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Garden Workshops

Pruning roses and dogwoods – from the ground up

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Pruning roses and dogwoods  gardening workshop

Pruning roses and dogwoods
This workshop will be held on Saturday March 12th at 10.00am.

Pruning roses and dogwoods is best done before they start producing new shoots and leaves. This is usually late winter, and so could be anywhere between early February and mid-March.

As fresh growth appears it is time to take action, so that your roses and dogwoods provide you with the best displays of colour in flower, leave and stem.

The pruning roses and dogwoods gardening workshop will also discuss how to take some of the stems you remove and use them to propagate more plants. This workshop will look at several different approaches to building up your stocks of roses and dogwoods.

pruning roses and dogwoods
Glorious winter coloured stems of dogwoods

The pruning roses and dogwoods gardening workshop will cover:

Signs that pruning is needed
Equipment needed
Where to make cuts
What to look for to remove
The effect to look for in a finished shrub
Further maintenance
How to use the cut stems to propagate
Different techniques to use to increase your stock
What results to expect
Checking progress of your cuttings
How long to wait for your new plants

pruning roses and dogwoods
Taking back dogwoods stems for new growth and best colour

About the pruning roses and dogwoods gardening workshop, and further garden workshop events

My gardening  workshops will only be able to host a limited number of guests on each occasion, on a first come or invitation basis, and are intended to impart and share knowledge, not as a commercial venture. They are a free introduction to me.

Some events will be covered presented by myself, but I also hope to introduce other local garden enthusiasts with particular passions and specialist knowledge.

This gardening workshop will be held on Saturday 12th March

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The Garden

This week in the garden Week 7

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This week in the garden Week 7

This week in the garden week 7
After a week away for some winter sport and I have come back to – not much change in the garden. Or that is perhaps how it looks at first. A deeper look reveals cyclamen flowering well, primula and polyanthus colour dotted all over the beds, crocus in various stages of life and colours and daffodils not flowering.

Yes, not flowering. At one stage I had suspected that they would all be done and over by the end of January but the irregular cold checks have worked perfectly to delay them. In fact I don’t recall some of the varieties I have being this late in the years in this house.

Good news.

But the early growth in perennials has been checked back again, this week quite severely. Notably Crocosmia and Nerines, but also Osteospermum. This time they may take a while to recover, but in turn means that the first rush of colour in the borders will be pushed back, perhaps smoothing over a gap period I have in mid May.

In the greenhouse everything is rosy. Or perhaps beany. Broad beans and peas are growing well in the vacant greenhouse borders and in pots. This year I have not applied any water to them, leaving them to fight for whatever they can scrounge from the sopping earth outside.

And I have sown some runner beans too using the same principle, setting pots on damp earth in one corner and leaving them to it.

Keep an eye on Dahlia tubers

I have been checking the Dahlia tubers that are stored in there too, opening the crates and leaving them on the bench as much as possible to ensure no dampness gets in. I lost over 50 per cent of my stock last year to damp.

This week in the garden
Dahlia tubers drying out in storage

In the other greenhouse seeds are sprouting everywhere. Many are perennials that I will use to fill borders while other plants bulk up to split in the spring. These were sown on January 1st and are being pricked out and potted on already. Some are tough annuals like Calendula and French Marigold; I want to use as companion planting in the vegetable beds.

Another highlight this week in the garden were the chillies. Some regular, some small and brightly coloured and some for flavour. The Rotocos hit 350,000 on the Scoville scale; you don’t want to be taking a bite out of them. These are now pricked out into their first pots. I will keep the heat on them for a while to get them ready to plant out in May, some in pots and some just outside the greenhouse.

Cuttings taken in early January are also fully rooted and now being potted on, providing more plants for the first Abbotsbrook plant swap late in April or early May.

Another couple of frosty nights are forecast, so I have covered up a few things and tucked others into a cold frame.

The Garden

This week in the garden Week 5

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This week in the garden Week 5

This week in the garden Week 5
A wet and blowy weekend let to a brighter week, but the frost of Wednesday night will undoubtedly have done some damage.

This week in the garden I have cut back the Miscanthus in the west facing front garden, mainly because the leaves were being blown everywhere and the seed heads had been stripped. New green shoots were showing on this, but not yet on the Calamagrostis.

As a matter of choice I prefer to cut back without removing the new shoots, but it should not matter. Some major grass displays are cut back unceremoniously with a hedge trimmer regardless of what stage growth is. It is grass after all, and it grows like.. well, grass.

This week in the garden
Miscanthus trimmed back ready for new growth

I have also moved some plants that are in a north aspect, removing about fifteen Phormium Tenax fans, leaving “just” the other fifteen in place. After trimming back the fans so they can be planted without fear of falling or being blown over, I have donated them to neighbours. These architectural plants make great anchors to plant around as the are hardy and evergreen.

This area gets little sun below the fence line outside of Late May to August, and the soil remains cold and damp most of the time. I have some Cornus varieties close by, their winter coloured stems hopefully lifting the gloom. Behind them and under the tree I have planted about fifteeen Vinca Major Variegata, the large and robust variegated Periwinkle. It grows in light deprived areas, and the largely off-white leaf lifts the background.

This week in the garden
Vinca lifts the low light areas

I used this plant in another north facing area last year, but this time under a Holly tree, again with the idea that it might lift light levels and encourage a second look at the other plants in that area.

The frost will set back those early starters again, but also temper the progress of the daffs that had threatened to be over by the end of February.

In the greenhouse broad beans are now showing well, and to my surprise so are the peas. Peas just would not grow for the last two years, and this really was last chance saloon for them.

Purely as a bye-the-way test I put some seeds in to the empty  greenhouse borders. These beds are quite dry – I have added no water at all after an initial dampening – and it has worked.

I now want to sow some sweet peas to get them moving and ready to plant out in May.

Happy days!

 

The Garden

This week in the garden Week 4

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This week in the garden Week 4

This week in the garden Week 4
In between showers and work I have taken care of a few chores. Cutting back some leggy herbs, Sage and Fennel in particular.

This mild period is ideal for taking the tired stems back. Without frosts to enhance the dead stems it quickly starts to look untidy. One or two of the stems are also broken, the result of the high winds we had.

I try not to cut them too far though, just in case of further frost that is more than the light dustings we have seen so far this winter.

Next week the beds will be mulched with compost that has been rotting down for a year or so. This covering will provide a little more protection for crowns and and newly emerging shoots lulled into a false sense of spring.

This week in the garden
Sage, Fennel and Mint in need of some TLC

Sage can become woody after a while, and winter is a good time to rejuvenate it. The standard pruning rules apply here: take back any damaged, crossing and unruly stems. But don’t take them back too far, as the pant may well sulk for months otherwise. I left a couple of stems to be tucked under a rock to grow on as layered cuttings. This should room over the spring and early summer and be ready to move by autumn.

This week in the garden
Sage and Fennel cleared, and Sage layers held down under a rock

Sage is plant that should be in sun and heat. I have taken cuttings – in midsummer -and planted some on the edge of gravel paths so that they get the sun, and the stored heat of the stone. They are also regularly brushed as I or the dog walk by, releasing the pungent aroma. He smells much nicer for it!

These sunny spots are premium real estate for gardeners, but Sage is probably a worthy resident.

I also trimmed the mints, and removed some of the prolific runners they send out. Some can be potted on to replace ageing plants or to give away.

Last to go was the Santolina, which I treat in the same way as Sage. Mine are just three years old, and this is the first major trim. This summer will be the time to take cuttings with a plan to try using some as foliar borders around the raised beds.

This week in the garden
Santolina

This week in the garden I have also seen the first broad beans showing both in pots and in the greenhouse borders. This is a new area for me, never having grown anything but chillies, tomatoes and cucumbers under glass.  I had also sown some peas in the other border bed, where the soil is deeply cultivated by remains drier – only the moisture from the ground up getting through.

So fingers crossed there will be some early bean crops in the greenhouse and some ready to go out as the ground warms up outside.

 

The Garden

Cold weather sets the garden back

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Cold weather sets the garden back

Cold weather sets the  garden back.
The first really cold nights and days have had their way with the garden, so I have been out to check for damage.

I would expect the cold weather to set the garden back somewhat, but all appears to be in good order. Bulbs are still pushing through, and early perennials still have their first growth showing. Those that had made premature advances look to have been set back, including the Verbena Bonariensis that I have already taken cuttings from this year.

I have already started sowing seeds of some vegetables, exotics and hardy perennials. These include Rotoco Chillies, broad beans and peas, and Delphiniums, Verbena Bonariensis and Echinacea.

Cold weather sets the garden back.
Verbena Bonariensis

As these are in heated propagators they don’t seem to have been affected.

I have also checked my summer tubers stored in crates in the greenhouse. Dahlias, Cannas, Callas and some Lillies are all wrapped in paper and then put in closed boxes. Damp can cause problems, and cold damp can easily wipe out your stock/. So far though, they are all OK. In fact the Cannas were sending up new shoots like it was April.

Grasses are starting to shoot, and if that continues too fast I may have to cut back last years growth earlier than I’d like; normally a late February job.

All in all, no damage done so far, my worries over the early start afforded by mild weather unfounded.

 

Frost update January 28th

Some plants have started to show signs of the increasing cold, notably the various Crocosmias. The C. George Davison had been showing strong growth, but that is all burned back. The C. Masonorium has also succumbed, even though it’s a very tough plant. Only those under some shelter have escaped.

The V. Bonariensis has seen the new shoots stopped and they are now browning off. And the electric fresh green of the Nerines has been tempered and browned.

Positively, the bulbs have been set back a little, though not enough to stop the February Gold coming into flower at least 3 weeks before I’d wanted them.

 

 

 

Garden Workshops

Sowing seeds – from the ground up

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Sowing seeds garden workshop

This workshop will be held on Saturday March 5th at 10.00am. Sowing seeds is something most gardeners recognise as a potentially rewarding and money saving exercise. But when I first started sowing seeds, every one success was tinged with three failures.

That led to seeds often being left in the packet, where they are pretty much guaranteed not to grow.

Over many years I have discovered some things that make a difference, making sowing seeds a rewarding task and not a frustration.

The wrong timing, temperature and light levels have in the past left me with empty seed packets and seeds trays filled with dormant soil.

And then the continual debate as to whether the trays should be left a little longer just-in-case, or the contents consigned to the compost heap and trays put to better use.

Finding the right tools and equipment, significantly at the right price, has made sowing seeds an enjoyable experience, and a rewarding one with large numbers of plants to use in the garden to give to friends.

The sowing seeds garden workshop will explore gathering seeds through growing on after germination.

The sowing seeds garden workshop will cover:

Sowing flower seeds
Collecting and storing seed
What soil or growing medium to use
What container to use
Where to find the best information for growing from seed
When to start sowing
How to sow
How best to water
How to start germination
– Temperature
– Moisture
– light

How to improve germination, and prevent problems
What to do when the seeds start growing
When to pot them on (prick out)
Planting out

Sowing seeds garden worshop

About the sowing seeds garden workshop, and further garden workshop events

My garden workshops will only be able to host a limited number of guests on each occasion, on a first come or invitation basis, and are intended to impart and share knowledge, not as a commercial venture. They are a free introduction to me.

Some events will be covered presented by myself, but I also hope to introduce other local garden enthusiasts with particular passions and specialist knowledge.

This garden workshop will be held on Saturday 5th March

Error: Contact form not found.