Snowdrops are nodding cheerfully in the chilly wind and this week there has even been enough sun to entice the little golden crocuses in my lawn open their throats to the sky.
March is very definitely re-bonding time: Key implements for a lengthy garden clean-up session are a decent kneeler, thermal gardening gloves, a slim-tined shrub rake for grubbing out the remains of last autumn’s leaves from under shrubs and in lawn gullies, a receptacle of some sort to collect the bits for composting and a hand fork to gently loosen compacted soil. Clearing and tidying yard by yard can be addictive, and the results are invariably satisfying, reminding us, too, of the existence of all manner of just-emerging plants assumed to have been clobbered by the frost – or just plain forgotten-about. The next job is to get cracking with slug and snail defences (a wide blanket of grit worked well round my delphiniums last year, while the copper tape stuck around the hosta pots is still clinging on for another year). It is also a good time to cast chicken manure pellets (a more or less balanced fertilizer) around border plants and to mulch and feed roses and other flowering shrubs – proprietary rose food does them all a power of good. And just because the worst of the weather is behind us, don’t stop feeding the garden birds. While they are queuing up for a space on the seed-feeders, they will happily snack on the growing population of insect pests on your garden plants.
Tags: Automatic Plant Watering System, Spring, Vegetable Patch, Watering
