Garden Centre

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Garden Tasks - March

Little as I like it, this is spring cleaning time, and my first task of the next week or so is to clean off our patio and paving.

Because we’re trying to be as organic as possible, the initial project is to get an old kitchen knife and use it to remove all the weeds and moss that are growing in cracks in between slabs and cracks. Many plants can be killed by an application of boiling water, and where we have really stubborn monsters that we can’t get right down to the root of – like dandelions that spring up in the smallest crevices, we give them a lovely dose straight from the kettle, making sure, of course, that the run off won’t kill anything we want to keep!

Then it’s a much more pleasant job – planting up containers with spring bedding. Such plants, from garden centres, nurseries and even supermarkets, are available at pocket money prices, so I really let rip with the pansies and polyanthus at this time. It’s always worth planting your spring bedding into the garden when it’s ‘gone over’ if you have nooks and corners that need filling up – our polyanthus get to find a new home near the compost bins where they seem to thrive and last year, were actually in flower before their forced cousins appeared in the shops! They won’t be as big as the greenhouse grown types, of course, but they still give a splash of colour year after year.

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:10 AM

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