I have been gardening for over forty years, but it still surprises me how quickly plants “move” when there is at last a bit of sun and temperatures creep into the teens (Centigrade) or fifties (Fahrenheit). Suddenly I have dozens of daffodils in my front garden, birds are really making a racket, and it truly feels as though the worst of one of the soggiest and most miserable winters I can remember is behind us.
Therefore, today was a full on “in the garden” day, one of those using bits of my meagre musculature which will no doubt complain like Hell tomorrow, but when I truly felt that I needed to be up and doing. It’s a moment to have a really good look at everything, try to remember what did work last year and what didn’t, to think about where to put a few new things, and last, but by no means least, to deal finally with three tiresome jobs that have been hanging over me horticulturally speaking for ages. My garden is small, but has one unusual tree in it: an Azara microphylla (from New Zealand), which is evergreen, flowers in the winter (tiny, vanilla scented yellow flowers along the underside of the stems), and has been being smothered by an over-eager clematis for at least the last three years. It has survived, but not by much. I therefore spent two neck-breaking, shoulder-wrenching hours hoicking densely-twined stems of the latter (C. cirrhosa) out of the former, using a long-handled pruner – very tiring, but worth it. I can now retrain the clematis over the boring roof of my garden shed and the Azara can breathe again.
The second job was a contrast: crawling around in a very confined space trying to dig up a Boston Ivy that had got out of hand: it’s fabulous for about a fortnight in the autumn when its foliage&nb
turns fiery red, but otherwise its stems and leaves tried to throttle and/or smother everything else growing on a fence while its roots tried to undermine it, it was making an impressive attempt at invading at least one other garden, and was close to strangling a crab apple and a climbing rose, while putting out feelers towards the long-suffering Azara (see above). It had to go. I feared half-an-hour of back-breaking heaving, but it was mercifully easy: the trunk and roots were surprisingly brittle and ten minutes later it was out. Now I have the gardener’s dream: an empty space, which will probably get filled with yet another clematis, (but not a rampant one). It’s a plant family I’ve always loved, with so many great varieties to choose from. There’s a marvellous specialist nursery in Lancashire run by a man called Richard Hodson, who breeds new varieties. He has a very tempting web-site: hawthornes-nursery.co.uk, which I shall be visiting very soon.
My third task was a bit sad: to remove a mahonia that I’ve had growing in a shady place for several years. This winter-flowering shrub is supposed to flourish in shade, but mine only grew taller and taller, seemingly searching for the sun. It had got to ten feet high, and all but the last foot was leafless stem, so it looked rather like an enormous inverted flowering (and very spiky) loo brush – not attractive. That I shall probably replace with a hydrangea. There is already one in that bed, which seems very happy, and many new varieties have come onto the market in recent years – more internet scouring in the offing. I’ve already found these two web-sites, which look very promising: signaturehydrangeas.co.uk, and loder-plants.co.uk.
Spring is not only a time for the great onrush of new growth, but one for every gardener to tidy up her/his plot , and in many different ways. Today I removed loads of dead stems from perennials, which will be left in a heap for a couple of days to allow any barely awake insects that might have been hibernating in them to escape. I pruned roses (early March used to be too early years ago, but no longer), and clematis (a bit late, but not by much), and also raised the canopy on the no-longer-being-strangled-by-the-Boston-Ivy crab apple. I hope this will help the bed beneath it, which was rather starved of sunlight last season.
Have you started on your spring garden tasks yet? The RHS has excellent monthly advice for all gardeners, for flowers, fruit and vegetables: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/in-month/march
Reading this has also reminded me of what I still have to do: the list is long, but I’m glad to say that, even after four decades, my “hortomania” hasn’t subsided!