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| Go greener |
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| With a growing number of gardeners eschewing chemicals in favour of natural alternatives, we can suggest some effective products from our organic gardening selection |
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| Relax and refresh |
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| Good food freshly prepared daily, aromatic coffee, chilled wine and a grassy play area for the children. What more could you need? |
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| Food heaven |
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| Our Farm Shop is heaven for food lovers! Delicious handmade food, top quality groceries, fresh fruit and vegetables and stylish cookware and gifts. |
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| The Discovery Walk |
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| As thousands of daffodils herald the spring, stroll or stride around our Walk while the youngsters enjoy the Nature Trail |
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Small is beautiful!
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| Friday, 30th October 2009 |
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IN THE GARDEN WITH PETA MARSHALL
Most gardeners know that this is the season for planting daffodils and tulips. In fact to my mind there is nothing really as good at heralding the spring as the nodding yellow blooms of early daffodils. Daffs and tulips are the vibrant, colourful and often blowsy bulbs for lighting up our spring gardens, and now is the time for planting them.
But now is also the time for planting some of our smaller, altogether more delicate-looking bulbs. These include the miniature narcissus, crocuses and snowdrops that provide that almost seemless link between winter and spring. But many of the true early spring flowering bulbs, whilst not rare, are not seen anywhere near so frequently as the more common types, and this is a shame.
Here is my selection of the best eight of the smaller spring flowering bulbs:
Anemone blanda: available in shades of blue, pink and white, this grows to just 6in (15cm) high. It has open, daisy-like flowers, the first of which in mild seasons can appear even in mind-winter. Often sold in a mixture of colours, named forms are sometimes available. Look for ‘Radar’ (bright magenta with a white ‘eye’) and ‘White Splendour’ (large flowers of pure white).
Chionodoxa forbesii: bright blue flowers, each with a white centre. It is a vigorous grower, reaching just 4in (10cm) in height; it is ideal for growing in a wild, grassy area of the garden. The common name for this plant is ‘glory of the snow’.
Erythronium ‘Pagoda’: this is a form of plant known as the dog’s tooth violet. This unlikely sounding name refers to the shape of the little bulb-like tuber, which resembles a dog’s tooth! But it’s all very confusing, as these plants are not even closely related to violets! Although there are pink-mauve flowering members of this family, some of the nicest blooms, such as this one, are yellow.
Fritillaria meleagris: the ‘snake’s head fritillary’ is a drooping bell-shaped flower on stems 18in (45cm) high. There are pale violet, dark purple, brown, yellow and white forms, mostly with a chequered pattern on the petals. Don’t confuse them with the taller crown imperials (Fritillaria imperialis), which have flower spikes about 36in (90cm) high are topped by bright orange or yellow bell-shaped flowers in a circular cluster, and on top of that is a shaggy ‘crown’ of glossy bright green leaves.
Ipheion uniflorum: known as the ‘spring starflower’, it is not difficult to see why: it blooms in spring, and its flowers are shaped like stars. Pale blue to white, the flowers are faintly scented. Just 6in (15cm) high, a colony of these bulbs can provide a carpet of pale blue in a sunny bed or border and it will be just glorious.
Leucojum vernum: the ‘spring snowflake’ resembles a large snowdrop, and blooms after actual snowdrops have finished. The glossy green leaves and white flowers with yellow-green tipped petals can be a bright spot in a dull border. Even better, in my view, is the later-flowering Leucojum aestivum ‘Gravetye Giant’, with larger flowers of pure white.
Muscari armeniacum: a carpet of bright blue is what you’ll get from muscari, or grape hyacinths. There are several different forms available, and it is really only the hardened expert that will tell them apart. The one thing that I can say, however, is that once you’ve got them, you’ll have them forever unless you may a concerted effort to get rid of them. Having said that, there is little else that will give such an intense patch of blue at this time of year.
Scilla peruviana: The common name of ‘squill’ just doesn’t do this plant justice. The reason to grow it is because of its multitude of flowers of violet-blue, sometimes as many as 50 per flowerhead. It grows to 10in (25cm) in height, and is a perfect container plant. Look out also for the dainty-flowering Scilla siberica.
These are my favourites, and represent some of the most eyecatching of early spring bulbs, but there are many I others I could add to the list.
As for planting, well, bulbs are the easiest of any plant to plant! Put them in borders, in containers and (some of them) in lawns. They’ll be fine as long as the soil isn’t waterlogged. A soggy, cold clump of mud for the five or six months between late autumn and early spring will be enough to see most bulbs rot away to nothing. So a little sand placed under the bulb at planting time will help with drainage, and avoid potential rotting.
You can use an ordinary trowel to dig the bulb hole, but there are special bulb planters available with grades marked on them so you can see how deep you’re going.
And it is the depth that is the most crucial point. If anyone is going to fail with their bulbs it is likely to be because they have planted them either too shallowly, or too deeply. My own rule is to plant them at twice their own depth. So if a bulb is, say 1in. (2.5cm) tall, it should sit in a hole with 2in. (5cm) of soil on top of it.
So there you have it…next spring your garden can be full of squills, starflowers, grape hyacinths and snowflakes. And if you’re into animals, you can have some snakeshead fritillaries and dog’s tooth violets as well!
Happy gardening!
This week in your garden
Sow seed of summer cauliflowers and allow them to germinate in a frame. These will be ready for planting out in spring, and harvesting in June and July.
Take cuttings of lavender, helianthemum, aucuba, rosemary and other hardy evergreen shrubs, and root them in pots of gritty soil in a frame, or in a slit trench lined with sharp sand in a partly shaded border.
Take hardwood cuttings of gooseberries and red, white and black currants. Root them in a slit trench lined with sharp sand, in a sunny, well-drained patch.
Peta Marshall is the plant centre manager at Priory Farm in Nutfield. Website: www.prioryfarm.co.uk
NEXT WEEK: Trees and shrubs for autumn berries
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