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Hellebores cut off the old leaves of helleborus,flowers are produced from low down and need to be exposed to as much light as possible ..... |
Time
To Stock Up
stock up on items such as string, stakes, canes wire, labels, marker pens, bone meal etc, there are often bargains at your garden centre at this time |
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Protection ensure that any winter plant protection such as horticultural fleece & straw is still in place, january tends to be the coldest month of the winter ..... |
Feed
The Birds
many of the berries, seeds and natural food which birds and mammals rely on have become scarce, put out seed, bread, nuts and suet balls |
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Rhubarb you can now begin to force your rhubarb, place a forcing jar or large dustbin over the top of the rhubarb to encourage their fresh pink stems ..... |
Harvesting
root vegtables such as leeks, parsnips, turnips and celeriac should be harvested now as should brussels sprouts and jerusalem artichokes |
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Potatoes save your egg boxes or christmas sweet boxes as they will come in useful to help chit your seed potatoes in the next few months ..... |
Pruning
now is the time for pruning apple & pear trees open centred or spindle trees need one pruning, but fans & cordons need another prune in summer |
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Moles moles become very active from now until spring due to mating and nest building remove the mole hills regular and buy a mole friendly buzzer scarer ..... |
Guarding
Your Pots
make sure that all your non frost resistant pots still wrapped up in their protection, if not wrap them up in bubble wrap or hoticultural fleece |
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RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch more and more of our once common garden birds are disappearing, to help monitor this why not take part in the Big Garden Bird watch >> usually january ..... |
Christmas
Trees
recycle your old christmas tree by shredding and composting the shreddings, or take it to a green waste tip some local garden centres also recycle |
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Get Ready, Get Set, Sow if you can get a temperature of aprox 18 c in your greenhouse then you can sow summer bedding pelargonium, begonias, dianthus and ipomoea ..... |
Greenhouse
Soil
if you always plant your tomatoes in your greenhouse border soil, this is a good time to change the soil to prevent pest & disease |
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Wisteria prune your wisteria now by cutting back the side shoots to two or three buds, this will encourage the all important flowering spurs to form ..... |
Winter
Pansy Sickness
keep an eye out for ill looking pansies, which could be suffering from pansy sickness, caused by a soil bourne fungi, remove affected plants |
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Clean Your Greenhouse now is a good time to clean the glass in your greenhouse there will be algae on the glass and moss, use hot soapy water, not on a frosty day ..... |
Bone
Meal
its time to give your soil a kick start for spring buy a large box of bone meal, go round the garden & sprinkle it liberally round plants & trees |
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The Flowers Are Coming anytime now the garden will burst into life cyclamen, flowers first then the snowdrops and aconites crocus, eranthus & iris ..... |
Frosty
Nights
make sure that you remove house plants from the window sills before you close the curtains at night as this area gets very cold |
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Hedgehogs these spiky mammals will soon be coming out of hibernation, so keep an eye out for them its also worth putting out hedgehog food ..... |
Stepping
Stones
these can be useful if your lawn suffers from to much foot traffic during wet weather, the stones should be low enough to avoid the lawn mower |
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