Garden Centre

Thursday, November 5, 2009

November garden tasks

This month I’m starting my hardwood cuttings – I’ve got spirea and viburnam that I want to propagate to sell this time next year at a garden sale for a local hospice. The best time for these plants to be struck as cuttings is from November to January because they have gone dormant from this year and not begun to set the coming year's leaf buds. Cuttings should be about a foot long and have around three buds. Trim the cutting to about six inches, keeping all the buds and simply push the right end of the cutting into an area of sheltered soil, or a large pot containing a mixture of potting compost and sand. If you plant it upside down it will NOT grow! Leave alone for a year and you have baby plants.

I’m also mulching, although I don’t have too much exposed soil to mulch this year, I’m trying to get some good layers of organic matter under the evergreens where the soil will be getting starved of nutrients.

And I’m piling up sacks and sacks of leaves from the apple trees to use as mulch in two years time. Such a boring job but at least it makes for free garden enrichment!

Labels: autumn hardwood cuttings, autumn mulching, spirea, viburnam

The All Seasons Gardener at 10:04 AM 0 Comments

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Garden Water Issues

It rained for about ten minutes yesterday – granted it rained torrentially, the kind of rain that hurts the top of your head if you’re not wearing a hat – but that was the first rain we’ve had since January and we could do with some more.

I’ve been using the rain butt in the garden to water the seedlings in the greenhouse, but it’s almost empty and now that things like wallflowers are ready to be planted out, I’m a little worried that there won’t be enough water if we don’t get some more rain soon. I can always water the garden from the house, but as we live in an extremely hard water area, this can be a different kind of a problem – not all of my plants like the hard water that they get from the hose!

There are things that can be done to conserve water, and some of them are already habitual for me (we had a hosepipe ban a few years ago) such as:

• Only watering the lawn when it needs it – in fact, I never water the lawn! All I do is throw the cooled washing up water over it at night and it thrives perfectly.
• Water during the early parts of the day and not when it's blowy – although this can be more difficult that it sounds, given that I live on a windy coast! Early watering reduces water evaporation and has the added benefit of cutting down on slug depredation as slugs like damp conditions so night watering gives them a playground. Windy weather carries away a lot of water as vapour, which is wasted.
• Mulching with organic material to improve absorption and water retention.
• Planting drought-resistant shrubs and plants.

But I’m now having to think about getting extra rain butts and seeing if we can conserve more water from the various roofs in the house and garden. I wonder if there is anything else I can do to harvest water or cut down on its use?

Labels: autumn mulching, garden water, rain, rain butt, wallflowers, water conservation

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:56 AM 2 Comments

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Sunday, November 9, 2008

Mulching autumn beds

There are several tasks that should be done in November, no matter how little we like the idea.

Where you have empty flowerbeds, you need to mulch them for winter, because even the best and flattest of beds can experience soil erosion in the wind and become compacted under the pressure of rainwater and snow. Mulching prevents both these things happening and also adds organic matter to the soil.

It’s also time to terminate the adventurous weeds that have germinated as a result of autumn rains because getting them out with a hoe right now is fifty times easier than trying to hand weed them out in spring when the are out-competing the plants you want to preserve.

Cut back your peonies all the way to the ground (even if they are having a last flush of flowers) – especially if you live in a frosty area and then mulch their crowns so frost can't get in and kill the plant. It's also good to prune late summer and autumn-flowering shrubs like Buddleia and hydrangea now, because if you don’t get round to them you’re going to have to wait until late February to cut them back. Roses should be taken back to around two feet so that winter winds can’t whip their stems and cause damage.

And my least favourite November task: pulling up the snapdragons and nasturtiums that have begun to die back, because it’s the final admission that winter is really here!

Labels: autumn mulching, autumn shrubs, hydrangeas, peony, roses

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:53 AM 0 Comments

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