All Will Be Revealed

Here at Notcutts we think sunny spring days are some of the best times in the garden. There is a peacefulness at this time of year save for the frenzied activity of birds as they vie for mates and set about building nests for the breeding season. Most of us will look at our gardens now and feel that we can start again, improve, redesign or simply try something new.   The first days of spring always bring a dilemma - to tidy or not to tidy? Jack Frost is still in control for a couple of months at least and a well known weather presenter has recently said that we are more likely to get snow at Easter in this country than at Christmas – a sobering thought but nothing new to experienced gardeners and nurserymen around the country! It’s fine to tidy leaf litter from borders and reveal spring bulbs, hardy perennials and ornamental grasses. In fact, if this task is left too late, you are more likely to damage tender young shoots as they begin to lengthen and in woodland, where there may be thick layers of fallen leaves, dwarf bulbs may struggle to make it through at all. But try to add mulch of well rotted compost to your borders as soon as you have removed the leaf litter and broken twigs from winter winds. This will protect what you have just revealed as well as improving the soil and you can sort out your compost heaps at the same time.  Clematis that flower after the end of June should have been pruned to 15cm (6”) above the ground at the beginning of this month and again, this needs to be done soonest along with the pruning of ornamental Grape Vines. Clematis pruning always looks scary – these tough climbers will already have begun to grow away at an alarming rate and it seems unfair that this growth is chopped and consigned to the compost heap. But they will grow back fitter and faster than ever and of course reward you with their beautiful flowers which are so welcome in late summer and autumn. Leave the spring flowering varieties alone or you will remove this year’s color. Varieties that begin flowering in early summer need only be tidied up and straggly growths pruned back to a few buds from the main frame of the plant. Vines will still be asleep and the long growths from last year can be taken back to a basic framework, five or six buds from the woody main frame. Extend these magnificent climbers by tying in some of the strongest of the last year’s stems to more wires or trellis. Soon the plants will be covered in huge, heart shaped leaves to give a cool, shady air to the garden through the summer months.  But it is buds - buds of all colours, shapes and sizes that spring is about. From the glistening silver scales that are the fat, furry buds of Tulip Trees, the ‘still disguised on the bare wood’ buds of Forsythia, the needle-like Beech tree and Hornbeam buds, red scaled Ribes buds and glossy green Rhododendron buds along with, of course the vivid green ‘about to break’ buds of Daffodils and other bulbs, spring is a time when all will be revealed!