots, parsnips, radish, beetroot and spring onions can be grown outside but lettuce and tomatoes must be started indoors.

If you have very little space to make compost, make a trench and fill it with annual weeds, faded flowers, kitchen waste and shredded newspaper. Water this mixture well and it will make a good base by the time you plant out beans in mid-June. Strawberries, either in pots or beds, should be tidied up and any new plants that you have grown on from runners propagated last year, can be planted with plenty of humus dug into the ground.

Now is the time to remove the spent flower heads kept to protect the emerging buds on Hydrangeas. Cut the stems back to a pair of nice fat buds.
If none are apparent, remove the whole stem and any other weak or straggly or dead stems. This treatment will stimulate growth from the base of the plant as with Roses which should be pruned down to an outward facing bud, maintaining a nice open shape. Also at this time, Buddleia and Lavatera need to be shortened to about 18” from the soil.

Large flowering group 2 Clematis eg Nellie Moser or The President should be pruned down to about two feet from the ground to a pair of good buds. Group 3 Clematis with small flowers such as Perle d’Azure or Jackmanii should be trimmed to 6-12”.
All shrubs should be fed after pruning and Roses sprayed against blackspot disease and aphid infestation. If the worst of the cold weather has passed, late March is the ideal time to clip over grey-leaved shrubs eg Sage, Phlomis, Santalina,and curry plants.
After severe weather they may need hard pruning but be patient, most plants will sprout again with the aid of some water and feed. Sow annual flower seeds – Gazania Cosmos, Mesembryanthemum and Rudbeckia indoors, but wait until April to sow Cornflowers, Poppies, Godetia, Nigella and Claria in situ where they are to bloom.
Next month is the time to plant up Dahlia and Begonia tubers to make them ready to plant out in the garden when dangers of frost have past in late May.
However if you would like to take cuttings of special specimen plants – plant them up now and water well then you can take cuttings from the early shoots.
Look also for emerging shoots of Delphiniums, Lupins and Chrysanthemums in the garden as they will make decent cuttings and come true to colour and form as the parent plant unlike seeds which are unpredictable.

Keep an eye on fluctuating temperature in the greenhouse.
Very hot bright days and cold nights should be averted by opening roof lights and doors to even out temperature by airing the greenhouse.
Begin to pot up over-wintered cuttings of Marguerites and Geraniums. Fuchsia and Regal Pelargoniums should be trimmed back and started into growth now.

Keep watering cans filled in the greenhouse to avoid filling from the water butt to use right away as I will be cold and shock the plants.

Tidy up rockeries and troughs, removing debris, leaves and weeds, add some fine gravel or grit around Aubrtia, Saxifrage and note whether some small Iris, Crocus and Dwarf Daffodils could be added for next year. A few Polyanthus and Pansies will add instant colour if bought now.

After trying to grow snowdrops from dry bulbs in Autumn with disappointing results, I have been most successful over the last few years planting “in the green” in Spring. Nurseries will supply clumps of bulbs as soon as the flowers have faded which is also when you should split up large clumps in the garden to give a naturalistic appearance.
Tease out about 5 bulbs from the clump and plant them out in groups randomly near the site. It is good practice to add well-rotted leaf mould or compost to the loosened soil underneath the bulbs.

These and other Spring harbingers such as Aconites, Anemone Blanda and Dwarf Daffodils followed by Primroses and Bluebells will all do well in an area open in Spring but shaded in the Summertime.

This is the start of the busy growing season, and the list of jobs may seem arduous, but doing little and often as the days lengthen will soon bring rewards and results

Christine Brown, President, Ash Horticultural Society

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Our Activities

We are a very active society. At our monthly meetings we have a speaker followed by free tea/coffee and posh biscuits. Plants and garden related goods are for sale at reasonable prices. We hold a fantastic monthly raffle.

Throughout the year we hold "garden gossips" when we gather to appreciate and enjoy members gardens with tea and cake.

An annual holiday is organised during which we visit gardens further afield.

Various day trips to private and well known gardens are planned through the year with more tea and cake!.

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The Society is affiliated to the National Vegetable Society (NVS) and members can attend their meetings in Bridge Village Hall on the second Wednesday of the month.

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