Flick Roskrow
6th February 2009

Gardens can look magical in winter and this year our gardens in Sussex have been enhanced by hoar frost and snow. Your garden may look frozen in time but put on your gardening boots, go outside and take a closer look at what’s stirring in the flower beds and borders.

The delicate beauty of the snowdrop is a joy to behold on a cold, frosty winter’s day and this year, clumps of this seemingly fragile flower have emerged through a blanket of snow, the flower heads gently nodding in the cold wind.  Early flowering varieties of hellabores such as Hellaborus niger (Christmas rose), are blooming in sheltered parts of the garden. Gently lift the flower heads to face upwards and take a closer look at the extraordinary, intricate design of this saucer shaped flower. The buds of later flowering hellabores are now nestling at the base of the plants waiting to unfurl and burst into life as the weather gets warmer.
 

February marks the arrival of the crocus. This little flower puts on a spectacular show with a colour palette ranging from pale mauve to deep purple, shades of yellow to orange, cream and pure white.

After this long, cold, winter, the green shoots of daffodils are now coming through, reminding us that spring isn’t so very far away.

Gardening tips

·    Now’s the time to take a look at your outside space and consider whether you could add more interest to your garden in winter. If you have space, then a winter flowering cherry tree will provide much needed nectar for insects such as the bumblebee when it forages on warm winter days. Choose from a variety of  scented winter flowering shrubs such as  sarcoccocca (Christmas box), mahonia and hammamelis (witch hazel),  Lonicera fragrantissima  (a bushy, fragrant, honeysuckle) and Viburnum x bodnantense (Viburnum), the strong scent will lift your spirit and provide nectar for wildlife.  If you don’t have room for large shrubs try to find space for winter flowering  climbers such as Jasminum nudiflorum  ( winter jasmin) and a clematis such as Clematis cirrhosa balearica.
     Add evergreen shrubs if most of your plants are deciduous.

·    If you haven’t sown your sweet pea seeds in autumn, then now is the time to sow them, in preparation for those glorious scented summer blooms. The seeds have thick coats, to help them germinate chip or ‘nick’ them with a sharp knife or sandpaper a small area. A single seed can be planted in soil in a recycled loo roll tube or you can buy narrow containers called ‘sweet pea tubes’.  Alternatively sow them singly in small pots. Raise them indoors in a light, well ventilated room or put them in a cold frame or unheated glasshouse for planting out in mid-spring.

·    Remove old leaves of hellabores as they harbour pests and disease. It will give you a better view of the flowers as they unfurl.

·    Weed beds and borders. Despite the cold weather weeds are already coming through.

·    If you want to grow snowdrops in your garden, plant them ‘in the green’, this means you are planting them with their leaves and spent flowers. They are more likely to flower successfully this way rather than if you plant bulbs. Ask a friend for a spare clump of their snowdrops once the flowers have begun to fade or buy them from a garden centre.

·    Make sure your climbers are well tied in to supports. Use string not wire to tie in plants and tie the string in a figure of eight so that the stem is not pressing against the wire. Wire will cut into the stems and allow disease to get in.

·    February is the last opportunity to winter prune apple and pear trees before the sap starts to rise. The same applies to grape vines.

·    Prune mahonia after flowering. This winter flowering shrub can grow very tall and responds well to pruning.

·    Prune hard back shrubs such as Salix and Cornus grown for their winter colour.

·    If you leave your ornamental grasses uncut for structural winter interest, cut them back towards the end of February.

Flick Roskrow
‘Borderwise’
A Sussex Gardener