Garden Jottings – Ash Horticultural Society

Garden Jottings for April

Written by jtg on April 3, 2026. Posted in Garden Jottings.

The haze of yellow leaves on the willow tree hanging over the pond hints of better weather to come when we can sally forth into the fresh air to begin another month full of opportunity and pleasure to be gained from the therapeutic activity of gardening. How glorious it is to see all the hard work of planting pots and borders come to fruition in a blaze of golden yellow. Another spring joy is the doronicum or Easter daisy, though they seem to be a particular favourite of slugs or snails, just like delphinium and lupin shoots. A collar of sharp grit, crushed eggshells or soot seems to deter...

Garden Jottings: March

Written by jtg on March 12, 2026. Posted in Garden Jottings.

Christine Brown President, AHS. We have had rain on nearly every day this year with only one or two short glimpses if the sun to give hope of Spring days to come. Celandines are in evidence among the muddy sodden stream edges and there are hundred of catkins of all varieties along roadsides and hedgerows. Mimosa, camellia and sarocca are showing the beneficial effects of plentiful water to give rise to beautiful blossoms and perfume in the air. Most shrubs will have been shortened by about one-third in the Autumn but will need the main pruning completed. There can be a risk that...

Garden Jottings for February

Written by jtg on February 10, 2026. Posted in Garden Jottings.

Christine Brown President, AHS. A Focus on… Seeds At the start of the year, we’re not sure what each day will bring. We have had some truly “proper” winter weather with deep cold, and all living things outlined with hoar frost sparkling against beautiful sunsets of golden deep pink. Then we have had days of damp drizzly grey gloom and deep mud everywhere. However, we look forward to February with hope of Spring and the emergence of lovely early blooms. Amongst these, hellebores which need to be divested of their old tatty leaves to see their proud flower heads. However, do...

Garden Jottings for January

Written by jtg on January 10, 2026. Posted in Garden Jottings.

Christine Brown President, AHS. With the thought that after December’s shortest day, the Winter Solstice on 21st, the days will get brighter and longer it’s time to look around the garden for emerging snowdrops and those early glowing aconites with which I find it so hard to colonise the garden. Pulmonaria and hellebores were plants that I also struggled to grow but now they occur all around in certain places, though it is odd that one man’s excess is another’s death, or is it another “right plant right place” maxim? Plants always find the most suitable positions to...